Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

__

Frank Iero didn’t like people. He barely tolerated them. They were loud, nosy, boring—or worse, fake. He was fine being alone. Preferred it, even. People just gave him more reasons to be pissed off.

He stalked the hallways of St. Matthews Academy like a loaded weapon—lip ring glinting, brow permanently furrowed, fists jammed deep into the pockets of a torn hoodie. His brown hair was a wreck of curls he didn’t bother brushing, and his mouth looked like he chewed through problems instead of solving them. His face read like a threat.

Frank wasn’t misunderstood. He just didn’t care to explain himself.

The only person he really talked to was Mikey Way. Mikey was strange in that quiet, nerdy way—skinny limbs, big glasses, always scribbling things in notebooks like the world would vanish if he didn’t write it down. But Mikey didn’t ask stupid questions or try to fix Frank, and that was enough.

But this year Mikey had… a sister.

Illi.

Only, Illi hadn’t always been Illi.

She used to be Gerard.

Frank remembered Gerard. Everyone did. The weird, artsy kid who always drew in the back of class with black nail polish and a thousand-yard stare. Morbid. Smart. Soft-spoken in this unnerving, too-serious way.

Then Gerard disappeared. Just—gone. For a whole summer.

And came back as Illi.

Now she floated through the halls with shoulder-length black hair, sharp collarbones, and skin that looked like spilled milk under fluorescent lights. Her hazel eyes didn’t blink enough, and her lips—bright, pink, almost pretty—were always curved like she was holding in a secret.

Frank didn’t get her. Didn’t want to get her.

She was weird. Not like Mikey. Not like him. A different kind of weird.

The kind that made people whisper. That made teachers pause before saying her name.

She didn’t seem to care. That was the freakiest part.

Illi looked at Frank like she saw straight through the rough edges and found nothing worth bothering with. She didn’t flinch when he stared. Didn’t back down when he muttered something under his breath. She just smiled. Not mean, not mocking—worse. Like she knew something.

And now she was around. Constantly.

Because she was Mikey’s sister.

Which meant Frank couldn’t ignore her forever.

Even if every part of him wanted to.

Because Illi was Mikey’s sister, that meant she was always around. Always. She hung out with them, lingered with them after school, sat too close at lunch, leaned on walls like she owned them.

Frank didn’t mind.

Not really.

Not even when he tried his hardest to convince himself he did.

He told himself she was just there, a background noise—like the buzz of bad fluorescent lights or the scratch of chalk no one used anymore. Mikey would talk about some dumb sci-fi movie, Frank would half-listen, and Illi would lean over with that voice of hers, low and almost melodic, offering opinions like she belonged.

She didn’t. Not in Frank’s world.

But she acted like she did.

She laughed at Mikey’s awkward jokes, smiled too knowingly at Frank’s eye-rolls, and didn’t even flinch when he barked sharp words in her direction. She just looked at him. Like she saw something in him he didn’t want seen.

It pissed him off.

Or maybe it didn’t.

That was the problem.

There were moments—fleeting and quiet—where Frank caught himself watching her. Not like that, he’d say. Just... curious. Her hands when she talked, her eyes when she wasn't saying anything at all. The way she lit her cigarette backwards the first time and didn’t get embarrassed, just laughed and tried again.

He told himself he didn’t care.

That she was a freak. That she used to be Gerard.

But when Illi tossed her hair out of her face and looked at him with that steady, unreadable expression—like she was waiting for him to catch up to something—Frank couldn’t remember why he was supposed to hate her.

And that bothered him more than anything.

Mikey and Illi shared a room. It was weird, yeah, but Mikey swore it was temporary until their mom “got around to finishing the basement.” That meant bunkbeds, a warzone of tangled wires and half-done sketches, and a smell that lived somewhere between old hoodie and microwave ramen.

Frank sat cross-legged on the floor, picking at a hole in his jeans. His back leaned against the dresser, and his boots were still on, muddying up the edge of a worn rug. Mikey was on the top bunk, legs dangling off the side as he flipped through some ratty comic, mumbling commentary that only half-registered.

Illi was on the bottom bunk.

She was stretched out on her stomach, head resting on her folded arms, face turned toward Frank like she was half-watching him. Her long black hair spilled over the pillow in soft, uneven waves, and she wore an oversized Misfits shirt that might’ve been Mikey’s once. Or Gerard’s. Frank didn’t want to think about that.

“Do you ever, like…” Mikey trailed off mid-sentence, flipping the page dramatically. “Think about how Batman’s actually just a traumatized rich dude with a fetish for bats?”

Frank snorted. “That’s literally the point, Mikey.”

“Still depressing,” Mikey muttered, kicking the mattress below with his heel.

Illi laughed softly, and Frank glanced at her without meaning to. She didn’t look away. Of course she didn’t.

“You’d think with all that money, he’d just go to therapy,” she said, lips barely moving against her arms.

Frank shifted, suddenly annoyed. “Or maybe he doesn’t want to talk about his feelings all the time.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said lazily. “Bottling it up and beating up criminals is way healthier.”

He looked at her then, really looked. Her face was pale in the low light, eyes almost glowing under the string of warm yellow fairy lights Mikey had hung up for “ambience” but never turned off. Illi didn’t blink. She never seemed to when it mattered.

Frank rolled his eyes and leaned his head back against the dresser with a thud. “Whatever. Batman’s cooler than, like, Superman. At least he’s real about being messed up.”

Mikey hummed in agreement. Illi just smiled.

That smile again. Quiet. Knowing. Like she could see the tiny crack in his wall and was deciding whether or not to press her fingers into it.

Frank hated it.

Or maybe he didn’t.

“Y’know,” she said after a pause, “You act like you’re not part of this world. Like we’re all freaks and you’re just here for the ride.”

“I am just here for the ride,” Frank muttered. “You two talk about cartoons and trauma like it’s a sport.”

Mikey snorted from above. “It is.”

Illi propped herself up on her elbows, hair falling around her face like a curtain. “You’re not as detached as you think you are, Frank.”

“Yeah?” he asked, tone sharp. “You think you know me?”

She didn’t flinch. “I think you’re trying hard not to be seen.”

Frank’s throat tightened. A flicker of something angry or afraid—or both—flashed behind his eyes, but he said nothing.

The room fell quiet except for the rustle of Mikey turning a page and the faint hum of the heater kicking on.

Illi laid back down. Mikey mumbled something about needing snacks.

Frank didn’t move.

Maybe it was the fairy lights. Maybe it was the way her voice sounded when it wasn’t making fun of him. But for the first time, he wondered if Illi wasn’t the freak in the room.

Maybe he was.

Frank scratched at the fraying seam on his sleeve, jaw tight. The room was too quiet now, except for the occasional creak of the bed springs when Mikey shifted.

He hated how still Illi was. How she didn’t fidget like other people. Didn’t fill silence with nervous chatter. She just existed—calm, watchful, like some kind of ghost that chose to stick around.

And Frank wasn’t scared of ghosts.

He just didn’t like the way this one kept looking at him.

“You always this dramatic, or is it just around me?” he muttered, eyes fixed on a chip in Mikey’s dresser.

Illi didn’t respond right away. She sighed—barely audible—and then rolled onto her back, one arm flopped over her eyes.

“God, you’re exhausting,” she said flatly.

Frank blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Her voice was different now—low and indifferent, like she couldn’t even be bothered to argue properly. “You act like you hate me, but you don’t. You just don’t know what to do with me.”

Frank’s mouth opened, a retort halfway there—but Mikey cut in from above like he’d been waiting for this exact moment.

“She’s right,” he said, deadpan. “I’m pretty sure you like her more than you like me.”

Frank snapped his head up. “Shut up, Mikey.”

Mikey shrugged, still staring at his comic. “I’m just saying. You get all tense when she talks. It’s like watching a cat pretend not to see a laser pointer.”

Illi snorted, and Frank’s stomach twisted in the worst way.

“I don’t—” he started, then stopped. His face flushed hot. “She’s annoying.”

“Oh,” Illi said, drawing the word out like a yawn. “So annoying. All I do is breathe and you act like I’m kicking puppies.”

Frank’s fingers curled into his hoodie sleeve. “You breathe loud.”

She laughed at that—real, sudden laughter that made Mikey grin behind his comic and Frank grind his teeth just to hold onto whatever grip he thought he had on himself.

He looked over at her again. She was staring at the ceiling now, lips parted slightly, eyes soft and far away. She looked nothing like Gerard had. Nothing like the kid who’d sat hunched in the back of art class, scribbling horror scenes into his sketchbook.

This version of her was something else. And that—that—was what made Frank feel weird in his own skin.

She was new, but not. Different, but not.

And she wasn’t going anywhere.

“You don’t bother me,” he said suddenly, under his breath.

Mikey peeked over the edge of the top bunk, eyebrows raised. Illi turned her head, slow and deliberate, like she hadn’t been expecting him to admit anything out loud.

Frank stared straight ahead, refusing to look at either of them.

“You just… talk too much.”

Silence. Then Illi’s voice, almost gentle:
“Okay. But you still listen.”

Frank didn’t respond.

Didn’t need to.

Because they all knew she was right.

Even then, she was a total freak.

Even if Frank didn’t hate her presence as much as he insisted.

She was always there—lingering in the edges of their days, her weird calmness sinking into the background like smoke. At school, in the halls, behind the bleachers where Frank and Mikey loitered like ghosts skipping class. She didn’t belong anywhere, and somehow that made her belong everywhere.

People talked. Of course they did.

They whispered, loud enough for her to hear. Sneered behind her back like they were brave. Illi never flinched. Never snapped. Just walked through it like she was made of glass no one could break. Her chin up. Her mouth calm. Her eyes unreadable.

They laughed. Pointed.

Frank saw it. He heard it too.

Once, in the cafeteria, someone muttered “That’s the Gerard kid, right?”—loud and stupid, like Illi wasn’t three feet away. A pack of freshman boys cackled as she passed. One of them made a fake gagging noise.

Frank didn’t even think. He slammed his tray down harder than he meant to, the clatter jarring, silverware bouncing. The laughter stopped for a second. Mikey raised an eyebrow. Illi didn’t even look.

She kept walking, slow and steady. Her smile faltered—but just for a breath.

Barely there.

Just enough for someone really watching to see it crack.

Frank saw it. And he hated that he did.

Because if she felt it—if she cared—that meant she wasn’t just this untouchable, strange, unknowable creature he could brush off as not his problem.

That meant she was real.

And if she was real, she could be hurt.

He didn’t want to care about that. Didn’t want to picture the way her fingers twitched slightly when someone called her “it” in the hallway. Or how she always seemed to have her headphones in, but never actually turned the music loud enough to drown anything out.

But he noticed.

And that pissed him off the most.

Frank didn’t say anything. He just watched.

From the corner of his eye, always.

Like if he looked straight at her too long, something in him might unravel.

She was always doing something strange. Sitting in the art hallway during lunch with her knees pulled up and a sketchbook balanced on her thighs. Climbing the railings behind the school like she was trying to prove she couldn’t fall. Reading weird books upside down just to see if anyone would question her. They didn’t. Not anymore.

People left her alone now. Or pretended to.

But Frank could still feel it, the way the halls changed when she walked through them. The way conversations dropped half a decibel, like the air thickened around her. Like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for her to mess up.

She never did.

She walked with that same steady rhythm, eyes forward, mouth neutral. Not a smile, not a frown. Just Illi, existing like she didn’t need permission to.

But Frank had caught it again—twice, maybe three times now.

A twitch in her jaw. The way her thumb would press hard into the seam of her sleeve. That half-second where her smile strained too tight before falling back into place.

She wasn’t bulletproof.

She just wanted everyone to think she was.

Frank leaned against his locker after third period one afternoon, chewing on the inside of his cheek, watching her walk ahead with Mikey.

Mikey was rambling, animated in that weird, endearing way of his—hands flailing, glasses slipping down his nose—and Illi was nodding along, smiling like it was real this time.

She glanced back, just for a second.

Caught him looking.

Frank dropped his gaze fast, like he’d been burned.

He told himself he was just making sure she wasn’t doing something stupid. That he was just waiting for her to screw up, to finally be the freak everyone kept saying she was.

But she didn’t screw up. She never did.

And that was starting to scare him more than if she had.

__

It was after sixth period. The hallway was mostly cleared out, just the distant echo of lockers slamming and footsteps fading toward the front doors. Frank had ducked into the side stairwell—the one near the old auditorium where the janitors never checked—and lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.

He wasn’t nervous. Just cold. Just pissed off at nothing in particular.

That’s what he told himself, anyway.

Footsteps approached. Soft ones. No rush, no hesitation. He didn’t have to look up to know it was her.

Illi.

She rounded the corner like she belonged there, like she’d known he’d be here. She always seemed to know where he was. That was probably part of what pissed him off.

Frank didn’t say anything. Just took a drag and stared at the cinderblock wall, jaw tight.

She stopped a few feet away and leaned her shoulder against the railing. “That’s a nasty habit,” she said casually, her arms crossed.

He let out a humorless breath. “Didn’t ask.”

Silence. Just the soft hiss of smoke escaping his nose.

She didn’t leave. Didn’t fidget or make it awkward. She just stood there, looking at him like she always did—too calm, too direct.

“You’ve been watching me,” she said after a beat, and it wasn’t a question.

Frank’s eyes flicked up, sharp. “I haven’t.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Okay.”

The word held a shrug, like she didn’t care whether he admitted it or not.

And that made something in his chest tighten.

He turned toward her finally, cigarette between two fingers like a challenge. “You think you’re so cool, huh? All mysterious and unbothered and... whatever the hell it is you’re doing.”

Her smile didn’t falter. It only grew, just a little.

“I don’t think I’m anything,” she said simply. “But you do.”

“God,” Frank muttered, tossing the cigarette and grinding it under his heel. “You’re so—” He stopped himself, huffing a bitter breath. “You know what? I don’t care about you, Illi. I don’t think about you. I don’t watch you. You’re just Mikey’s weird sister, and I—” He jabbed a thumb toward his chest, voice rising—“I don’t give a single shit about whatever game you think you’re playing.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then tilted her head.

“You’re yelling a lot for someone who doesn’t care.”

That smile again. That calm, distant, slightly amused curve of her lips that made him want to scream.

And then—worse—she laughed.

