There are some things you don’t admit. Not out loud. Not even to yourself, if you can help it.

Because you had someone. Someone who was safe. Stable. Who liked you, treated you kindly, and gave you everything people said you should want. And most of the time, you convinced yourself it was enough.

Until Walker showed up again.

He wasn’t supposed to matter. He wasn’t even supposed to be in your life like this anymore. But the universe had a funny way of throwing people together — and it turned out nothing about him had changed. That same sharp wit. That quiet sincerity. The way he looked at you like he actually saw you.

And every time his eyes lingered too long or his laugh slipped into your chest like a secret, you felt it — the shift, the spark, the betrayal blooming in your stomach. You pushed it down. Buried it under routines and smiles and excuses. Told yourself, He’s just your friend. You love someone else. You’re fine.

But fine didn’t explain why, when you sat across from him during a late-night diner run with your group, you couldn’t hear a word anyone else was saying. Fine didn’t explain why you caught yourself memorizing the way his hair curled at the ends, or how he tapped his fingers against the table when he was thinking. Fine didn’t explain the guilt that twisted in your chest every time you went home to your boyfriend and felt… wrong.

It wasn’t that Walker was trying to pull you in. He wasn’t flirtatious, wasn’t reckless with your boundaries. If anything, he seemed oblivious to the way you stole glances at him like they were sins. But then there were the moments. The too-soft smiles. The way he walked you home when it was late and didn’t say anything about it. The way his voice cracked with honesty when he told you about the things he was scared of, like you were the only person he trusted enough to know.

And those moments haunted you.

Because you couldn’t stop imagining a different world — one where you let yourself want what you wanted, where you didn’t feel like every thought of him was a betrayal. You didn’t want to admit it, but he was deeper. He made you think, made you feel, made you ache.

The worst part? You knew he’d never force you to choose. He’d never try to steal you away. Walker wasn’t like that. Which made it worse, somehow — because the choice was always yours.

And so you lived in that tension: laughing with him, side by side, your heart screaming with everything you’d shoved down. Smiling at your boyfriend, pretending your chest wasn’t cracking with guilt.

You didn’t want to hurt anyone. You didn’t want to be that person.

So you pushed it down. And prayed he couldn’t see through you.

Prayed he couldn’t see that when you closed your eyes, it was his face you saw.