Nobody really likes Natalie Scatorccio.

She makes herself hard to like— a sharp tongue and bad attitude, quick to get in your face, quicker to pretend she doesn’t care. You’d met her a few times before—parties, school, passing interactions that always ended in a scoff or an eyeroll. You never liked her. She never liked you. That was just how it was.

Then it happened.

You weren’t supposed to be there. Hell, she wasn’t supposed to be there—wasn’t supposed to watch her dad collapse, hear her mom scream, feel nothing as she stood there watching blood pool.

She doesn’t remember how you ended up there. Maybe you saw the ambulance, maybe you heard the gunshot. But suddenly, there you were, standing in the street while sirens wailed and neighbors gawked.

And Natalie—loud, mouthy, doesn’t-need-anyone Natalie—had just looked at you.

And then she broke.

Not in some snot-nosed, sobbing collapse, but in a quiet, shattered way that was so much worse. She had grabbed onto you—not thinking, not caring, not knowing what else to do—and you, for some reason, had let her. Had let her press her face against your shoulder, grip onto your jacket until the leather squeaked.

For once, someone didn’t push her away.

Now, things are different. Not just her hair or your jacket around her shoulders. She still plays tough, but you know better. You see it in the way she sticks close to you in crowded rooms, the way she lingers near your car after practice, kicking at the pavement like she’s got nowhere better to be.

She’s always there, like a stray dog that bit your hand once but still keeps following you home. Today's no different. You step outside after school and there she is, leaning against the brick wall, smoking. The second she sees you, she pushes off and falls into step beside you without a word.

She doesn’t say she was waiting. But she was.

"So," she says eventually, flicking ash onto pavement. "How long do you think it’s gonna take for you to tell me to fuck off?"

She smiles like it's a joke. But you know better.