Soft. Easy. Like nothing he said had touched her. Like he hadn’t even scratched the surface.

Frank’s face burned hot. His fists clenched, nails digging into his palms.

He stormed past her, bumping her shoulder hard on the way out.

She didn’t stop him. Didn’t call after him.

Just let him go.

Still smiling.

So much for Frank not caring.

He told himself it didn’t matter. That she didn’t matter. That she was just there, like peeling paint or a buzzing light—something you noticed but ignored.

But then he’d hear it.

In the hallways, between classes. Whispered, laughed, spat.

"That’s the Gerard freak, right?"
"It."
"Doesn’t matter what she calls herself, she’s still a he."
"You think she still has—?"

Frank’s jaw would lock so tight it hurt.

He kept walking. Always. Never said a word. Never turned his head. He wasn’t in it. Wasn’t trying to be some white knight or whatever. It wasn’t his job.

And Illi never flinched. Not where anyone could see.

She walked like none of it reached her. Head high. Eyes straight ahead. That strange calm wrapped around her like armor.

But Frank knew.

He knew.

He saw the way her fingers curled into fists inside her sleeves. The way her shoulders went rigid sometimes. The too-long blinks when she thought no one was watching.

And still, he said nothing.

He told himself it wasn’t his fight. That she’d be fine. That she was tougher than any of them. That she wanted to do it alone.

But those words scraped in his throat like glass.

Because deep down, past the parts of himself he hated to admit existed, Frank knew the truth:

If anyone said those things about Mikey, he’d break their nose without hesitation.

If anyone said them about him, Illi wouldn’t stay quiet.

But he did. Every time.

And every time, it made him hate himself a little more.

Frank never wanted to stand up for her.

That wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t some white knight, wasn’t interested in anyone’s battles but his own. Illi could handle herself—she always had. That was the whole point of her, wasn’t it? Untouchable. Unbothered. Stronger than anyone had any right to be.

And yeah, he heard what they said about her. Every goddamn day. The jokes, the names, the way they said “he” on purpose just to get a reaction.

She never gave them one. Not really.

Sometimes her mouth would go tight. Sometimes her eyes would flicker, just for a second. But she never cracked.

So Frank stayed out of it.

Even when it made his fists clench. Even when he wanted to shove their words back down their throats. He told himself it wasn’t his job. Told himself she didn’t need him.

Until today.

Until it got so bad, so loud, so mean, that something in him just snapped.

They cornered her in the back hall between third and fourth period—three guys, all of them taller than her, laughing like they were just having fun.

“So what is it, do you still have a dick?”
“You ever look in the mirror and just see a freak?”
“Bet your brother’s into it too, huh?”

Frank didn’t remember moving.

Didn’t remember thinking.

He just heard it. Saw the way Illi stood there, jaw locked, trying to stay still, trying not to flinch.

And then his knuckles were splitting on someone’s cheekbone.

Then he was on the floor with two of them on top of him, swinging.

Then a teacher’s voice, loud and panicked.

Then the office.

Now.

Frank sat slouched in the plastic chair outside the principal’s door, fists still aching, blood dried in a crack on his bottom lip. His hoodie was stretched, collar torn from being dragged off someone. He could still taste adrenaline in the back of his throat.

He didn’t regret it.

Not really.

But the silence in the hallway made it worse. Too quiet. Too much time to think.

He rubbed his hands over his face.

This wasn’t for her. He wasn’t trying to be a hero. He didn’t even like her, not really. She was weird. She talked too calmly and looked at him too hard and made him feel things he didn’t know how to name.

But god, hearing them say that shit—watching her stand there and take it—

He had to do something.

Even if she didn’t need it.

Even if she wouldn’t say thank you.

Even if she’d probably laugh at him for it.

The door to the office creaked open, and Frank looked up through his tussled hair over his eyes, scowling automatically.

It wasn’t the principal.

It was Illi.

Of course.

She didn’t look smug. Didn’t look mad, either. Just… steady. That unreadable calm he hated. Like none of this surprised her.

Her eyes flicked to his bruised knuckles, then back to his face. Her lips parted, like she might say something.

But then—

She smiled. Not sarcastic. Not mocking.

Just soft. Real.

And then she laughed.

Low, quiet, warm. Like she already knew he’d be here. Like he’d done exactly what she expected him to do.

Frank turned his face away and muttered, “Shut up.”

But she kept smiling.

And somehow, that made everything worse.

“Mr. Iero.”

Frank didn’t move at first. He just sat there, jaw set, eyes on the scuffed floor tile like it had insulted him. His fists were still clenched in his hoodie sleeves.

“Frank.” The principal’s voice came again, sharper this time. “Now.”

He stood slowly, dragging his boots across the linoleum like he had all the time in the world. Illi was still there, leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, her mouth twitching like she was trying not to laugh again.

He didn’t look at her.

Didn’t need to. He could feel that smile.

The office door shut behind him with a heavy click.

Principal Adler sat stiffly behind her desk, hands folded like she was trying very hard not to lose her patience immediately.

She gestured to the seat across from her.

Frank dropped into it, slumping low, arms crossed. He stared at the window behind her head.

She didn’t waste time.

“You want to tell me what the hell happened today?”

Frank shrugged. “Not really.”

Adler let out a sharp breath through her nose. “Three students. Three, Frank. All with black eyes or worse. You want to explain why?”

“They were saying things,” he muttered.

“What kind of things?”

Frank hesitated.

He could still hear it—the mocking voices, the cruel jokes, the way Illi didn’t move when they said the worst parts.

He looked at the principal now, finally. “About Mikey’s sister.”

Adler raised an eyebrow. “So you decided to put your hands on them instead of, say, coming to an adult?”

Frank scoffed. “Yeah, ‘cause that works.”

“You’re not helping yourself,” she snapped.

“Not trying to.”

There was a pause. The air felt heavy, full of things unsaid.

She leaned back in her chair. “Frank, I don’t think you understand how serious this is. You broke one kid’s nose. His parents are already threatening legal action.”

“He deserved it.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It should,” he said, louder this time. “You’re acting like they were innocent. They were—” His voice broke off, fingers curling tighter in his sleeves. “They were disgusting. You didn’t hear what they said.”

“No,” Adler said quietly, “but I’ve got a pretty good guess. And believe it or not, I’m not unsympathetic. But you still assaulted three students. That’s not something we can sweep under the rug, Frank.”

He stared at her, expression hard. “So suspend me.”

“Oh, I will.” Her voice was cool now, even. “Three days. Effective immediately. And you’re lucky we’re not calling the cops.”

Frank just nodded, jaw tight, eyes back on the window.

“And you’ll apologize to them.”

His head snapped around. “No, I won’t.”

“That’s not a choice.”

“I’m not saying sorry to guys who treated her like garbage.”

Adler sighed again, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Jesus, Frank. I don’t know if you’re trying to be noble or just reckless, but this isn’t how you help people.”

He didn’t answer. Just stared straight ahead.

Because he didn’t know, either.

Frank sat forward suddenly, hands gripping the edge of the chair, voice sharp and rising.

“Why don’t you care what they said to her?” he snapped. “Why aren’t they in here? Why is it just me?”

Principal Adler didn’t even blink. “Because you’re the one who threw punches.”

“Yeah?” Frank barked, eyes blazing. “And they’re the ones who were being fucking cruel. They were calling her names, saying—” he cut himself off, the words too disgusting to repeat, even now. “Like she was nothing. Like she wasn’t even—” He shook his head. “They treated her like she was less than human, and you’re telling me to apologize?”

Adler’s jaw tightened. “Watch your language.”

Frank slammed a hand on the desk. “Why do you care more about me saying fuck than about what they said to her?”

Outside, Illi froze.

She was still standing by the door, arms folded across her chest like she wasn’t listening—but she was.

Of course she was.

She’d been leaning there long enough to hear his name shouted across the intercom, long enough to see the teachers dragging Frank off like a dog that bit too hard.

But she hadn’t expected this.

She hadn’t expected him—voice hoarse, fists shaking, calling out what no one else ever said out loud. Not even her.

Inside the office, Adler looked at him like she was trying to figure out whether he was just angry or truly out of control.

Frank’s voice dropped to something quieter, rougher. “They act like she’s a joke. Like she’s some kind of freak for existing. And you just sit here telling me to watch my language?”

Adler sighed heavily, hands steepled under her chin. “Frank. I’m not ignoring what happened. I’ll talk to them too. But we have rules here—”

Frank stood up. “Yeah,” he muttered bitterly. “Rules. I get it.”

He turned toward the door, still shaking, still breathing too hard.

And when he opened it, he stopped dead.

Illi was standing there, arms still crossed, but her posture had shifted. Straighter now. Eyes a little wider. No smile this time.

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t tease.

Just looked at him like she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.

And Frank… didn’t know what to do with that.

He brushed past her without saying a word.

Because if he said anything now—anything at all—he might actually mean it.

Frank sat on the curb behind the school, legs stretched out in front of him, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie. The afternoon sun hit everything too bright, too sharp.

His lip still stung where someone’s knuckle had split it, and his knuckles were raw, scraped from someone’s teeth. Blood crusted under his fingernails.

He should’ve felt good. He didn’t.

He felt like shit.

He didn’t even know why he’d said all that to Adler. Why he’d let it get under his skin. He didn’t usually fight for anyone—not like that. Not unless it was for himself.

And especially not for her.

Illi was... weird.

She made him uncomfortable. The way she spoke. The way she looked at him like she already knew what he was thinking. The way she was—this strange mix of softness and sharp edges he couldn’t wrap his head around.

He thought she was a freak. He did. He’d told himself that a thousand times.

But still—

When they started calling her “he,” spitting her deadname like it meant something—he wanted to fucking destroy them.

Because she wasn’t a he.

She was her.

Even if she was confusing. Even if she made him feel like he didn’t know where the ground was anymore.

Even if he’d said he didn’t care.

He did.

Not in a way he understood. Not in a way he could explain.

But enough to put his fists through someone’s face.

And now he was suspended, bleeding, and stuck in his own head, asking himself the one question he couldn’t shake:

If she’s such a freak... why did it feel like someone punched him every time they said those things to her?

He leaned his head back against the brick wall and closed his eyes, jaw tight.

Because no matter how much he tried to pretend otherwise—

Even he had the decency to know she was a girl.

And they didn’t get to take that away from her.

_

Frank slammed the front door harder than he meant to.

Not that it mattered.

His mom was already in the kitchen, turning from the sink like she sensed it. His dad stood in the hallway, arms crossed, expression already tight with disappointment.

“What the hell, Frank?” his mom snapped. “You’re suspended? For fighting?”

“Do you even know how serious this is?” his dad added, voice low and sharp, the kind that always meant don’t push me.

Frank kicked his boots off and shoved them out of the way. “It’s not a big deal,” he muttered.

“Not a big deal?” His mom’s voice rose an octave. “You broke a kid’s nose! I got a call from the school saying you could’ve been arrested. We don’t raise you like that, Frank!”

“Oh my god,” he said, throwing his hands up. “You don’t even know what happened!”

“I know you got into a fight at school,” his dad shot back. “I know you embarrassed this family—again—and now you’re suspended. What more do I need to know?”

Frank’s face flushed hot. “They were saying shit to someone. Cruel shit. And no one was doing anything.”

“So you just decided to play hero?” his mom spat. “Beat the crap out of someone and expect a pat on the back?”

Frank’s voice cracked. “They were saying she wasn’t even human.”

The room went quiet for a beat too long.

His dad blinked. “Who?”

“Illi,” Frank said. “Mikey’s sister.”

His mom’s mouth pressed into a thin, disapproving line. “The Way kid?”

“She’s not a kid, she’s—”

“You got suspended over that?” his dad cut in, incredulous. “Frank, this isn’t your problem. Why do you even care?”

“Because someone fucking should!”

The words exploded out of him, too loud, too raw, and for a second it felt like the whole house held its breath.

He didn’t wait for whatever came next.

He turned, storming down the hall, and slammed his bedroom door so hard the walls shook.

Inside, everything was chaos. Posters peeling, clothes on the floor, his guitar leaned up in the corner like it had been waiting for him. He sat down hard on his bed, chest heaving, throat tight.

It was too much.

The fight. The office. Illi.

The way she looked at him like she didn’t expect him to say anything. The way his parents couldn’t understand.

He grabbed a pillow and hurled it across the room, watched it hit the wall and fall uselessly to the floor.

“Fuck,” he whispered into the silence.

And then again, louder: “Fuck.”

Because no matter how much he yelled, how much he punched, nothing fixed it.

She’d still have to walk through those halls tomorrow.

And he wouldn’t even be there.

Frank laid on his bed, one arm flung over his eyes, trying to breathe like a normal person.

The room was dim. Curtains pulled shut. Just a strip of dying sunlight crawling across the floor. His knuckles throbbed—he’d cleaned the blood off, but it still felt like it was there, sticky and hot.

And all he could think about… was her.

Illi.

Outside the principal’s office.

The look on her face when he came out.

She didn’t even say anything. Didn’t need to. Her silence said more than any smart-ass line ever could.

She’d heard everything.

Every word.

And not the part where he called her weird, or a freak, or avoided her at lunch, or refused to sit next to her on the couch when they watched horror movies with Mikey—

No, she heard the other part.

The part where he said she was her.

The part where he fought for her.

He rolled over and stared at the ceiling like it might offer answers. It didn’t.

He didn’t even know why he did it.

It wasn’t like he liked her.

She was annoying. Too quick with her comebacks. Always catching him in a lie. Always smiling at him like she knew.

But he also remembered the way she smiled when she talked about music. The way she curled her legs up when she sat on the top bunk reading some book that looked like it had been through war. The way she didn’t even flinch when people at school whispered behind her back.

Or the way her smile faltered sometimes—just for a second—but she never let it fall apart completely.

God.

He groaned, grabbing a pillow and pressing it over his face.

“Why the fuck do I care?” he muttered into the fabric.

Because he did.

And he didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to remember how her voice sounded when she laughed that day. How she hadn’t looked hurt, not even when he told her he didn’t care.

He remembered walking away from her, feeling like something in his chest had cracked and he didn’t know how to glue it back together.

Frank turned his face into the pillow.

She wasn’t supposed to matter.

But today… she did.

Frank didn’t leave the house once.

Three days of suspension felt like a fucking month.

