The night was cold.

Not enough to see your breath, but enough to sting, enough to make her feel the ache of everything she hadn’t said.

They walked side by side, the buzz of the party still humming in her chest, though it wasn’t from the drinks. Not really.

It was from watching Joey flirt with some girl on the couch like it hadn’t been her he held all night at the bonfire the weekend before. Like he hadn’t whispered dumb jokes into her ear at school that morning. Like he didn’t look at her the way boys only looked at girls they didn’t just see as friends.

She had smiled. She had laughed. She had even helped him button the back of his shirt before they left for the party, standing in her bedroom while his breath hitched and hers disappeared entirely.

But she couldn’t keep doing this.

Not tonight.

So she stopped walking.

He kept going another step before he noticed, turning back to glance at her under the streetlight. His expression softened immediately. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

She took a breath. And it burned.

“Tell me that there’s nothing going on between us.”

Joey blinked. “What?”

“Tell me,” she said again, louder this time, voice thick. “Tell me that this thing—the way I feel—that it’s all in my fucking head.”

Joey looked like she’d hit him.

“I’ll go in there,” she said, nodding toward her house just down the street. “I’ll laugh with all our friends. I’ll pretend tonight didn’t happen. All of it. Just say it.”

He opened his mouth, closed it.

“Tell me if I’m fucking crazy, Joey.”

The air around them crackled. Her hands trembled at her sides, not from the cold now but from holding it in too long.

Joey looked at her like he was drowning—like every word he wanted to say was buried under six feet of fear.

He stepped closer, slowly, like she might run.

“You’re not crazy,” he said quietly.

She froze.

“You’re not.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re just...braver than me.”

She shook her head, furious and aching and so in love with him it made her dizzy. “Then stop acting like you’re mine if you don’t want to be.”

“I never said I didn’t want to be.”