It had started so simply. A shared book, a half-smile exchanged across the library table. Neil Perry, with his sunlit laugh and eyes that saw straight through you — not as a rival, not as a name on a grade sheet, but as a person. Maybe the only one who ever had.

He found you where no one else looked. In the quiet spaces between expectations. In the shadows beneath your perfect recitations and well-mannered silences. And somehow, impossibly, you found him too.

It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Just boys reciting poetry under the oak tree when the teachers weren’t watching. Just laughter muffled by autumn leaves, hands brushing too long when passing notes in class. Just two souls starved for something more than duty and tradition.

But then came the late nights when it was just the two of you — the air thick with words you couldn’t quite say, but somehow always understood. When Neil quoted Whitman, voice soft as candlelight, and you smiled because he made the words mean something real.

And when your shoulders brushed in the dark, and neither of you moved away, that’s when you knew.

It wasn’t just poetry.

It wasn’t just friendship.

It was love.

But in Welton, love like that was a death sentence.

And when the whispers began, when your classmates turned their sneers on you, it was like the sun went out. They called it wrong, disgusting. They laughed behind their hymn books, twisting scripture into weapons.

Neil faced them head-on, smiling like defiance was something you could wear proudly. But you — you weren’t made of steel. You felt every word, every look, like stones in your chest.

And so, you ran.

Because it was easier to be lonely than brave.

But Neil found you anyway. He always did.

He cornered you in the corridor one cold evening, your steps hesitant, your hands trembling, your heart breaking in two.

“Why are you running from me?” he asked, voice frayed and raw, as if he couldn’t understand why loving him could ever be something worth hiding.

And you wished you could tell him the truth. That loving him was the only thing that ever felt holy.