The first day he just slept. Tried to, at least. Lay around in bed with the curtains drawn and the blanket pulled over his head like that would block out his thoughts.

It didn’t.

The second day he dug his guitar out, sat cross-legged on the floor and strummed until his fingers ached. Not playing anything in particular. Just noise. Something to fill the space. Something to drown out what wasn’t happening—like his phone not lighting up.

No texts. No calls.

Except Mikey.

Just Mikey.

“yo, u alive?”
“school sucks without u lmao”
“still pissed you got suspended for beating up actual assholes”
“also illi asked for ur number?? i said no lol figured you’d murder me if i gave it”

Frank read that one twice.

Then again.

Then he tossed his phone facedown and didn’t touch it for the rest of the night.

He didn’t know why it pissed him off.

She didn’t need to talk to him. Hell, she shouldn’t want to. Not after the shit he said to her. Not after the way he always made a point of pretending she wasn’t even there when they were all hanging out in that stupid room with the bunkbeds and the smell of too much incense.

But still.

She asked.

And Mikey said no.

Frank should’ve been relieved. But all it did was sit heavy in his chest like something unfinished, like a string on his guitar that wouldn’t tune no matter how many times he turned the peg.

So he kept playing.

All third day long.

Riffs. Chords. Stuff he half-remembered.

Some angry. Some not. Some sounded like songs he hadn’t written yet.

But no matter what he played, he kept thinking about her.

About the way she always listened when he played, even when she didn’t say anything. About the way she tilted her head when she was trying not to smile.

He told himself it didn’t matter.

Still played anyway.

And when his suspension was finally over, when the days blurred and the walls started closing in, Frank didn’t feel any more ready to go back.

But he packed his bag anyway.

Because whatever came next… he knew she’d be there.

And he wasn’t sure if that made him feel better.

Or worse.

Frank hated the hallways more than anything.

They felt too narrow. Too loud. Too full of people who never knew how to mind their business.

And today?

Today was worse.

People looked at him like he was radioactive.

Like the hallway should part for him, but not because they were scared. Because they were curious. Hungry. Whispering.

"That’s him."
"He beat the shit outta Caleb."
"For that trans girl, right?"
"Thought he hated her."
"Maybe he’s into freaks."

Frank walked like he didn’t hear it.

Jaw clenched. Shoulders squared. Hands shoved into the pockets of his black hoodie, knuckles still bruised underneath.

He looked up only when someone stared too long.

Met their eyes. Hard. Daring them.

Most of them looked away. Fast.

The rest got the tight pull of his lip ring and the sharp angle of his brows like a warning.

He’d done what he did because he wanted to. Not for attention. Not for anyone to think he was some martyr.

And now all these assholes were watching him like he’d cracked his skull open and poured his guts out in front of them.

He didn’t owe them anything.

His boots slammed heavier on the tile than usual, echoing behind him as he made his way to his locker. People moved out of the way.

A few whispered louder when they thought he was too far to hear.

But he heard everything.

He always heard everything.

And the worst part?

He didn’t even know what he was hoping to see.

Because the one face he was half-expecting, half-dreading—wasn’t there.

No Illi.

Not yet.

Just him, the stare of a hundred mouths with nothing worth saying, and that slow, rising feeling that things weren’t going to go back to normal.

Not for him.

Not for her.

Not after what he did.

He saw her near the stairwell between second and third period.

Shoulder against the wall, arms crossed over the dark blue blazer they all had to wear. Tie knotted loose at her throat. Hair messy in the way that said she didn’t care, and skin pale like milk against the collar of her white button-up.

She was laughing at something. Not loud—just soft, but real. Like whatever was happening around her didn’t matter.

Frank hated how she made the uniform look good. Like she wasn’t trying, like it wasn’t suffocating.

He slowed down just enough to catch a better look.

Red tie, tucked half-assed into her blazer. Black pants rolled once at the hem over her boots.

Everything about her looked careless and effortless, like she’d figured out some cheat code to being seen without letting anyone actually see her.

And maybe it was stupid, but Frank hadn’t expected her to look so… fine.

After everything.

After the fight.

After what he said.

He thought maybe she’d look smaller. Distant. Different.

But she didn’t.

She looked the same.

Still Illi.

Still her.

Which made the pressure in his chest worse.

So he ducked his head.

Walked faster.

Pretended he hadn’t seen her.

Pretended she hadn’t seen him.

But he knew she had.

Even without turning, he felt it. That invisible weight of her attention pressing between his shoulder blades like she was aiming a thought straight through him.

She didn’t call his name. Didn’t make it harder.

She just let him walk away.

And that was somehow worse.

Lunch came and Frank didn’t even hesitate.

He saw Mikey sitting at their usual table—top button undone, tie hanging loose, blazer slung over the back of his chair like it always was. And next to him was Illi, cross-legged on the bench, sleeves rolled up past her elbows, sipping a carton of chocolate milk like she wasn’t the reason Frank’s stomach was in knots.

He veered off without thinking.

Walked right past the table.

Didn’t look.

Pretended he didn’t hear Mikey call his name once, quietly. Didn’t catch the way Illi’s gaze followed him even after he was halfway across the cafeteria.

He sat at a different table.

One near the back, half-empty, full of kids who didn’t talk to him.

Fine by him.

He picked at the edge of a sandwich he didn’t want. Sat with one leg bouncing, teeth clenched, trying to will the clock to move faster.

The whole time, he felt her eyes.

Even when he didn’t look, he felt them.

He made it through the rest of the day like a ghost—slipping through hallways, saying nothing, doing his best not to feel like every locker he passed was whispering about him.

And when the final bell rang, he bolted.

Out the side doors. Backpack slung over one shoulder, earbuds shoved in but not playing anything.

The sky was dim and gray—typical New Jersey weather, thick with something unspoken.

He rounded the corner of the building, heading toward the back lot to avoid traffic. Just a few more steps.

But then—

“Frank.”

He froze.

Turned.

Illi was standing behind him. Alone.

Blazer off, sleeves of her button-up pushed up, red tie still cinched neat at her neck.

There was that smile again. Not wide. Not mocking. Just… knowing.

She didn’t look mad.

Didn’t look hurt.

She looked like she’d been expecting this.

“You gonna keep pretending you don’t see me,” she said, “or are you finally gonna talk to me?”

Frank’s mouth was dry.

He could lie. Blow her off. Say he was busy.

But something about the way she said it made him stop.

Like she already knew what he was gonna say.

Like she’d already decided he wasn’t getting away this time.

Frank shifted his weight, eyes darting past her like maybe he could still escape. Like maybe if he didn’t look directly at her, none of this would be real.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he muttered.

Illi raised a brow, just slightly. “No?”

“No.” He kept his voice flat. Detached. Like he hadn’t been avoiding her all day. Like he hadn’t skipped their table at lunch just to keep from seeing her face.

She took a slow step forward. Not enough to corner him, not exactly—but close. Close enough that he could smell the faint trace of her perfume under the sharp scent of school building exhaust. Something clean. Something warm.

Frank swallowed hard and glanced away. “I was just busy, alright? Had to—had to catch up on shit.”

“Right. Catch up,” she echoed. “That why you turned around when you saw me at the stairwell?”

His jaw twitched. “I didn’t turn around.”

“You did.”

Frank looked down at the concrete. Scuffed the toe of his boot against a crack in the pavement.

“I wasn’t avoiding you,” he lied. “You think I care that much?”

Illi tilted her head, that same calm, unreadable look on her face. “No. I don’t think you care.”

That should’ve been the end of it.

But she didn’t stop.

“And yet…” she added softly, “you beat the hell out of a guy for me. Spent three days suspended for me. Got the whole school whispering your name like you started a goddamn revolution.”

Frank's fingers curled tighter around the strap of his backpack.

She was too close now. Not physically, but in the way she looked at him. In the way she talked—like her voice could reach straight past everything he built to keep people out.

He forced a scoff. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Illi shrugged. “I’m not. You’re the one acting like something happened.”

Frank opened his mouth. Closed it.

He hated this.

Hated how easily she read him. Hated that she hadn’t yelled, hadn’t cried, hadn’t even flinched when he told her he didn’t care about her.

She just stood there, calm, confident, like she was waiting for him to stop pretending.

And Frank wasn’t ready to stop pretending.

Not yet.

So he turned his back again.

“Whatever. Just—drop it, alright?” he said over his shoulder, already walking. “It’s done.”

But the echo of her voice followed him anyway.

“Then why are you still running?”

Frank slammed the door to his room harder than he meant to.

The echo rattled down the hallway, but no one said anything. His parents were still pissed, still avoiding him. Fine. Let them.

He kicked off his boots, tossed his bag into the corner, and collapsed onto his bed without bothering to change out of the uniform. The red tie scratched against his neck. He left it there.

His room felt stale. Too quiet.

He grabbed his guitar, sat up, and plucked a few strings—half-tuned, out of habit more than anything. He didn’t want to write. Didn’t want to play. Just needed noise.

Anything.

Anything to drown out her voice.

You’re the one acting like something happened.

He tightened the strings until one snapped with a sharp twang.

“Fuck.”

The silence that followed felt like punishment.

He let the guitar fall beside him and slumped back on the bed, arms folded over his chest, staring at the ceiling.

He hated this.

Hated the heat in his throat. The tightness in his jaw.

He hated that he’d looked at her and noticed the way her lips curled when she smiled. That she made the uniform look good when he felt like he was suffocating in his.

He hated that she didn’t get hurt when he pushed her away.

He hated that he wanted her to.

Just a little.

Just enough to prove he mattered.

But she hadn’t cracked. Not once.

She called him out, clear as day, and he still walked away like a coward.

He dragged a hand down his face. Rough. Frustrated.

Tried to push the thoughts down where he always kept them. Into the pit where everything else went—anger, guilt, whatever the hell this was.

But it didn’t go away this time.

It stayed.

Like her.

Like that voice of hers that lingered even when she was gone.

Then why are you still running?

He didn’t have an answer.

Didn’t want to have one.

So he laid there, fists clenched at his sides, doing nothing.

Just listening to the nothing.

Trying to pretend he couldn’t still feel her eyes on him.

__

Illi didn’t push it.

She didn’t corner him again. Didn’t chase him through hallways or try to talk when he glared right past her. She just kept showing up—same as always. Same weird, unapologetic freak he kept insisting he couldn’t stand.

Which made it worse.

Because the more normal she acted, the more Frank felt like he was the one unraveling.

And avoiding her was easier in school. Easier when there were hallways and schedules and desks between them.

But not at Mikey’s.

Not when she shared a room with him.

Not when Frank was stretched out on the Way's worn couch, hoodie sleeves pulled over his palms, trying to focus on some shitty sci-fi movie while Illi sat next to him like nothing was wrong.

Not next to him, exactly.

But close enough.

Her knee brushed his once when she shifted to grab a pillow. Her hair smelled like mint shampoo. She was wearing the same dumb hoodie she always wore at home—black with red stripes on the sleeves, the hem fraying at the cuffs.

Mikey was on the floor, tossing popcorn into the air and missing half the time.

"Ray said he’d be here in like twenty,” Mikey said around a mouthful of popcorn. “He’s bringing that weird soda he found at the Asian market again. The lychee one.”

Frank grunted, eyes on the screen. He didn’t care about the soda. Didn’t care about the movie.

Didn’t care that Illi’s leg was maybe still touching his.

Not really.

Illi didn’t say anything. Just sipped from a can of Coke and smirked at something on screen. Her shoulder leaned slightly toward him when she laughed at a dumb line delivery.

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t try to talk to him.

Just existed.

And somehow, that made it worse.

Because the longer she said nothing, the more Frank noticed everything.

The curve of her smile. The way her eyes crinkled when she laughed. The chipped black polish on her nails.

She wasn’t doing anything.

Just being there.

And Frank couldn’t stand it.

Or maybe he could.

And that was the part that fucked him up the most.

The movie kept playing, a blur of laser beams and cheesy dialogue Frank wasn’t hearing.

Mikey shifted suddenly and stood up, brushing popcorn dust off his pants.
“Shit—I left the candy on my bed,” he muttered. “Pause it, I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t wait for anyone to move before jogging off toward the shared room.

Frank didn’t move.

Didn’t even blink.

Illi didn’t either.

The sound of Mikey’s footsteps faded down the hall. Then, quiet.

Just the soft hum of the TV. The faint crackle of something shifting in the speakers. The space between them loud in its silence.

Frank sat stiff. Hands in his sleeves, arms crossed like a shield across his chest.

Illi didn’t look at him. Just sipped from her soda, one leg curled under the other.

The tension was palpable. Like it lived in the air, thick and waiting.

Frank could feel his pulse in his teeth.

She still didn’t say anything.

Didn’t acknowledge that Mikey was gone.

Didn’t try to fill the quiet.

Frank hated that about her.

That she could just… be. That she didn’t squirm like he was. That she didn’t crack.

He shifted. Cleared his throat, eyes still fixed on the screen.

“You always this quiet?” he muttered.

Illi blinked, then turned her head toward him just slightly. Not all the way. Just enough.

“I figured you liked it that way.”

Frank’s jaw tensed. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Her voice wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t smug, either. Just calm. Steady. Like she was naming something plain.

Frank didn’t respond.

He didn’t know how to.

So they sat there.

Still.

Together.

Not touching. Not speaking.

And somehow, it felt louder than any argument they’d ever had.

Frank’s eyes stayed locked on the TV, but he wasn’t seeing it. The colors blurred, the sound tinny and far away.

Next to him, Illi shifted just slightly, resting her soda on the armrest between them. Her voice came soft, barely above the hum of the movie.

“You know,” she said, “you don’t have to like me.”

Frank blinked. His jaw clenched.

“But you don’t have to hate me, either.”

That made him turn his head, just a fraction.

She still wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was on the screen, but her expression had changed—just a little. Not sad. Not cold. Just… honest.

Frank didn’t have time to respond.

The front door opened with a creak, and Mikey’s voice carried in first.

“Found the candy—and Ray’s here. He brought, like, four bottles of that weird-ass soda.”

Ray’s laugh followed close behind. “You’re welcome.”

Frank leaned back fast, like he’d been caught too close. Like distance could undo the heat crawling up his neck.

Illi didn’t move.

She just reached for her soda again.

Smile soft. Eyes steady.

