You had always said you were Bi, everyone knew that, it wasn't something to be hidden, not for you anyways, you'd never had any doubt.

Girls with glitter lip gloss.

Boys with tattoos.

You wanted them both with equal hunger.

But her?

She'd never been with a girl, not that you'd seen at least.

When she looked at you though, there was a mixture of hate and desire there, in that gaze, she was popular, all football guys falling at her feet, college cheerleader, football boyfriend, the perfect american movie cliché.

whatever

She was the girl in the hallway with perfect eyeliner and eyes that lingered too long. The girl who laughed too loud at boys’ jokes but glanced sideways at you when she thought no one was watching.

You were used to the stares. The hungry ones. The jealous ones. The confused ones.

But not hers.

At first, it was glances. Then it was small touches. The way she’d brush past you in the locker room, her hand grazing your waist like it didn’t mean anything.

You knew it meant something.

Or maybe you were delusional.

Fuck if you knew.

But then.

It happened on a Thursday,

You were in the art room after school, pretending to finish a sketch but mostly just avoiding the heat and the sound of cleats on pavement. The room was quiet, the window cracked open to let in the scent of lilacs.

She walked in like she didn’t mean to.

Like she got lost, even though everyone knew the art room was tucked at the end of the east hall and no one ever accidentally ended up there. Especially not her.

She had her hair up in one of those effortless messy buns that probably took forty-five minutes to make look like that. Lip gloss, of course. Something fruity and sticky, you could smell it before she even said anything.

“Hey,” she said, voice too casual, like it hadn’t taken her a full week of hallway glances and locker room stares to work up to this.

"Got lost princess?" You mocked from behind your sketchbook.

She rolled her eyes and hovered near the doorway, like a ghost, or maybe like a coward. “Didn’t know anyone stayed after here.”

“Didn’t know you cared.” You didn’t mean for it to come out sharp. But it did.

She flinched, just barely. A twitch of her lip, a flash of something behind those thick lashes. “I don’t.”

“Cool.”

A silence bloomed. Heavy. Loaded. You went back to your sketch, but your pencil didn’t move.

Then she crossed the room. She looked down at your drawing and asked “Is that me?”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. She knew. She wanted to know.

She sat down beside you, thigh against thigh, and you let her. She smelled like peach shampoo and something expensive.

“You think you know me, don’t you?” she said, voice low. Not a challenge. Not quite.

You stared at the lines on the page—her eyes, her mouth, the soft curve of her neck you’d captured in charcoal smudges. “I know the way you look at me.”

She laughed, but it was shaky. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“You touched my waist.”

“It was an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

Her hand landed on your sketchbook, fingers grazing yours.

This time it was your turn to look up, to search her face for some truth. And there it was—fear, want, war. All of it.