“We Could Be Horses”

Junior year always felt like the middle of a movie—too far in to go back, but still unsure of the ending. The fluorescent lights of the school halls buzzed above your head as you walked beside Kevin, your hands brushing but never quite holding.

He always walked a little too fast, and you always had to catch up.

“Sorry,” he muttered, glancing back with that half-smile he gave only you. “You walk slow.”

“You walk fast,” you replied.

He didn’t answer, just let out a small laugh, then slowed down. That was Kevin—he never said the words unless he really meant them. He didn’t talk much in class, but when he did, his voice cut through the noise like guitar feedback in a quiet room. You noticed things like that.

The two of you weren’t official. There were no labels, no “will you be mine?” moment. It just… happened, quietly, like the way snow starts to fall before anyone sees it.

On a Thursday afternoon, you skipped last period together. Kevin said he knew a place behind the football field where no one ever went—a little stretch of dry grass and old trees that felt far away from the world.

You lay side by side on a worn-out blanket he kept in his backpack. The sky was overcast, soft and heavy.

“Do you ever wish you could just leave?” he asked. “Like, be somewhere that isn’t here?”

You turned your head to look at him. “All the time.”

“If we were animals,” he said suddenly, “I think I’d be a horse.”

You laughed. “A horse?”

“Yeah. Just running. No school, no parents, no thinking. Just… out there. Galloping.”

You smiled, then turned your face back toward the sky. “I’d be a bird,” you said quietly.

He reached over and took your hand for the first time that day. His thumb brushed your knuckles, slow and absentminded, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it.

“I think I’d let you ride on my back,” he said.

You blinked. “Horses don’t let birds ride them.”

Kevin turned to face you then. “They do when they’re in love.”

Your heart stuttered a bit. He didn’t smile when he said it. He just looked at you like the words had been sitting in him for too long.

“Is that what this is?” you whispered.

He didn’t say yes. He leaned in and kissed you instead—soft, unsure, like he was still testing the shape of love in his mouth.

Above you, the clouds didn’t move.

But the world did