Like she hadn’t just said something that punched a hole straight through him.

Ray flopped onto the floor next to Mikey, two bottles of neon-pink soda tucked under one arm. He tossed one to Frank without looking and cracked his own open with a hiss.

“God, I forgot how gross this couch is,” he said, laughing. “Smells like feet and trauma.”

Mikey snorted. “That’s just Frank.”

Frank grunted, catching the bottle mid-air but not opening it. His fingers were still tight around the neck of it, knuckles white. He didn’t look at Illi.

Didn’t dare.

The couch felt smaller now. Like there wasn’t enough room to sit without brushing against her again, even though they weren’t touching anymore.

Illi leaned back, pulling her legs up and hugging her knees to her chest. She looked completely unbothered. Sipped her Coke like she hadn’t just torn open something raw a few minutes earlier.

“You gonna try it or just hold it like a trophy?” Ray asked, nodding at the bottle in Frank’s hand.

Frank twisted the cap off, took a sip. It was too sweet. Too fake.

He forced a shrug. “Tastes like cough syrup.”

“Exactly,” Mikey grinned. “That’s what makes it good.”

Ray made some comment about the movie being garbage, and Mikey started arguing back, gesturing wildly with a mouth full of gummy worms. The two of them fell into their usual rhythm—jokes, insults, easy laughter.

Frank kept nodding along, tossing in the occasional dry remark, but his chest was tight. His laugh came too late, too hollow.

He didn’t know if anyone else noticed.

But he felt it.

Felt her next to him, quiet. Not tense. Not confrontational. Just… there.

Like nothing had happened.

Like she hadn’t said what she said.

You don’t have to like me.
But you don’t have to hate me, either.

Frank shifted again. Pulled his sleeves down to his knuckles and tried to look interested in the movie.

He didn’t say a word to her.

But he didn’t move away, either.

__

Chapter Text

__

Illi didn’t need Frank to like her.

Not really.

She told herself that enough times that it had started to stick. She didn’t need his approval, didn’t need his words or his attention or anything else he refused to give.

But she hoped—quietly, secretly, in the way you tuck something fragile behind your ribs—that he didn’t hate her.

Because she didn’t hate him.

Not even a little.

Even when he avoided her. Even when he wouldn't look at her in the hallways. Even when he flinched like her voice burned him.

She noticed. Of course she did.

But she didn’t say anything.

She never pushed. Never pried. Never asked why he sat at the far end of the table now, or why he left right after movies instead of staying to argue over which album to play next.

He was always like that. Harsh edges and bitten-off words. But he wasn’t cruel. Not really.

He was the one who put his fists into someone’s face when they called her a freak.

He was the one who stood up, even when his voice shook.

He didn’t talk about it after. Didn’t look at her. But that was okay.

He didn’t have to.

She sat next to him on the couch tonight because that’s where she always sat. Because nothing had changed—not in her, anyway.

But he sat still. Didn’t move away.

And that was something.

Not forgiveness. Not friendship.

But something.

And maybe that was enough for now.

The hallway light had been off for an hour. Their mom was asleep. Their dad’s snores were muffled through the walls.

It was just them now.

Illi in the bottom bunk, Mikey above her, both staring into their own separate darkness.

The hum of the old box fan in the corner filled the silence. Illi had been listening to it for so long that it started to sound like waves, steady and rhythmic and far away.

She hadn’t moved since getting into bed. Still had her hoodie on, socks too. Arms curled around her pillow like something to hold her together.

Mikey finally spoke.

“You okay?”

His voice was soft. Meant not to carry.

Illi didn’t answer right away.

“Yeah,” she said eventually. “Why?”

“You were quiet after they left.”

“I’m always quiet.”

“Yeah, but usually it’s the kind that makes people uncomfortable.”

She snorted. “Charming.”

He let a few seconds pass. “Did Frank say something?”

“No.”

A pause.

“Not really.”

Mikey shifted above her, the bunk creaking. “That means yes.”

Illi stared at the ceiling. “He didn’t say anything bad.”

“Then what?”

“I told him he didn’t have to like me,” she said, voice even. “Just that he didn’t have to hate me either.”

Mikey didn’t reply.

“I don’t know what I expected,” she went on. “He didn’t say anything back. Just sat there like the couch was on fire.”

“He didn’t move though,” Mikey said after a while.

“No,” Illi said. “He didn’t.”

The room went quiet again.

The fan kept humming. Somewhere outside, a car drove by, headlights cutting through the slats of the blinds for half a second.

“You think he hates you?” Mikey asked quietly.

Illi pulled her knees up tighter beneath the blanket.

“I think he wants to,” she said. “I think it’s easier that way.”

Mikey was silent.

“I just… I don’t want to be someone he’s always trying to run from.”

“You’re not,” Mikey said.

Illi didn’t respond.

“I mean it,” he said. “He’s just… Frank. He doesn’t know how to sit with his own feelings. Let alone someone else’s.”

She gave a soft laugh, small and tired. “Great. So I’m his emotional minefield.”

“No,” Mikey said. “I think you’re the only person who makes him feel anything real. And I think that freaks him out.”

Illi closed her eyes.

She didn’t say anything else.

And neither did Mikey.

But it was one of those silences that didn’t need to be filled. One that let them both breathe a little easier.

Even if the world outside still didn’t.

__

The sun bled through the curtains in soft strips, casting pale lines across the carpet. The kind of light that didn’t warm anything, just made the dust float prettier.

Illi lay still for a moment, blinking up at the bottom of Mikey’s mattress above her. The bunk frame creaked slightly every time he moved—she could hear his steady breathing, faint and even. He was still out cold.

She shifted the blankets off and sat up slowly, feet hitting the cold floor. Her hoodie had ridden up in the night, twisted around her waist. Her hair was flat on one side, sticking out a little on the other. She pushed it back absently as she stood.

The room was quiet, save for the low hum of the street outside and the faint wheeze of the heater. She moved quietly, grabbing her makeup bag from beside her bed and walking over to the mirror leaning against the closet door. She crouched down in front of it, knees tucked to her chest.

The eyeliner came first. Black pencil, soft and smudgy. She lined her eyes slowly, carefully. A little flick at the corners. Then blush, just enough to make her face look less tired. And chapstick—vanilla-scented and comforting, something about it grounding her, even when everything else felt like it was slipping.

She stared at her reflection. Tilted her head.

She still didn’t look the way she wanted. Not completely. Her jaw still felt too sharp in the mornings, her shoulders too square, her arms too exposed. But the eyeliner helped. So did the softness in her cheeks.

Then her eyes fell on the uniform.

It hung where it always did—on the closet handle, pressed, ready. Waiting like a dare.

Blue blazer. White button-up. Red tie. Black pants.

The boys’ uniform.

Because that was all the school would give her.

No matter how many times she’d asked. No matter how many meetings, how many careful “we’ll consider its” and “it’s complicateds.” The girls’ uniform wasn’t an option. Not for her.

She stared at it a long time.

Then she pulled the white shirt over her head and began buttoning it. One by one. Collar tight, stiff. The tie came next, snugged up around her neck like a leash. The blazer settled over her like weight.

It swallowed her. Flattened her. Made her disappear.

But she stood there anyway.

In the mirror, she saw someone she didn’t fully recognize. But the makeup helped. The softness in her lips. The dark, gentle shape around her eyes.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t what she deserved.

But it was her.

Illi turned from the mirror, grabbed her backpack from the foot of her bed, and slipped quietly out of the room—careful not to wake Mikey as he slept soundly in the bunk above.

The hallway creaked beneath her feet as she stepped out, backpack slung over one shoulder. She didn’t bother turning on the lights. The house was dim, just early morning gray bleeding through the windows, washing everything in cold tones.

Down the hall, the kitchen was quiet. She could hear the coffee machine sputtering—the old one their mom still hadn’t replaced. There was a plate of toast left out on the counter, butter softening in the middle.

Her dad was already gone. Her mom was in the bathroom, door closed, soft hum of a blow dryer behind it. Illi didn’t wait. She wasn’t in the mood for half-hearted questions or awkward glances that slid away the second they got too close to something real.

She grabbed one slice of toast and chewed it slowly, standing barefoot in the kitchen while the warmth from the bread disappeared in her hands.

Every tick of the clock on the wall felt like pressure. Time moving toward the inevitable: the walk to school. The hallways. The uniform. The staring.

Illi swallowed and wiped her hands on a napkin.

She grabbed her boots from beside the front door—scuffed black with fading silver laces—and sat on the edge of the couch to pull them on. She’d worn them every day for the past three years. The soles were wearing down, but they were hers. And that meant something.

By the time she opened the door, Mikey was barely stirring. She could hear the mattress above shift and creak, a sleepy groan behind it.

She stepped outside before he could call out.

The air was sharp. A little damp from dew, sky overcast but not ready to rain yet. Her blazer did nothing to keep out the cold, but she didn’t flinch.

Hands in her pockets, she started walking.

Her breath fogged the air in front of her.

It was a long ten minutes to school. Every crack in the sidewalk familiar, every passing car a moment of imagined spotlight. Like the world was watching her shoulders. Her walk. Her tie.

She kept her chin up.

The closer she got to the school, the more the usual dread sank in. She could already picture it: the stares. The whispers. The ones who said her name with a question mark. Or worse—didn’t say it at all.

But she walked anyway.

Like she did every day.

Past the front gate. Through the courtyard. Into the building that still hadn’t figured out how to see her as who she was.

And still—

She was there.

Illi McMillan. In the uniform they gave her. With the softness she gave herself.

And maybe that was enough—for now.

The halls always felt colder than outside. The lights too bright. The air too clean. Like the building itself was trying to scrub anything different out of its skin.

Illi walked with her chin up. Always did.

Even if her stomach turned every time she stepped through the doors.

The sound hit first—lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking against linoleum, the dull roar of conversations too loud for eight in the morning. But beneath it, sharper threads cut through.

The stares.

She felt them before she even looked up.

Some people tried to be subtle—quick glances, double takes, heads tilting toward their friends. But others didn’t bother. They stared, flat and obvious. Smirking. Waiting for a reaction.

She didn’t give them one.

She walked down the hall like she didn’t notice, like she hadn’t heard the girls near the stairwell giggling and saying “Isn’t that Gerard?” loud enough for her to hear.

Gerard.

Like that name still belonged to her.

Like they had any right to say it.

She ignored it. Like always.

But her fingers tightened around the strap of her backpack. Nails digging into her palm.

“Hey, Gerard!” someone called behind her. Sing-song. Mocking.

She didn’t look.

Didn’t flinch.

“Yo, G-man! That blazer looks good on you, dude!”

Laughter. Quick, mean, and scattered.

She kept walking. Steady steps. She’d mastered the pace of indifference.

At her locker, she knelt down and spun the dial slowly, even though her hands were shaking just a little. One number off and she’d have to start again. She knew that. She forced herself to breathe through it.

She didn’t cry at school. Ever.

She shoved a book into her bag and pulled out the one she needed for first period.

“Good morning, Gerard,” her math teacher said at the door as she walked in.

The name was said casually, like it didn’t take the air out of her lungs.

Like it wasn’t erasing her.

“It’s Illi,” she said softly.

The teacher paused. Gave a polite smile. “Right.”

But it didn’t sound like she meant it.

Illi took her seat. Far right, second row. Same place she always sat. She rested her chin in her hand, fingers brushing the hem of her sleeve. She looked out the window instead of at the board.

The whispers hadn’t stopped.

They never did.

But she was still here.

Every day she showed up. In the wrong uniform, with the right name. With eyeliner sharp and smile soft and spine straight even when her knees wanted to buckle.

They didn’t have to understand her.

She didn’t need them to.

She just needed to make it through the day.

One hallway at a time.

It was a substitute teacher, the kind who didn’t care to look up from the paper as she read through the roll. Her voice was dry, detached, the syllables dull as chalk dust.

Illi already knew what was coming.

She stared at the corner of her desk, fingers pressed to the hem of her sleeve, bracing herself.

The sub cleared her throat, then read out loud like it was nothing.

“Gerard Way McMillan?”

The silence that followed was too loud.

Like every sound in the room collapsed under that name.

It echoed. Hung in the air. Burned.

She didn’t look up. Didn’t react.

But she felt it. The turn of heads. The too-loud silence. The sudden cough that was definitely someone stifling a laugh.

Someone whispered something in the row behind her. She didn’t catch what it was. Didn’t need to. It was the tone. That tone.

Her voice barely rose above the quiet when she answered.

“Here,” she said, steady but soft. Not the name she was given, but the one they kept trying to pin to her like it fit.

The sub moved on without a pause.

That was almost worse.

Illi blinked down at her notebook.

One pen mark scratched across the page, then another. She didn’t even know what the prompt was. Didn’t care.

Her cheeks were hot. Her throat felt too tight for the size of the room.

But she didn’t cry.

She wouldn’t.

By the end of class, her name was never said again. But it didn’t have to be. The echo stuck. Still rang in her head even as she gathered her things and shoved her books into her bag.

Third period passed in a blur. History. Her teacher knew her name. Said it right. Didn't make a thing of it. That helped. It steadied her, even just for a while. But it wasn’t enough to make her forget the burn.

When lunch came, the air shifted again.

The cafeteria was a storm.

Trays banging. Voices rising. Packs of people orbiting their tables, forming little planets of chaos.

Illi slipped in quietly, tray clutched in her hands like a shield.

She scanned for him. She always did. Didn’t mean to. But she couldn’t help it. She found Frank near the back, wedged between a few guys from his year she didn’t know well.

He didn’t look at her.

Didn’t glance her way once.

And she didn’t expect him to.

Still stung, though.

She made her way to the table where Mikey was already picking at a cup of pudding. Same corner they always claimed. Right near the window with the chipped paint on the sill.

“Hey,” Mikey said when she sat down.

“Hey,” she answered.

He looked up. “You okay?”

She nodded. Bit her lip. “Sub called me Gerard Way.”

Mikey winced. “Shit. Seriously?”

She shrugged, but it wasn’t casual. Nothing about it was. “Yeah. It’s fine. How was she supposed to know?”

It wasn’t.

She picked at her food. Didn’t touch most of it.

Across the room, Frank laughed at something one of the guys said.

Still hadn’t looked.

Mikey didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.

Illi sat there, lips pressed together, trying not to let her shoulders fold inward.

