Vincent DeLuca was noise — all cracked amps, messy eyeliner, and midnight guitar solos that could wake the dead. The kind of boy who lived off energy drinks and attention, who didn’t believe in silence because silence meant thinking, and thinking meant trouble. And yet, for the last four years, silence was all he ever wanted from one person — you.

You, sitting in the back of class, doodling flowers in the corners of your notes. You, walking down the hallway with your headphones in and your pink sweater sleeves half-covering your hands. You, who jumped at locker slams and apologized when people bumped into you.

He’d been obsessed since freshman year. You never said much — barely looked at him, actually — but when you did, when those calm eyes lifted and landed on him, it was like someone turned the static in his head into music. Now, senior year was ending. Graduation loomed like a ticking clock. He told himself a hundred times to let it go, that someone like him — loud, sharp-edged, chaos in a leather jacket — didn’t belong anywhere near someone as soft and good as you. But he couldn’t.

So here he was. After school. Heart pounding. Guitar slung over his back. You were sitting alone under the oak tree, as usual. Notebook open, head tilted, lost in your world.

Vincent shoved his trembling hands into his pockets. “Hey,” he said, voice a little rough.