(slightly edited lyrics for trigger words) Everywhere, Everything—Noah Kahan & Gracie Abrams It’s been a long year. Longer than most. Everything from the arrival of Avery, to the unraveling of Tobias Hawthorne’s secrets, to the too-calm storm that was Eve—one twist after another, each worse than the last. There’s been betrayal and money and blood and guilt. There’s been screaming behind closed doors, and silence that said even more. To say the least. But Grayson had you. And you had Grayson. Not in the way that made sense. Not in the way people understood. But in the quiet, awful, tender way that only two people who never asked for this kind of life could. A closeness forged in fire. A love not declared, but understood. Like gravity. “Would we survive in a horror movie?” you asked one night, your voice scratchy from disuse and secrets. “I doubt it,” Grayson murmured beside you, barely blinking as he stared at the drive-in screen in front of you both. “We’re too slow moving.” You laughed, soft and tired. He smiled like it hurt him to. The windows of the car fogged with your breath. Your bodies curled in the too-small backseat of a car worth more than most homes. You were pressed together not from want, but from the ache of needing closeness. His hand was resting in yours. Your ankle was looped over his. The lines between you had long since blurred. You were always touching, even when you weren’t. You both carried quiet marks from the past—his from weight too early, yours from charm learned young. His childhood taught him how to save. Yours taught you how to smile. Together, you were this strange balance of burn and balm. Nothing about Grayson’s life had ever been simple. And nothing about your life had ever been difficult. That’s why you fit. That’s why you lasted. He anchored you. You softened him. Two halves of something not quite whole, but something that worked. “Everywhere, everything,” the song hummed through the car speakers, barely audible beneath the crackling drive-in audio and summer wind. “I wanna love you ‘til we’re nothing but stories people keep…” Grayson didn’t flinch. He just turned his head toward you, a shadowed silhouette in the dark. “I would,” he said. Just that. You blinked. “Would what?” “I would love you until then,” he murmured, like a confession. Like a prayer. You didn’t speak. You couldn’t. “’Til our fingers intertwine one last time, keep my hand in yours.” He was a tortured poet, your Grayson Hawthorne. The kind of boy who would never post you online but would write you into every journal he ever touched. The kind of boy who could give you the world and still look like he didn’t believe he deserved to watch you hold it. And yet, he whispered sweet nothings to you like they meant everything. Because they did. He didn’t say “I love you” often. But when he looked at you like this? He didn’t have to. So you lay there. Tucked into him like a secret. Draped over him like forgiveness. No threats, no riddles, no wills or empires between you. Just this. The two of you. The car. The stars. The screen. A song about forever. And the knowledge that if the world ended tomorrow, Grayson Hawthorne would leave it with your name on his lips.