Trying not to feel invisible and too seen at the same time.

Illi always acted like she was okay.
Always would.

Even when her hands trembled a little when she zipped up her backpack. Even when her voice caught in her throat before she cleared it and made it sound steady again. Even when the stairs at school felt like cliffs and the mirrors in the bathroom felt like threats.

She smiled. She made jokes. She flicked her eyeliner sharp and clean every morning, like war paint.

It was easier that way—if everyone believed she was fine, maybe it would feel closer to the truth.

But when she got home, it wasn’t better.
It was almost worse.

The silence that met her was familiar. Tight-lipped. Cold. Her father didn’t look up from the newspaper. Her mother glanced at her, then away again. She walked past both of them without a word.

They didn’t ask how her day was.
They hadn’t in a long time.

Just like always, the air in the house felt thin when she stepped inside. Like it only had enough space for the people they wanted her to be.

“You’re late,” her father called as she reached the stairs.

“I had to talk to a teacher,” she lied, pausing mid-step.

He didn’t ask what about. Instead, his voice dropped lower. More pointed.

“You better not be slipping in math again, Gerard.”

Her grip on the banister tightened.

“It’s Illi,” she said.

He didn’t respond. Just went back to the rustle of his paper.

She climbed the stairs slowly. Quietly.

At the top, Mikey’s door was cracked open. She could hear him typing at his desk, music playing low from his laptop. For a second, she considered going in. But she didn’t. Not yet. Not like this.

Their shared room was small—two bunks, two dressers, posters Mikey had hung years ago, worn corners and faded tape. Illi’s side looked different. A little cleaner. A small mirror she kept angled just right. A single bottle of eyeliner next to her brush.

She shut the door behind her. Locked it.

Only then did she let her shoulders drop. Let herself sit on the edge of her bed.

Her chest felt like it was caving in.

Downstairs, she could still hear their voices. Her mom saying something about bills. Her dad muttering something about “sons” and “this phase.”

They never said her name. Not the right one.

They never would.

She was seventeen. She was still a junior. She lived here. Slept here. Ate dinner across from them every night like some stranger they were barely tolerating.

“You’ll never be our daughter,” her mother had said once, sharp and unflinching.
“We have sons.”

That was the first time Illi ever learned how hard it was to keep breathing when someone took something from you that you couldn’t get back.

That was the kind of thing you remembered even when you didn’t want to.

Later that night, the house had gone quiet.

The kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful—just over. Lights dimmed, doors closed, their parents' muffled footsteps fading down the hall until it felt like the two of them were the only ones still awake.

Illi lay in bed, on the bottom bunk, her eyes wide open in the dark. The ceiling above her was chipped and uneven, little lines of paint cracked in thin spiderwebs. She traced them with her eyes, counting out how long she could go without thinking about anything.

It didn’t last long.

From above, she heard Mikey shift. The rustle of his blanket. A sigh.

“You awake?” she whispered.

A beat.

“Yeah,” came his tired voice, soft but clear.

She hesitated. She didn’t want to burden him. Didn’t want to be that weight, not to him.

But the words kept pushing anyway.

“I hate it here sometimes,” she said quietly, like it might not count if she said it soft enough.

Another pause. Then Mikey answered, voice gentle, “I know.”

“They still call me Gerard,” she murmured. “Even after all this time.”

“I know,” he said again.

“I correct them every time. I keep thinking maybe one day it'll... I don’t know, matter.”

Mikey didn’t speak right away. She could hear the creak of the top bunk as he shifted to look over the edge.

“It does matter,” he said. “Just not to them.”

She turned onto her side, facing the wall, voice tightening. “It’s exhausting. Pretending like it doesn’t crush me every time. I try to act like I’m okay, but I’m not.”

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he said softly.

“I know. That’s why I try even harder not to dump it all on you.”

“You’re not dumping it,” he replied, firm. “You’re living.”

She felt her throat catch at that. At the way he said it like it wasn’t something heavy.

Like just being was allowed.

There was a long silence.

Then she whispered, “I don’t think Frank hates me.”

Mikey blinked. “…Yeah?”

“He avoids me, sure. Pretends I don’t exist half the time. But he doesn’t look at me like they do. Like I’m something to be embarrassed about.”

“He beat the shit out of someone for calling you a freak,” Mikey said after a moment. “That’s not nothing.”

“I know,” she whispered.

She didn’t say how much that had meant. How much it had fucked her up, even. The fact that someone like Frank—who wouldn’t even look at her now—had once stood up for her without saying a single word to her about it.

She didn’t say she replayed it over and over when she couldn’t sleep.

Mikey’s voice cut through the dark, careful. “He’s figuring it out.”

“Maybe.”

They didn’t speak again for a while.

Eventually, Mikey shifted, let out a breath, and said, “You can keep talking if you need to.”

She smiled, just a little. “Thanks. I think I’m okay now.”

Another long beat. The quiet between them was softer now. Not so heavy.

Then Mikey, just before sleep pulled him under, said, “You’re not alone, Illi.”

And somehow, that was enough.

At least for tonight.

__

Frank lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan spin in slow, lazy circles.

It was late—past midnight—but sleep hadn’t even come close. It hadn’t in a while. Not since the fight. Not since he sat in the principal’s office, fists bruised, chest heaving, pretending he didn’t give a damn.

Pretending he hadn’t been shaking with how much he cared.

He turned onto his side, facing the wall, letting out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

There was a gnawing in his chest. Low and constant.

He hated thinking. Hated the stillness. During the day, it was easier to distract himself—music in his ears, sketchbook open, knuckles against his mouth just to keep from saying something sharp.

But at night? There was nothing between him and all the shit he didn’t want to admit.

Like the way Illi’s laugh had stuck in his head. Or the way her voice had sounded when she told him she didn’t care that he didn’t like her—because it had felt a little like she did care, and that messed with him more than anything.

And he’d been cruel.

Not in words. Not directly. But in how he avoided her. How he watched her get torn apart and let it happen.

Except he hadn’t, not really. Not that one time. That time had cost him a suspension and a screaming match with his parents. But it also shut a couple of people up real fast. And Illi had looked at him like—

No.

He pressed his palms into his eyes, hard.

No. Don’t go there.

She was Mikey’s sister. She was—complicated. She made his stomach twist in ways he didn’t like. She was bold and strange and honest in ways Frank had never let himself be. She looked people in the eye when they called her the wrong name and still held her head up.

And yeah. People called her a freak. And yeah. Frank had said it too, at first.

But now?

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she wasn’t a freak. Not even close.

She was just… her. And somehow, that was harder to deal with.

Frank gritted his teeth, sitting up in bed. His lip ring glinted in the glow of his lamp, the metal cold against his mouth as he chewed at it. His room was a mess. Clothes on the floor. Strings on his guitar fraying. Sketches everywhere, none of them finished.

His chest felt tight again.

He didn’t know what he was doing. What he wanted. Or why Illi had started creeping into the places in his head he used to keep locked up.

All he knew was that the way people treated her made his fists clench.

And that the way she looked at him—really looked at him—made it so much harder to pretend he didn’t feel anything at all.

__

It had been two days. Two long, strange days.

Two days of Frank avoiding Mikey’s texts. Of slipping out of classrooms before Illi could catch his eye. Of eating lunch in a corner with kids he hardly knew, headphones jammed in but no music playing.

He couldn’t explain it—at least not in a way that made sense outside of his own head. Not to Mikey. Not to her. Hell, not even to himself.

But today, something gave.

Maybe it was the way Mikey looked at him in the hallway before lunch—shoulders a little hunched, brow furrowed in quiet disappointment.
Maybe it was the way Illi didn’t look at him at all.

Frank didn’t know. He just knew that when the bell rang and students started pouring into the cafeteria, he didn’t turn toward the back hallway like he had the last two days.

He walked straight into the noise and heat of the lunchroom, hands jammed in his pockets, shoulders pulled up tight.

He saw them immediately—Mikey, seated at their usual table, poking at something in a plastic container. Illi next to him, leaning over a sketchpad, her black hair hanging forward to curtain her face.

Frank hesitated.
Just for a second.

Then he walked over.

He didn’t say anything when he sat down. Just dropped his tray with a dull plastic clatter, shrugged off his blazer, and sat across from Mikey.

The silence was instant and heavy.

Mikey raised his eyebrows slightly but didn’t say anything. Just passed him a water bottle wordlessly, like no time had passed.

Illi… didn’t look up.

Frank kept his eyes on his tray. Picked at the limp sandwich like it had personally wronged him. His throat was dry, and his chest was tight, but he sat there. He didn’t move. Didn’t run.

That felt like something.

Eventually, Mikey cleared his throat.

“So... you're alive.”

Frank grunted. “Unfortunately.”

Mikey gave a soft huff of a laugh. But the air still felt weird.

Illi finally looked up, her eyes catching on Frank for just a second.

Not long.
Not pointed.
But it was there.

Frank’s stomach twisted.

“Hey,” she said, barely above a murmur.

He didn’t respond right away. Just nodded, keeping his eyes on the table.

Mikey, sensing something unspoken, glanced between the two of them, then went back to eating. He didn’t push. He never did when it really mattered.

The rest of lunch passed with strange, fragile quiet. No sharp words. No banter. Just a thin thread of tension weaving between them.

Frank didn’t know what he was doing, not really.
He just knew that for the first time in two days, the food didn’t taste like ash in his mouth.
And even with the quiet, the seat next to Mikey didn’t feel so cold.

__

Illi didn’t expect him to show up.

Not today.
Not after two full days of silence.
Two days of Mikey quietly pretending not to notice the ache in her voice when she asked, “Have you heard from him?” even though they both knew she was talking about Frank.

And she told herself it didn’t matter. That he didn’t owe her anything. That she wasn’t hurt, just… annoyed. Irritated. Whatever word would sting less.

But when she looked up and saw him walking toward their table—his usual scowl carved deep into his face, blazer slung over his shoulder, knuckles tight around a tray—her heart clenched.

Not with hope.
Not even relief.
Just something messier. Something that twisted and knotted deep in her chest.

He sat down without a word.

Illi didn’t look up at first. She didn’t trust her face not to say more than she wanted it to. Instead, she stayed bent over her sketchpad, pen frozen between her fingers. The page had nothing on it—just some stray lines, a half-finished face she hadn’t been able to commit to.

She could feel him across the table. That silence he always brought with him, sharp and unsettled. But he was here. Sitting with them. Not off in some corner pretending like she didn’t exist.

Mikey tried to break the tension, his voice careful but not forced. Illi listened, didn’t speak. Just traced over the same line again, darker this time.

Then, finally, she risked a glance.

Frank hadn’t changed. Still messy-haired, still glaring at his food like it said something offensive. His eyebrows were knotted like always, but there was something… smaller about him today. Tired. Like even he was sick of whatever fight he was stuck in.

“Hey,” she said softly.

He didn’t say anything back—just nodded once, quick and tight.

It wasn’t much.
But it was more than she thought she’d get.

The rest of lunch passed in a weird stillness. Mikey kept things normal—talked about a quiz in History, mentioned Ray in passing. Illi watched Frank when he wasn’t looking, tried not to let it show.

She didn’t need him to like her. That was what she told herself every time she caught her reflection and wondered if she was getting close to the person she was supposed to be.

But she didn’t want him to hate her.

And right now, she wasn’t sure what that silence meant. But he came back. He sat down.

And she held onto that.

Because maybe it didn’t mean he liked her.

But maybe it meant he didn’t hate her either.

Lunch was normal again after that.

It didn’t happen all at once. It wasn’t like flipping a switch—Frank didn’t suddenly turn back into the sharp-tongued, eye-rolling version of himself who teased Mikey over his stupid taste in chips or stole bites off her tray when he thought she wasn’t looking.

But he sat with them again the next day. And the day after that. He started mumbling things under his breath again, like he didn’t mean for them to be heard even though she always did.

And Illi let it happen. She didn’t mention the days he’d avoided her like she was a virus. Didn’t ask him where he’d gone, or why he hadn’t texted back. She didn’t even bring up the fight—not the one in the hallway, not the one in the principal’s office, not the bruises on his knuckles that had since faded.

She just let it go.

And went back to being a freak.

Because that was easier.
That’s what she knew how to be.

When Frank came over after school, like usual, she’d follow them around the house, lean against doorframes, make a little too much noise digging through the snack cupboard just to see if he’d tell her to shut up. He usually did.

And that was something.

Mikey would roll his eyes, but there was this look he got sometimes—especially when Illi sat cross-legged on the floor next to the couch where Frank sprawled, picking at guitar strings with his brows drawn together like music owed him an apology.

Mikey noticed the way she smiled.
But he didn’t say anything about that either.

Illi would nudge Frank’s shoe with her foot when he ignored her for too long. She’d make fun of his music taste, or the way he made a face whenever she sat too close. Sometimes she caught him looking at her like he was trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t even know he was holding. He always looked away.

She didn’t push.
Not really.

But she kept being herself. Kept bothering him like nothing had changed.

Because that’s how things went back to normal.

Almost.

__

The only reason things changed was because it scared him.

That was it.

Frank had spent two full days avoiding Mikey and Illi like they were a disease—like if he got too close again, he’d catch whatever weird, confusing virus she carried.

Because Illi?
Illi wasn’t just strange. She was terrifying.

Not in the way everyone at school meant when they called her a freak behind her back—or sometimes to her face. Not in the way adults looked at her with that mix of pity and confusion and quiet cruelty they thought she couldn’t see.

No.
Illi scared him because sometimes, when she smiled or looked at him a certain way or made a stupid joke at his expense—
Sometimes Frank felt something.
Something warm.
Something real.

And that shit?
It wasn’t supposed to happen.

So he’d run. For two days. Told himself she didn’t matter. Told himself she was just Mikey’s sister. Mikey’s weird, freakish, loudmouth sister who wore eyeliner thicker than her skin and sat too close and laughed too easily at things he didn’t even realize were funny.

It was supposed to pass.

But it didn’t.

Not when she went back to acting like nothing happened. Not when she sat next to him on the couch and kicked her feet up like she belonged there. Not when she made fun of his dumb horror movies and he still found himself waiting for her laugh.

He hated that he noticed little things.
How she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was thinking.
How her lips always looked like she’d just put on that stupid cherry chapstick.
How she didn’t flinch when he snapped, just blinked at him with those hazel eyes and called him dramatic.

