No one at North Shore would ever guess it.

You were the girl with oil-smudged fingers and a backpack that clinked with loose screws and half-built ideas. Robotics club captain. Mathletes terror. Student council president with color-coded binders and a band practice schedule taped inside your locker. A little awkward, a little too earnest, the kind of girl who apologized to doors when you bumped into them.

And somehow—somehow—you had Gretchen Wieners.

It wasn’t something that happened loudly. There was no dramatic confession, no cafeteria moment, no public hand-holding. Gretchen had been very clear from the start, twisting her bracelet around her wrist and refusing to meet your eyes when she said it.

“This has to be, like… top secret. Regina can’t know. Anyone can’t know.”

You’d nodded, too fast, a little puppyish about it, just happy she’d wanted anything with you at all.

So you learned how to love her quietly.

She came to your band’s gigs wearing a baseball cap pulled low and oversized sunglasses, sitting in the back.

When Regina asked questions, Gretchen lied without missing a beat.

“I’m busy. Jason’s coming over.” “Jason needs help with something.” “Jason and I are, like, studying.” “Oh, I’m hanging out with Jason tonight. Sorry, Gina.”

At her house, your things began to appear—robot parts tucked into desk drawers, thick notebooks slid under her bed, your scribbly handwriting peeking out between pages of her glossy magazines. It was never an accident. It was an excuse.

“Ugh, you left your stuff here again,” she’d complain over the phone, voice secretly pleased. “You’ll have to come get it.”

Sometimes she left her things in your car instead—lip gloss in the cup holder, a sweater in the backseat, perfume clung to the seats, her iPod mysteriously swapped with yours after you walked her to the door. When you returned it, you always added something: a playlist you thought she’d like, a tiny charm taped to the back, a song that reminded you of her laugh.

She never said thank you out loud.

But she smiled every time.

And when you were alone—really alone—everything softened.

Lazy afternoons stretched out on her bed, homework forgotten, your fingers absentmindedly playing with her hair while she rambled about Regina, about school, about nothing at all.