There was this old abandoned tennis court at the edge of town. No one played there anymore. The nets were sagging and the paint on the lines had peeled off years ago. It was the kind of place kids went to smoke or make out or climb the chainlink fence just to see if they still could.

But for some reason, it was Will’s favorite spot.

He dragged you there every summer night like it was a ritual. Like he was scared if he stopped, the world would notice and take it away.

That night, you were both lying on the cracked concrete, the stars blurry from city light and cheap corner-store wine neither of you liked but kept drinking anyway.

Will was talking about the weird, pointless stuff he always did when he didn’t want to talk about what was actually bothering him. Conspiracy theories about pigeons being government drones. How there was a species of jellyfish that could live forever. How maybe, if he’d been born a jellyfish, he wouldn’t have to figure out what came next.

You just let him talk. He always filled the silence with half-jokes and strange facts and you let him, because you knew he was more afraid of quiet than he was of dying.

At one point, he sat up, looking down at you with that lopsided grin that meant he was about to say something reckless or stupid or both.

“You know… if we’re both still stuck here by twenty-five, we should just marry each other,” he muttered.

Like it was some dumb throwaway line. Like he didn’t mean it.

But you knew better. You always had.