It was getting worse, not better.

And he kept convincing himself it would pass.

Any day now.

He’d wake up, and all of this—whatever the hell this was—would be gone. Replaced with something normal. Something simple. Something he could explain without feeling like he was falling into a pit every time she looked at him like she didn’t hate him back.

But until then, he sat there.

With her.

And every time she nudged his leg or rolled her eyes or made that little clicking sound with her tongue when he was being too quiet—

He stayed.

Because maybe it hadn’t passed yet.
But maybe he didn’t want it to.

Not really.

It scared the shit out of him.

He didn’t even realize it right away—what was happening. The moment didn’t announce itself or ask permission. It just slipped in when no one was looking. When the movie was halfway over and the room had gone soft and dim with the static glow of the TV.

Mikey was on the top bunk, earbuds in, half-watching something on his phone. Ray had already gone home. It was just the three of them again. Like usual. Like it was supposed to be.

Frank lay on the floor, one arm folded under his head, hoodie bunched up around his shoulders, legs stretched out and aching from sitting too long. Illi was sitting a few feet away, her back against the bunk bed ladder, legs crisscrossed, sleeves tugged over her hands. She looked… soft in the light. Softer than usual.

And it hit him.

Like a sucker-punch to the ribs.

She was beautiful.

Not in some weird, distant, abstract way. Not in the way he thought girls were supposed to be pretty. She was beautiful in a way that made something in his chest knot up and twist sideways. Her hair fell around her shoulders in messy waves. Her eyes were lit up by the screen, catching every flicker like they were made to. She wasn’t even doing anything—just watching the movie, biting the inside of her cheek, smiling a little when something dumb happened on-screen.

It made Frank feel dizzy.

Because he shouldn’t have noticed.
He shouldn’t be thinking about her like that.
She was Mikey’s sister.
She was Illi.
And Frank didn’t do this. He didn’t get soft over people, didn’t get shaky when someone glanced at him mid-laugh, didn’t feel like his heart was going to crawl up his throat and spill all over the carpet just because someone sat too close.

He turned his head, looked at the ceiling. Tried to focus on the shitty popcorn texture, on the low hum of Mikey’s headphones above him, on anything else.

But he could still see her.

Out of the corner of his eye, the shape of her. The curve of her arms. The way her fingers drummed against her knee. He could feel her in the room, feel how fucking near she was. And it scared him more than anything.

Because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Not to him.
Not with her.

And the worst part?
He didn’t want to move.

He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to push her away or snap at her or pretend she was just some annoying tag-along he barely tolerated.

He wanted to stay right there.
With her.
Feeling like this.

And that made him want to crawl out of his skin.

Illi shifted beside the bunk, hugging her knees loosely, eyes still on the screen. She spoke softly, not looking at him.

“You okay?”

Frank’s heart jerked.

“Yeah,” he muttered, too fast, too low. He coughed, adjusted the hood behind his head like it was somehow suffocating him.

She turned her head just slightly, glancing down at him through her lashes. “You’ve been weird lately.”

“I’m always weird.”

“No, like... weirder than usual.”

Frank scoffed and forced a smirk, still staring at the ceiling. “You’re the last person who gets to call someone weird.”

“I know,” she said, and there was a small smile in her voice. “Just figured I’d call it before you did.”

There was a stretch of silence, not awkward—just full. Like the air between them had thickened. Illi shifted again, this time stretching her legs out, the toe of her socked foot barely brushing Frank’s arm.

He froze.

Didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

“Frank?” she asked again, quieter now.

He clenched his jaw. “Can you not?”

She pulled her foot back.

“Not what?”

“Whatever this is,” he said sharply, sitting up too fast, suddenly glaring at nothing. “Just—stop being so… you.”

She blinked. Didn’t look hurt. Just tilted her head slightly. “You want me to stop being myself?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You kind of did.”

Frank stood up. “I’m getting water.”

Illi nodded slowly, gaze following him but her mouth stayed shut this time. He could feel her watching him as he walked out of the room. Could feel the burn of everything she didn’t say.

Later that night, Frank sat on the edge of his bed, guitar laid flat across his lap, untouched.

His room was dark. The only light came from the little desk lamp in the corner. It painted long shadows on his walls, the kind that made everything look warped and off.

His fingers twitched over the strings, but he didn’t strum.

Didn’t play.

Didn’t do anything except stare.

That moment—her foot brushing his arm, her voice soft, the way she looked at him—it wouldn’t leave his head. He’d tried, after getting home, to drown it out with loud music. Played his angriest records at full blast until his parents yelled at him to cut the shit. He almost hoped they’d come in and scream more. Give him something else to focus on.

But nothing worked.

He couldn’t stop seeing her face in the dark.

And it wrecked him.

Because she wasn’t supposed to get under his skin like that.
He wasn’t supposed to want her to.
He wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

Frank closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his palms against them, hard.

“Fuck,” he whispered to the dark.

It didn’t help.

Nothing did.

He didn’t know what the feeling was.

Well, he did.

He just didn’t want it to be that.

He didn’t want to name it, didn’t want to hold it up to the light and see it for what it was. Because the second he did, it would be real.

And Frank wasn’t ready for real.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

He liked girls. That was never the problem. He wasn’t confused about that. Illi was a girl. She is a girl. That part was obvious, even to him. Even if the school couldn’t figure it out, even if the principal couldn’t say her name right, even if his parents still called her "Gerard" behind tight lips and forced smiles. Frank saw her.

And she was a girl.

But the problem was her.

Not because of who she was—no, that wasn’t the real reason. It was because she was Illi. Weird, freakish, sit-too-close-and-make-you-think-too-much Illi. Mikey’s sister Illi. The one everyone talked about in the halls like she wasn’t human. The one Frank had been trying not to feel anything for since the second he realized he was feeling something.

And that was the real issue.

He was feeling something.

And he didn’t know how to kill it.

Frank let out a low, guttural groan and shoved his pillow hard into his face. Smothering thoughts. Smothering breath. Smothering everything. If he could just crush it all out of himself—if he could press hard enough, long enough—maybe he could erase it.

Erase the way her eyes had looked in the TV light.
The way her foot brushed against him.
The way she said his name like it didn’t have to hurt.

It didn’t work.

Of course it didn’t.

He yanked the pillow away, hair sticking to his forehead, cheeks flushed hot with frustration, and stared at the ceiling like it had all the answers he didn’t.

His guitar sat abandoned on the floor.

His phone was still on silent.

No texts from Mikey.
None from Illi.
Not that he expected one.
Not that he’d know what to do if there was one.

He hated this.

Not her.
Never her.

But this—this feeling curling inside his chest like a slow burn he couldn’t put out—that’s what he hated.

Because it meant something.

And he wasn’t ready to say what.

He was in the school hallway.
Empty.
Too quiet.

The lights flickered like in a shitty horror movie, humming overhead as his shoes squeaked against the floor. Everything felt stretched—longer than it should be. The lockers tall and shadowed, the silence echoing like something was about to happen.

He walked. Didn’t know where he was going. Didn’t think he had a destination.

Then he saw her.

At the end of the hallway.

Illi.

She wasn’t looking at him. Just standing there, arms crossed loosely, wearing the uniform. Same blazer. Same tie. Same pants the school made her wear. But in the dream it fit her better. Like she wasn’t being forced into something that didn’t belong.

She looked up at him.

Not smiling. Not frowning either. Just… there.

“Frank,” she said, soft and echoing.

He didn’t answer. His throat felt stuck.

She took a step closer. And then another. And it was like the hallway folded in half, because suddenly she was right in front of him.

He couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t look away.

Her eyes searched his face, and something passed between them. Not words. Not thoughts. Just something heavy and real.

She lifted her hand, fingers brushing his cheek.

It didn’t feel like a dream.

Her fingers were warm. Her touch soft. His skin burned where she’d touched him.

“You hate me,” she said, but it wasn’t an accusation.

Frank’s jaw clenched. “No, I don’t.”

“You act like you do.”

“I don’t,” he said again. Louder.

She stepped in even closer. So close he could smell her shampoo, see every little freckle under her eyes. Her lips were parted, breath slow.

“Then kiss me,” she whispered.

His heart slammed in his chest. “What?”

“If you don’t hate me, then kiss me.”

She tilted her chin up just slightly.

And for a second—just a second—he leaned in.

Close enough that their lips almost touched.
Close enough that it made his whole body ache.

Then she disappeared.

Gone.

He was kissing the empty air. The hallway was gone too.

Now he was standing in front of a mirror.

His reflection didn’t look right.

He stared at himself, panting, wide-eyed, and in the reflection—
he wasn’t alone.

Illi stood behind him, arms wrapping around his waist, chin resting on his shoulder. Looking straight into the mirror with that same unreadable expression.

She didn’t say anything.

Didn’t have to.

Because Frank’s reflection was crying.

He woke up gasping, heart thundering, sheets twisted around his legs and sweat soaking the back of his neck.

He ran a hand down his face and whispered a single, miserable word:

“Fuck.”

Frank didn’t sleep after that.
Not really.

He’d tried.
Buried his face in his pillow again. Flipped it to the cool side.
Laid on his back. His side. Curled up. Uncurled.
Nothing worked.

The dream wouldn’t leave him alone.

It looped.
Her voice.
“Then kiss me.”
The feeling of her fingers on his cheek.
The phantom weight of her arms around him in the mirror.

It made his chest ache.
It made his skin feel like it didn’t fit right.

When the alarm went off, he shut it off with too much force, dragging himself out of bed like it physically hurt.
He didn’t bother fixing his hair. Barely looked in the mirror.
Just brushed his teeth, threw on his uniform—blue blazer, white button-up, red tie, black pants—and left before his parents could say anything about yesterday’s attitude.

The air outside was sharp, biting. The sky still too pale for comfort.

He walked to school with his hood up and music blaring, but nothing could drown out the fact that he felt like he was walking around inside his own head, a little too aware of everything. His hands. His heartbeat. The weird twist of guilt that settled low in his gut.

He shouldn’t have dreamed about her.
He really shouldn’t have liked it.

And the worst part?
He didn’t know if he was more scared of the dream or the fact that part of him—some awful, buried part—wanted it to happen again.

He got to school earlier than usual. Too early. Sat on the stone wall near the front steps with one knee bouncing and his backpack in his lap like it might keep him steady.

The courtyard was filling in.
Groups started to arrive, voices drifting through the cool air.

Then he saw her.

Illi.

She was walking alone, as usual. Her black hair was brushed back behind her ears, the tiniest bit of eyeliner under her eyes, just enough to draw attention to the hazel. Her lips had that faint pink tint again—chapstick maybe, or something more—and she wore the uniform like it didn’t make her flinch, even if Frank knew it did.

Same blazer. Same tie.
But she held herself like she was doing it on her own terms.

She hadn’t seen him yet.

Frank looked down quickly.
Fumbled with his bag zipper like it suddenly needed fixing.

She walked right past him.
Close enough that he could smell the faint sweetness of her perfume, something soft and floral and so not his business.

She didn’t look at him.
Didn’t say anything.

And somehow that hurt more than if she had.

He sat there, still, jaw tight, until the bell rang.

__

First period was a blur.

Frank sat near the back, slouched in his seat with his hood still up even though he knew the teacher hated that. His leg bounced the entire time, and he didn’t take out a single book. Just sat there, chewing on the frayed edge of his hoodie sleeve, staring at the front board like the numbers and formulas meant anything to him.

They didn’t.

None of it did. Not this morning.

Not after that dream.

Not with her so close again.

He could still feel it. The warmth of her breath. The look in her eyes. The way she’d said his name in that not-quite-voice that only dreams have. And it wasn’t real, he knew it wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. It was stuck under his skin like a splinter.

And now she was real again.
Down the hall.
In the next classroom.
Probably sitting beside Mikey like everything was fine. Like she hadn’t unknowingly set off something in him that he couldn’t put back in its box.

He kept grinding his teeth. Clenched his fists beneath the desk, nails digging into his palms.

It wasn’t fair.

Illi was supposed to be a freak. A weird kid with chipped nail polish and a stubborn smile and a laugh that he always pretended was too loud.

She wasn’t supposed to be beautiful.

And she definitely wasn’t supposed to feel like this—like a storm blooming under his ribs every time he looked at her.

The bell rang and startled him.
Everyone stood. He didn’t move at first.

Someone bumped into his desk, muttered something, and Frank blinked, shoved his stuff into his bag like it had personally offended him.

Out in the hallway again.

More stares. Same whispers. Background noise.

And then—

There she was.
Again.

Ahead of him this time. Walking toward the lockers. That same soft sway in her walk, unaware—or uncaring—of the attention she drew.

Frank turned hard down a side hallway before she could see him.

Heart in his throat.

This wasn’t normal.
This wasn’t him.

He didn’t get nervous around people. He didn’t run from them.

He just didn’t want to talk to her right now.
Didn’t want to risk saying something stupid. Or worse, not saying something and staring at her lips again like an idiot.

So he hid.

Like a coward.

Leaning back against a wall between the vending machines, hands in his blazer pockets, breathing slow and shaky.

He couldn’t do this much longer.
Not if she kept looking at him like she didn’t hate him.
Not if he kept dreaming about her.

Not if it kept meaning something.

Second period dragged.

Third was worse.

By fourth, Frank was snapping the lead of his pencil just from gripping it too tight.

He wasn’t listening. Not really. His brain was full of static, and every time someone said the word “she,” he twitched like they were talking about her. And they weren’t. Of course they weren’t. No one was thinking about Illi but him.

It pissed him off.

It pissed him off how she was still in his head.

The way she looked when she passed him this morning—soft mouth, long lashes, hands in the pockets of that dumb blazer that didn’t fit her right because this place didn’t let her be who she was. And yet she was, still. Loud and weird and unshaken. Like nothing could touch her.

But he had.
He’d dreamed of touching her.

And that…
God, that messed him up more than anything.

He rubbed his hands over his face like that’d make it go away. It didn’t. It just made him feel raw and tired and so, so aware of everything.

By lunch, he’d barely spoken all day.

His tray was mostly untouched. He sat alone at the end of one of the long tables in the corner of the cafeteria, hood pulled up again, earbuds in but not playing anything. Just an excuse. A wall. Something to pretend behind.

