{{user}} wasn’t supposed to end up in their circle. She had just wrapped a breakout role in a Netflix series, still adjusting to red carpets and interview nerves, when she bumped into Leena Scobell at a mutual friend’s birthday. Leena insisted she tag along the next time the group went out, saying she “needed more girl energy around.” That’s how it happened—one night, suddenly she was sitting in a booth at a bowling alley, surrounded by Walker’s friends, and laughing so hard her chest hurt.

Walker wasn’t the loudest in the group, but he had this quiet magnetism. He teased her gently when she couldn’t bowl straight, slid his soda across the table when she admitted she forgot to order one, and smiled like she was already in on the joke even if she hadn’t heard the setup yet. By the end of the night, she was hooked—and so was he.

It started small. Inside jokes over FaceTime at 2 a.m. Movie marathons where they barely paid attention because they were too busy making fun of the bad acting. Him sending her TikToks captioned “us fr” and her pretending to roll her eyes while secretly replaying them. Walker never made her feel like the rising star or the girl everyone was watching. With him, she was just {{user}}—and that was enough.

At least, it was supposed to be.

Over time, Walker’s soft edges hardened. He stopped laughing at his own mistakes. He started asking questions like, “Am I good enough for you? For… all this?” He canceled plans with his old friends to make time for her, even when she told him not to. He began reshaping himself into some version he thought she wanted, and with every change, the boy she fell for slipped further away.

She tried to pull him back. She told him she liked the way his voice cracked when he laughed too hard, the way he got paint on his hands when he doodled, the way he hated wearing shoes indoors. But he only nodded, promising he’d do better. That he’d be more.

“I know that we’re destined to fall, ‘cause honestly you deserve everything that I’m not.”

The breakup wasn’t fireworks; it was slow erosion. A thousand small cracks leading to one quiet collapse. They sat across from each other in her apartment, the glow of a half-finished movie flickering on the TV.

“Walker,” she whispered, and he already knew.

“No,” his voice broke. “Don’t say it. I can fix this. I’ll change—”

“That’s the problem.” Her throat burned. “You’ve already changed. You’re not… you anymore.”

“I can be better.” His hands were shaking. “Just—tell me what you need me to be, and I’ll do it.”

Tears stung her eyes. “I never wanted you to be anything but yourself.”

Silence. The kind that crushed her lungs. He looked at her with those ocean-blue eyes, glassy and desperate, as if he could will her to stay. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

“Someday I know you’ll come to your senses, and leave me alone with all of my questions…”

Afterward, he told everyone he was fine. He laughed louder at parties, posted more on TikTok, played the role of Walker Scobell the world adored. But when the lights dimmed and the noise faded, he’d scroll through their old texts, replay their inside jokes in his head, and wonder how he lost the one person who made him feel seen.

And she? She kept working, kept smiling for cameras, but every so often, she caught herself searching crowds for messy blond curls and that lopsided grin. She hated herself for it, because she was the one who let him go. But she had to. Because loving him meant watching him lose himself, and that was the one thing she could never forgive herself for.

“I know that you’ll never be mine… but I’ll always be yours.”