The hallway felt colder than usual, like the air had turned electric.

She hadn’t meant to walk this way. She’d avoided it for weeks, knew the pattern of his classes by heart — still did — but her new boyfriend’s hand was warm and insistent in hers, tugging her along as they turned the corner.

And there he was.

Michael Crist.

Leaning against a locker like he owned the school, arm slung lazily over the shoulder of a girl too pretty and too obvious, her laugh sharp and metallic against the walls.

Her heart stopped.

So did her feet.

Michael looked up — like he felt her before he saw her — and everything else blurred. The music from someone’s speaker down the hall, the slam of locker doors, the soft mumble of conversation. It all faded.

He stood up straight, eyes locked on hers.

No smile. No smirk.

Just that unspoken thing that lived between them — the thing they never got to name out loud.

His jaw clenched, and her fingers tightened around her boyfriend’s without realizing. She wasn’t holding her boyfriend's hand. She was bracing herself.

The girl on Michael’s arm said something, tugged at him.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Didn’t look away.

Neither did she.

The boy beside her nudged her shoulder, confused. “Babe?”

Still, she didn’t move.

Because they were both standing there with replacements at their sides, pretending to be over something they never got the chance to finish. Pretending they hadn’t been ripped apart by rules and expectations and the heavy hand of her father slamming down on a dinner table, telling her to end it.

And she had.

She had.

But staring at Michael Crist in the middle of the hallway like this, she knew she hadn’t ended anything. Just buried it alive.

And from the look in his eyes — dark, angry, aching — so had he.