He picked at his food without really tasting it, keeping his head down.

Until he saw them.

Out of the corner of his eye—Mikey first.
And then—Illi.

He froze, eyes locking on the edge of his tray like he could sink into it.

They were coming over.

He could feel it. Could feel the air shift, could feel the nerves rising like they always did lately when she was near.

He braced himself.

Mikey slid into the seat across from him, dropping his tray with a soft “Hey.”
Frank grunted a response, not looking up.

Illi sat beside him.

Beside him.

Her knee brushed his under the table. He stiffened like she’d touched a live wire.

“Hope you weren’t saving this seat,” she said lightly, biting into her apple like this was nothing. Like she wasn’t turning his whole chest inside out.

He didn’t answer.
Just swallowed hard and kept his eyes on his tray.

Mikey was talking about something, maybe their history class. Frank nodded when it seemed right. Illi chimed in a few times, laughing like she always did. She didn’t sound different. Not like he did—quiet, strained, fucked-up inside.

She didn’t look at him, though.
Not directly.

Which somehow made it worse.

He kept catching glances of her from the corner of his eye. Her black hair tucked behind one ear, the edge of her red tie slightly crooked, a faint smudge of eyeliner on her lower lash line. She looked tired. She looked real.

And Frank was barely holding it together.

He stabbed a piece of food with his fork and missed entirely.

“Smooth,” Illi murmured under her breath, grinning.

Frank’s jaw tightened.

He wanted to hate her.

He wanted to.

But he didn’t.

And that scared him more than anything else.

He didn’t speak for the rest of lunch.

Not because he didn’t have anything to say—but because he was afraid of what might come out if he opened his mouth.

So he kept quiet. Picked at his food. Tuned in and out of Mikey’s voice. Tried not to track Illi’s every movement like she had a damn spotlight on her.

The more she laughed, the more it clawed at him.

The worst part? It wasn’t even obnoxious. It wasn’t loud or grating or anything he used to tell himself it was. It was soft. Warm. Real.

It was nice.

And she looked happy.
Like she belonged here, at this table, beside him.
Like this wasn’t torture.

Frank shifted, pretended like his knee hadn’t been pressed against hers for the last five minutes.

She didn’t move away.

And neither did he.

It burned.
It buzzed under his skin.

He found himself clenching his fists in his lap just to feel grounded. Just to keep his hands still.

Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her. Don’t—

He looked.

Just a glance. Quick. Barely more than a flicker of his gaze from the tray to her profile.

She was biting her lip. Focused on something Mikey said. Her lips were pink again, glossy, like she’d just reapplied her chapstick.

Frank looked away so fast it made him dizzy.

His stomach turned.
His heart was racing.
And he hated it.

He hated her for being this close.
Hated himself more for wanting it.

He felt like a fucking traitor.
To what? He didn’t even know. Himself, maybe. Mikey. His own expectations.

Whatever it was, it felt like something was cracking inside him every time she breathed beside him like she wasn’t tearing him apart.

The bell rang.

Frank stood up like he’d been shot.

Mikey blinked at him. “Dude, you good?”

“Fine,” Frank said, voice too tight, too sharp.

He grabbed his tray and walked off without looking back.

Didn’t say bye. Didn’t check to see if she was watching him leave.
Didn’t breathe again until he was halfway down the hall.

He ducked into the bathroom and leaned over the sink, gripping it like it could hold him together.

His face in the mirror looked pissed. Like always. Knitted brows, lips tight, eyes darker than they should’ve been. He didn’t even look like someone who was falling apart.

But he was.

He turned the faucet on. Splashing cold water on his face didn’t help. It never helped. He just stood there, dripping, waiting for the burn in his chest to calm down.

It didn’t.

__

Chapter Text

__

Frank walked into Chemistry late.

Only by a minute or two, but enough for everyone to already be seated. Enough that heads turned when the door clicked behind him and the teacher sighed like it was personal.

“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Iero.”

He mumbled something noncommittal, shoving his hands in the pockets of his blazer and walking to his usual spot in the back. Alone. His desk had always stayed empty beside it. People either avoided him because of his reputation—or just thought he looked too pissed off all the time to bother with.

He liked it that way. It was safe. Quiet. No one in his space.

Except today—

He stopped walking.

Someone was already sitting in the seat next to his.

Black hair tucked neatly behind one ear. Eyes straight ahead like she didn’t notice him standing there, even though she definitely did. Her blazer sat snug on her narrow shoulders, sleeves pushed up just slightly at the cuffs. Tie loose. Lip gloss subtle.

Illi.

She didn’t look at him. Not once. Just kept her eyes on the front like this was nothing.

Like she hadn’t sat in a seat no one ever sat in.

Frank’s stomach twisted. His fingers curled tightly around the strap of his bag. He didn’t move for a second—half expecting her to get up and walk away when he did.

She didn’t.

So he sat down beside her.

Stiff. Guarded. Every muscle tight like she might lean in and whisper something that would crack him wide open.

But she didn’t say anything.

Didn’t look at him. Didn’t laugh or poke at him or do anything annoying like she always used to.

She just sat there.

And it was so much worse than if she’d said something.

The teacher droned on about some experiment they’d start the next day. Frank barely heard a word. His jaw was clenched. Shoulders rigid. His heart thudded in his chest like she could hear it.

He kept staring straight ahead, but every few seconds he caught himself glancing to the side—just enough to see the curve of her face, the calm expression, the way her foot bounced lightly under the desk.

He hated how still she made him feel. How loud she made his silence feel.

About halfway through class, she shifted slightly in her seat.

Not toward him—just enough that her elbow brushed the side of his.

Just a second.

Frank tensed like he’d been shocked. But she didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away.

She just was there.

Present.

Like she belonged there next to him.

And Frank wanted to scream.

Or run.

Or say something stupid like Why are you sitting here?—as if that wasn’t exactly what he’d been wishing and dreading at the same time.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t move.

He just sat there, drowning quietly in a desk too small, beside a girl too big in his head.

The clock ticked louder than the teacher’s voice.

Every scribble of a pencil, every shuffle of paper or tap of a pen sounded too sharp in Frank’s ears. Illi didn’t move again after that one brush of her elbow, but Frank could still feel it—phantom pressure buzzing beneath his skin.

He tried focusing on the board, on what the teacher was saying about chemical bonds, but the words barely registered. Something about electrons. Something about reactions.

He was reacting. That was for sure.

Twenty-two minutes left.

His leg bounced under the desk.

Illi didn’t speak. Not even a whisper to herself. Just a quiet presence beside him like she’d always belonged there and he was the one out of place.

Fifteen minutes.

She reached for her notebook to write something down. Her sleeve brushed his arm again. He flinched this time.

Ten.

Frank’s throat was tight. His jaw even tighter.

Five.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

He turned toward her—halfway, stiff, defensive. “Why are you sitting here?” he muttered.

She didn’t jump. Didn’t pretend she didn’t hear.

She just looked over at him, calm as ever. Her eyes soft, hazel and unreadable.

Then she shrugged. “Didn’t feel like sitting alone.”

Her voice wasn’t smug or teasing. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t anything but honest.

Frank blinked, like that answer wasn’t good enough. Or maybe because it was too easy.

“You could’ve sat with anyone.”

“Could’ve,” she said simply, then turned back toward the board.

Frank stared at her a second longer. Waiting, maybe, for the rest of the answer. Something that would make it make sense. Something that wouldn’t feel like—

Because I wanted to be near you.

Even if she didn’t say it, that’s what it felt like.

He faced forward again. Grip tight on his pen. His pulse hammering in his ears like it had something to prove.

He didn’t say anything else.

Neither did she.

The bell rang a few minutes later, sharp and shrill.

She stood first, brushing off her blazer, not sparing him a glance. Her bag slung over her shoulder. She walked out like it had been a normal class.

Like she hadn’t just sat next to the boy who tried so hard not to care about her it was turning him inside out.

Frank didn’t move right away.

He just stared at her empty seat, then down at his hand where it still tingled.

The bell rang, and Frank moved slow.

Too slow.

He waited until most of the class had filtered out before slinging his bag over his shoulder and dragging himself toward the door. He didn’t want to walk behind her. He didn’t want to walk next to her. He didn’t want anything to look like something.

The hallway swallowed him fast—loud, buzzing, bodies pressing past each other like always. But it all felt kind of far away. Muffled. Like his head had dipped underwater and left him there.

She hadn’t said much.

Just a couple of words.

Didn’t feel like sitting alone today.

It shouldn’t have meant anything. But it did. It did because she picked him. Out of all the people she could’ve sat next to, all the empty desks in that damn room, she sat next to him.

Frank rubbed the back of his neck, fingers digging into the knot of tension there. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Well, he did. He just didn’t want to name it. Didn't want to look it in the eye.

He passed a group of guys near the vending machine—laughing too loud, saying something crude that wasn’t even about him but still made his teeth clench.

He kept walking, jaw tight.

Then he caught a glimpse of her again.

Up ahead. Walking with Mikey now, a few steps ahead. She was laughing at something, her hand brushing Mikey’s arm. Like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t completely knocked the air out of Frank’s lungs twenty minutes ago just by existing too close.

Frank stopped at his locker but didn’t open it.

He just stood there, hands stuffed in his blazer pockets, head low, hood half-up in defiance of the rules.

She didn’t look back.

That shouldn’t’ve bothered him either.

But it did.

And that pissed him off most of all.

__

Frank sat across from Mikey, picking at the crust of his sandwich like it had personally offended him. Illi was next to her brother again, laughing at something on his phone, like always. Like yesterday’s quiet little chaos in Chemistry hadn’t happened. Like she hadn’t sat next to Frank for the first time in months of shared silence and nearly cracked something open inside him.

She hadn’t even looked at him today.

Not once.

And that made everything worse.

“You wanna come over after school?” Mikey asked casually, kicking Frank lightly under the table like he needed to make sure he was still awake.

Frank blinked, looked up.

“Huh?”

“After school,” Mikey repeated, mouth half-full. “Ray’s coming too. I figured we could watch something stupid or just… whatever. Chill.”

Frank shrugged, eyes flicking to Illi for half a second before looking away.

“Dunno,” he muttered. “Got stuff.”

“You always have ‘stuff’ lately,” Mikey said, but not meanly. Just observant.

Frank didn’t answer. He just kept shredding the crust into tinier, useless pieces.

Illi didn’t say anything either.

Didn’t push. Didn’t nudge. Didn’t look.

Which made it feel even worse. Like she wasn’t just ignoring him—like she was letting him decide.

And he didn’t know what the hell to do with that.

Mikey finally filled the silence with some rambling about a movie they’d watched last week, already moving on, talking like he always did.

But Frank stayed quiet.

Because deep down, he already knew he was going over.

Even if he said no, even if he tried to stay away—he always ended up back there.

And Illi would be there too.

That was the problem.

That was always the problem.

The walk to Mikey’s wasn’t long. Frank kicked gravel most of the way, not really speaking. Mikey filled the quiet in the way he always did, rambling about something Ray had said in class or how their chemistry teacher probably sold meth out of his garage.

Frank laughed once. Maybe twice. It was easier that way. To pretend.

By the time they got to the house, the sun was still up but already beginning to drop low, casting long shadows across the lawn. The door creaked when Mikey pushed it open.

“We’re home!” Mikey called, not that anyone ever really answered. Their parents were rarely around, and if they were, it wasn’t like they gave a shit.

Frank stepped inside behind him, the same worn hallway, the same cluttered shoes by the door. The same feeling.

And then there she was.

Illi, sitting cross-legged on the couch, hoodie half-zipped, hair tucked behind one ear. A bowl of popcorn on her lap and the TV already on, volume low. She looked up when they came in, eyes catching Frank’s for only a second—just enough to twist his insides.

“You made it,” she said lightly, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like she hadn’t ignored him all day.

Frank didn’t respond, just dropped onto the armchair across the room, hoodie still on, bag dropped to the side.

Mikey flopped onto the couch next to her, stealing a handful of popcorn. “Ray said he’s coming in like twenty.”

Illi just hummed in response, eyes flicking to the screen again.

Frank pretended to be absorbed in whatever dumb action movie they were watching. Pretended he didn’t feel her looking at him sometimes. Pretended her knee didn’t barely bump Mikey’s and that Mikey didn’t glance between the two of them like he knew something he didn’t want to say out loud.

Everything felt normal.

Except it wasn’t.

Not really.

Because she was there.

And Frank was there.

And Ray wasn’t there yet.

So for just a few more minutes, they were all suspended in this strange in-between—Frank pretending he wasn’t watching her in the reflection of the blank part of the TV screen, trying not to think about that dream, or her lips, or the way his heart always beat weirdly around her now.

Trying not to think about anything at all.

“Shit,” Mikey muttered, pushing himself off the couch as his phone lit up. “Ray’s here. I’ll get the door.”

He didn’t even wait for a response—just disappeared down the hallway, footsteps fading toward the front of the house.

And then it was just them.

Again.

Frank didn’t know why it kept happening. Why they always ended up like this—alone, with air too thick to breathe and silence that felt loud enough to drown in.

Illi shifted slightly, resting her elbow on the arm of the couch, cheek in her palm as she glanced at him.

“You always look like you’re about to punch someone,” she said, voice low, like it was meant just for this moment. Just for them. “Even when you’re sitting completely still.”

Frank didn’t look at her.

He shrugged, fingers tightening on the edge of his hoodie sleeve. “Maybe I am.”

She laughed softly. Not mocking—just amused. Like she could see right through him and didn’t mind.

“You didn’t have to come,” she said after a beat, almost casual, eyes flicking back to the TV.

Frank shifted in the chair, jaw clenching.

“I didn’t come for you.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

It should’ve ended there.

But it didn’t.

Because something about the way she said it—calm, even, like she meant it but didn’t believe it—made his stomach twist.

He finally looked at her. Really looked at her.

Dark eyes. That same soft smirk that made him want to say something cruel just to wipe it off her face. The one he never could.

And she was beautiful.

Again.

Still.

That made his throat feel tight.

Frank didn’t answer. He didn’t know how. He just stared too long, like maybe that could be enough, like maybe she’d stop seeing through him if he just said nothing.

The front door creaked open again—voices, Mikey and Ray laughing about something.

Illi didn’t look away.

Not until the others entered the room.

And even then, she was still smiling.

