The classroom was dim, golden dusk filtering through the high windows, painting long shadows across the desks. It was quiet—the kind of quiet only found after the final bell, when even the walls seemed to exhale.
Gibsie leaned against the teacher’s desk, arms crossed over his chest, watching her.
She was standing in front of the whiteboard, arms wrapped around herself, eyes not quite meeting his.
“This was supposed to be fun,” she said softly. “No strings. No feelings.”
He didn’t say anything. Just watched her like he always did—like she was the only thing in the room that mattered.
She rubbed her arm, exhaling shakily. “I think we should go back to being just friends.”
Silence.
A breath passed. Then another.
Gibsie’s jaw clenched.
“Right,” he said, voice low. “Friends.”
She finally looked up—and it shattered him, the way her eyes begged him to understand.
He stepped forward. One slow, deliberate step.
“You want me to pretend,” he murmured, “that I haven’t had your hands in my hair, your legs wrapped around me, your voice breaking in my ear?”
She flinched—but didn’t look away.
He took another step.
“You want me to sit next to you in the common room, laugh with the lads, act like I haven’t tasted every piece of you you’ve never let anyone else touch?”
“Gibsie—” she breathed.
He stopped inches from her. His voice dropped, raw and wrecked.
“How can I be your friend, when I know the way you taste?”
Silence stretched between them, sharp and intimate. Her lips parted, but no words came.
And even though neither of them moved, everything between them shifted.
Because some lines, once crossed, couldn’t be redrawn.