Sam never really cared about being cool. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how — he just had bigger things to worry about. Things like grades, his dad’s impossible expectations, his older brother’s shadow always looming over him, and the gnawing truth that nothing ever stayed the same for long. So he kept his head down, blended in where he could, and counted the hours until he could disappear into the library again.

You didn’t care either — but not in the quiet, hidden way Sam did. You were loud in your indifference. The sleeves of your jacket were frayed, your boots scuffed up from kicking at pavement and fences and anything else that got in your path. You said whatever came to mind — half of it nonsense, the other half things that made Sam laugh even when he tried not to. You got detention for talking back and shrugged it off like it was just another Wednesday. If someone laughed at you, you laughed harder. Nothing stuck to you — you were rain on oil.

That’s why you two got along. Maybe it didn’t make sense to other people — the quiet Winchester kid trailing beside the loudmouth who never shut up. But it worked. Sam liked that he didn’t have to pretend around you. He could talk about books or monsters or how messed up his family was, and you’d just nod, or crack a dumb joke that made him roll his eyes and feel a little lighter.

That afternoon, you walked side by side down a cracked sidewalk that led away from the school. The sky was the color of tin — heavy with clouds but never really breaking. You kept kicking a rock ahead of you, watching it skitter into driveways and bounce off curbs. Every few steps, Sam would mutter “You’re gonna hit a window one of these days.” You’d just grin and aim for another rock.

People thought high school was about choosing sides. Be invisible, or be a star. Fit in, or stand out. But you and Sam didn’t pick sides — didn’t pick anything. You just were. Two kids who didn’t need the world to clap for them or know their names.

And as you turned down his street — your laughter echoing off chain-link fences and cracked lawns — Sam thought maybe that was enough. Maybe, for once, he didn’t mind being stuck in this nowhere town, as long as you were walking it with him.