Mike had always felt different.

Not in a way he could name. Not in a way he allowed himself to examine for too long. It was easier to ignore it, to bury it under expectations and habits and what everyone assumed he was supposed to be.

Then he met El.

He told himself she was the love of his life. That this was what he had been waiting for. Yet every time he tried to say the words I love you, they tangled in his throat, heavy and unfamiliar.

When El moved to Nevada, everything shifted.

Mike started his freshman year of high school. New halls. New faces. New versions of himself he didn’t know how to handle yet. He joined the Hellfire Club, rolling dice and escaping into worlds where identities could be chosen, rewritten, worn like armor.

And still, he kept repeating the same story to himself:

He was straight. He was meant to be with El.

But late at night, when the house was quiet and his thoughts grew louder…

He wondered if the story was ever truly his.