It started with an idea that seemed perfectly reasonable in your head: prove to Tate that you could, in fact, do a backflip.

You weren’t a gymnast. You weren’t even particularly athletic outside of casual workouts and the occasional yoga class you only joined because Tate said it’d be “cute couple bonding.” But tonight, with your friends hanging out in the living room, someone joked about party tricks. And instead of bowing out gracefully, you declared, with far too much confidence, “I can totally backflip. Watch this.”

Now you were standing in the middle of the carpet, everyone’s eyes on you, and the pressure was mounting.

“Babe, don’t—” Tate’s voice had started from the couch, soft and cautious. But you didn’t let her finish. Because in your head, this was about pride.

You bent your knees, swung your arms dramatically, and launched yourself backward with all the grace of a falling wardrobe.

The result: not even close to a backflip. More like… a sideways somersault with a flailing leg that kicked a lamp, a graceless thud onto the carpet, and a noise escaping your lungs that could only be described as a dying goose.

The room went silent for a beat.

Groaning, you pushed yourself up onto your elbows, hair sticking up like you’d just lost a fight with static electricity. Your heart was still hammering when you realized the lamp was miraculously intact. A win, kind of.

And then—your eyes landed on Tate.

She was across the room, perched on the arm of a chair, staring at you with a look you had never seen before. Eyebrows drawn together, mouth slightly open, head tilted as though she were staring at a rare, confusing animal at the zoo. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even amusement. It was pure, unfiltered what the hell did I just witness?

You froze, mid-sit-up, staring back at her. “…Hi.”

The corner of her lip twitched, like she couldn’t decide between laughing or staging an intervention. “What,” she asked slowly, her voice deadpan, “in God’s name… was that?”

“Uh,” you said brilliantly, brushing invisible dust off your clothes, “a… demonstration. Of what not to do. If you ever, you know, decide to try a backflip.”

Tate blinked at you. “You nearly concussed yourself. For… science?”

The heat rushed to your cheeks, but you tried to play it cool, spreading your arms like a magician presenting a failed trick. “Exactly. I took one for the team.”

Your friends were laughing now, the tension broken, but Tate didn’t laugh. She just kept looking at you, her face the very picture of confusion and secondhand embarrassment—until, finally, her lips parted into the slowest, most incredulous grin you’d ever seen.

“You’re insane,” she said, sliding off the chair and crossing the room to you. Her hand found your chin, tilting your face side to side like she was checking for damage. “Completely insane.”

You grinned sheepishly. “But you still love me, right?”

She gave you that same weirded-out look, but softer now, her forehead leaning against yours. “God help me… yeah. I do. But if you ever do that again, I’m pretending I don’t know you.”