you and finney have always been a pair. classmates, best friends, inseparable in a way everyone noticed and neither of you ever acknowledged. you loved him. he loved you. you both hid behind jokes and habits and the comfort of not naming it.

he was your partner in crime. your default person. the one you always ended up next to without trying.

the day starts like every other. boring classes, teachers droning on, time crawling for no reason. nothing feels off until science.

the teacher assigns partners without thinking. your name, then someone else’s. a random guy slides into the seat next to you, smiling like this is normal.

it isn’t.

you glance over and catch finney staring. his jaw is tight, eyes dark, pen frozen in his hand. he doesn’t look at the teacher. doesn’t look away. just watches the space next to you like something’s been taken from him.

he spends the rest of the class like that. quiet. tense. jealous in a way that makes no sense if you’re “just friends.”

by the time the bell rings, the silence between you is unbearable. it follows you into the hallway, stretches thin, then finally breaks.

that’s when you turn to him and say it. the question neither of you has wanted to ask.

“what the hell are we?”

because if you’re only friends, it shouldn’t feel like this.