You were seventeen when you met Jacob. Same year, same grade, same weirdly competitive English class where he read The Great Gatsby once and suddenly thought he was deep. Still you liked the way he talked. The way he joked. The way he made you feel like you were someone worth watching.

He wasn’t older, or wiser, or anything special on paper. He just knew how to look at you like you were the most interesting thing in the room. And when you're seventeen, that kind of attention feels like gravity.

People warned you. Obviously. “He’s not over his ex.” “He flirts with everyone.” “He’s the type who makes you fall for him just to see if he can.” And yeah, maybe they were right. But when it was good, it was good.

Midnight drives. Long phone calls. A hoodie that still kind of smells like him, even after two washes.

But then came the weird silences. The cold shoulder. The “you’re being dramatics". You’d shrink and twist and overthink every word just to keep the peace. And he? He’d disappear, then come back like nothing happened.

By the time it ended, if you can even call it an end it wasn’t explosive. Just… quiet. Like he got bored, and you finally stopped pretending that didn’t hurt.

And now, of course, you're here.

At some sweaty, overpacked party with someone else’s music vibrating through the floor. You’re doing fine. Totally fine. Laughing at something a friend said when—

There he is.

Red cup in hand. Same lazy grin. And before you can look away, he’s already walking over.

“Hey,” he says, like the word doesn’t carry weight. Like it doesn’t punch a hole through your chest. “Didn’t think I’d see you here."

There’s a pause, heavy and humming with all the things neither of you ever said. Then he says it. Quietly, like it costs him something. “I messed up. With you.”