Ray dropped into the room with a shout—loud as always, arms full of snacks he definitely didn’t pay for, his laugh echoing off the walls.

“Movie night just got awesome,” he grinned, tossing a bag of chips at Mikey and plopping himself on the floor beside the coffee table. “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing,” Mikey replied, ripping open the chips. “Frank’s pretending not to be having fun.”

Frank rolled his eyes and forced a smirk, leaning forward to grab a soda from the pile Ray had dumped onto the table. “I’m always having fun when you’re around, Ray.”

That earned a laugh from the group, and for a second, everything felt light again.

But only for a second.

Because she was still there.

Sitting back against the couch cushions, one leg tucked under her, the glow of the TV washing soft across her face. Illi looked calm. Like she didn’t notice how Frank hadn’t really spoken to her. Like she didn’t feel the pressure sitting under Frank’s skin.

But she did notice.

He knew she did.

And Frank couldn’t stop looking at her. Couldn’t stop hearing her voice from earlier, the low, breathy rhythm of it, like she wasn’t afraid of him, like she wasn’t worried what he thought—and maybe that’s what messed him up the most.

Everyone else looked at her like a question.

She didn’t even try to answer them.

And Frank? Frank didn’t even know what the fuck he was asking. Or feeling. Or running from. Just that something inside him had started shifting and he hated it. He hated that it was her doing it.

Illi glanced over suddenly, catching his eyes.

He looked away first.

Ray was talking again, but Frank couldn’t follow it. He nodded when Mikey spoke, mumbled something when asked a question, but mostly he just sat there and pretended.

Pretended he wasn’t sweating.

Pretended his heart didn’t skip weirdly when her knee bumped Mikey’s again.

Pretended the moment they’d been alone hadn’t happened—again.

Pretended she didn’t matter.

Even though she did.

And that was the worst part.

The movie started, something Ray picked—a ridiculous horror comedy from the early 2000s. Lots of fake blood and screaming. Mikey threw popcorn whenever someone on screen made a dumb decision, and Ray kept quoting lines before they happened like he’d seen it a hundred times.

Frank kept his eyes on the screen, but he wasn’t really watching.

He could feel her.

Not close, not touching—just there.

Every so often, Illi would laugh at something. Not loud, not attention-seeking. Just a quiet, breathy laugh that slid under his skin like a splinter.

Frank shifted on the couch. Crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. Slouched deeper.

It didn’t help.

Illi didn’t say much. She never did when Ray was around. She didn’t try to poke at Frank like usual either. Maybe that’s why he kept glancing her way. Waiting. Bracing.

She had her legs pulled up to her chest now, arms wrapped around them loosely, chin tucked against one knee. Her black-painted nails tapped absently against her shin as the movie played.

When the dumbest character ran straight into a wall of knives, Ray howled with laughter and Mikey shouted, “That’s YOU in a crisis, Frank!”

Frank smirked, gave him the finger. “You’d piss yourself first.”

Ray nearly choked on his soda laughing, and Mikey threw a pillow at him.

And through all of it, Illi smiled.

Not at anyone. Just…to herself.

And Frank hated how nice that smile looked.

How soft her face got when no one was watching her.

How that fucking smile lodged itself in his throat and sat there like guilt.

When the movie ended, Ray insisted on another—some sci-fi thing—and Mikey grabbed sodas from the fridge. Frank volunteered to help just to get out of the room.

“Okay,” Mikey said, opening the fridge and tossing Frank a can. “You good, or are you like...punching-a-wall good?”

Frank gave him a flat look. “I’m not twelve.”

Mikey just raised an eyebrow, popped his soda open.

Frank rolled his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Sure.” Mikey bumped the fridge door shut. “You gonna keep pretending you don’t care about my sister forever, or do I get to watch your brain implode from denial sometime soon?”

Frank almost dropped his can. “What the fuck?”

Mikey just laughed and walked back toward the living room like he hadn’t just lit Frank’s whole brain on fire.

Frank stood in the kitchen a second longer.

His pulse was loud.

Then he followed.

Illi was still curled up on the couch.

She didn’t look at him when he came back.

And somehow that was worse.

The second movie started, and the room filled with chatter and light again. But Frank felt like he was sitting underwater.

He kept his mouth shut.

Kept his eyes on the screen.

And kept pretending he didn’t feel like something was coming—something he didn’t know how to stop.

Illi didn’t know what Frank’s problem was. Not really.
But she could feel it.
The tension. The way he looked at her like he was trying not to. The way he didn’t speak to her anymore, not directly.

She didn’t push. Not tonight. Not when Ray was around, loud and funny and good at filling in every crack of silence. She liked Ray. Liked the way he made Mikey laugh until he snorted. Liked how easy it was to fade into the background when Ray was in the room.

Frank sat stiff on the couch beside her. Not touching. Not close enough to. But Illi could feel the awareness between them. It buzzed in the way he shifted, the way his knee bounced sometimes like he couldn’t settle.
She kept her arms wrapped around her knees, eyes on the screen. Smiled when things were funny. Quietly. She didn’t want to make a scene.

Frank never made her feel safe. Not really.
But he never made her feel unsafe either.
And that? That confused her more than anything.

Because once—just once—he stood up for her.

And she hadn’t forgotten that.

She didn’t ask him to.

She wouldn’t have dared.

But he had. And she’d watched him walk into that principal’s office like he was ready to scream, and now he couldn’t even look at her.

Not without flinching.

The second movie had started. Something space-y. She barely followed it. Ray was quoting everything. Mikey was halfway falling asleep next to the couch with chip crumbs on his hoodie.

Frank had gone quiet again.

Quieter than usual.

And Illi was so aware of it that it made her hands feel weird—fidgety. Her fingers picked at the seam of her jeans, quiet little pulls of thread between black-painted nails.

She hated how much she noticed him.

Hated that she could still feel his presence beside her when they weren’t even speaking.

And hated, more than anything, that even though he hadn’t looked at her for most of the night, her chest still tightened every time his eyes flicked her way.

She didn’t need him to like her.

Not really.

She just didn’t want him to hate her.

Because she didn’t hate him.

She wasn’t sure she ever could.

__

Things had kept going like they were.
Frank didn’t talk to Illi more than he had to.
Didn’t look at her if he could help it.
Didn’t sit too close, didn’t stay too long, didn’t let himself be around her without Mikey or Ray nearby.

Because it scared him.
Not her. Not really.

It scared him how normal it had started to feel.

How he caught himself listening to her voice even when she wasn’t talking to him.
How he knew her laugh from a room away.
How sometimes he caught the smallest glance she gave him and felt something sick and warm crawl up his throat.

So he avoided.
Like he always did.

Until the one time he couldn’t.

They were in Mikey’s room again.
Frank, Mikey, and Illi, all sprawled out on the floor because Mikey’s bed was too high to sit on and no one wanted to lean on the wooden bunk posts.

Mikey was flipping through something on his laptop. Some band’s live performance they were gonna try and go see next month if Mikey’s mom didn’t say no again.

Frank was only half listening.

He was on his side, elbow propping up his head, hoodie sleeve tugged over his hand.
Illi sat cross-legged next to him, way too close. Close enough that he could see the way her lashes curved, the smudge of eyeliner she hadn’t wiped perfectly, the faint pink sheen on her bottom lip.

And he was staring.

At her mouth.

For too long.

And then—
Panic.

His chest locked up like it’d been punched.
Like someone had reached down his throat and ripped out whatever breath he had left.

He blinked and looked away so fast his neck almost snapped.

“What?” Mikey asked, not looking up.

“Nothing,” Frank said, too sharp.
Too obvious.

He sat up, fast.
Wiped his hands on his jeans like he was trying to get rid of something.
Like the image of her wasn’t already burned into his brain.

Illi looked over at him, eyes soft and confused. Not smug. Not knowing.
That somehow made it worse.

Because she didn’t even realize what she was doing to him just by being.

Frank stood up. “I—I gotta go.”

Mikey looked up this time. “What? We haven’t even—”

“Homework,” Frank said quickly. “My mom’s gonna kill me if I bomb that math test again.”

It was a lie.
He didn’t even care about the class.

He just needed to get out.

Now.

He grabbed his bag, muttered some excuse under his breath, and left before either of them could say anything else.

His hands were shaking.
And he hated himself for it.

Frank’s room was too quiet.

He slammed the door shut behind him, kicked off his boots, and dropped his bag like it had personally offended him. It hit the floor with a heavy thud, but the sound didn’t fill anything. Didn’t help.

His hoodie came off next—ripped over his head and thrown somewhere across the room, landing halfway on the edge of his bed and dragging down a crumpled t-shirt with it. He didn’t care.

He just paced.
Paced like something was on fire under his skin.
Like if he stopped moving, it’d catch up to him.

He had stared at her.
At her mouth.
And he hadn’t even realized until it was too late.
Until his brain caught up to his body and started screaming.

He shoved both hands through his hair, yanked once at the roots. His lip ring clinked against his teeth as his jaw clenched tight.

“Fucking idiot,” he muttered. “Stupid. So fucking stupid.”

It was just a mistake. Just a glance.
She had chapstick on. Whatever. That didn’t mean anything.
It didn’t mean he liked her.
It didn’t mean he wanted—
He groaned. Loud. Threw himself onto his bed like maybe the mattress could break his spine and give him an excuse to not think anymore.

He’d rather take a broken back over this.

Because what was this?

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to him.
He liked girls.
He liked girls.

And Illi was—well, she was.
He knew she was. That wasn’t even the part he was confused about anymore.
It was everything else.

It was the way she used to piss him off and now he barely looked her in the eye.
It was how she laughed at shit that wasn’t even funny but he’d memorize the sound anyway.
It was the way she sat too close and smiled too easy and made him feel like there was a live wire in his chest just from being near her.

Frank groaned again and shoved his face into his pillow. Smacked his fist into it twice just because.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Why her?

Why Mikey’s weird, sharp-tongued, totally-fucking-different sister who used to be—

He stopped the thought before he could finish it.

He didn’t want to think about before.
He didn’t want to think about any of it.

She was a girl.
She was pretty.
And he was—God—he was staring at her mouth like he wanted to—

Frank rolled onto his back and covered his face with both hands, exhaling sharply through his nose.

He needed to sleep. Or scream. Or run away. Or never go back to Mikey’s house again.

But none of those were happening tonight.

So he just laid there. Breathing hard.
Trying not to think about Illi’s eyes.
Or her lips.
Or how fucking scared he was of all of it.

__

Frank was up and gone before either of them processed it.

The door swung shut hard enough to rattle something on the bookshelf. Mikey blinked, half a handful of gummy bears frozen mid-air above his mouth. Illi stared at the now-empty spot on the floor where Frank had been sitting—right beside her, close enough she could feel the shift in his breathing just before he bolted.

“What the fuck,” Mikey muttered. The gummy bears fell back into the bowl.

Illi didn’t answer right away. Her gaze lingered on the carpet like it had something written on it. Her fingers tugged at the hem of her sleeves, quietly, unconsciously.

“Did I miss something?” Mikey asked, sitting up straighter. “Like, did I say something? Did you say something?”

She shook her head. “No. He just got weird. I don’t know.”

“He’s always weird,” Mikey said, but there wasn’t the usual bite behind it. Just a growing frown. “That was, like… extra.”

Illi exhaled through her nose, arms folding across her knees. “Yeah.”

Mikey looked at her, waiting for more. When she didn’t say anything else, he leaned forward a little. “He wasn’t mean, right?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Not mean. Just… strange.”

“Frank strange or strange-strange?”

She hesitated. “He looked at me. For a long time.”

Mikey raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”

“Like—” She paused, brows knitting. “Like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. I don’t know. He looked at me and then it was like he couldn’t be in the same room anymore.”

Mikey sat with that for a second. Then, cautiously: “Did it bother you?”

Illi picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “I don’t think it’s about me,” she lied.

Mikey didn’t push. He just sighed and grabbed another handful of candy, tossing a few in her direction without a word. She caught one mid-air, just barely, and offered a ghost of a smile.

The movie kept playing, something bloody and ridiculous, but neither of them were paying much attention anymore.

Frank had left too fast, and left too much unsaid.

And the space he’d left behind still felt loud.

Chapter Text

__

Frank groaned as the knock came on his door, sharp and fast like a warning shot.

“Frank, get up,” his mom’s voice cut through. “We’re leaving in twenty.”

He buried his face into the pillow. “Seriously?”

“Now, Frank.”

He didn't answer. Just dragged himself up, slow and bitter. The room was cold, his bones felt heavier with every movement. The events of the night before weighed on his spine like bricks. He’d barely slept, thoughts gnawing at him like termites—Illi’s face when he left, the soft feel of the pillow in her lap, the way she had touched his hand without asking and how it didn’t make him flinch like it should’ve.

Frank pulled on black slacks he hated, the stiff white shirt, and that awful tie. His blazer was wrinkled from being shoved in the back of his closet. He didn’t care. He slipped on scuffed black dress shoes, not bothering to brush his hair down.

Downstairs, his parents were already waiting by the door. His mom eyed him disapprovingly. “You could’ve at least tried.”

He stared at her for a beat, then walked past without saying anything.

The car ride was silent. His dad drove, his mom scrolled through her phone. The only sound was the hum of the engine and the occasional turn signal. Frank sat in the back, arms crossed, head leaning against the cold glass of the window.

Church was worse.

Too bright. Too clean. Too fake.

He sat stiff in the pew between his parents, knees aching from the hard bench. The pastor talked about forgiveness. About sin and redemption. About guilt. Frank tried not to hear it. He stared at the floor, at the tips of his shoes, at the backs of heads.

It felt like everything was trying to remind him of something he couldn’t name.

Something that itched under his skin.

He kept thinking about the way Illi looked when she laughed, sharp and real. The way her eyeliner smudged a little at the corners by the end of the day. Her bracelets. Her stupid mint chapstick. The things that made her Illi.

And how none of this—none of this—fit inside whatever that feeling was.

He didn’t say a word the whole service. Didn’t say anything when they got back in the car. Just sat in the back seat again and wished he was anywhere else.

Anywhere that wasn't stuck in his own head.

They’d drown him in holy water if they could. Scrub the sin out of him like it’d never seeped into his bones.

Frank got home from church and went straight to his room, slamming the door a little harder than he meant to. Dress shirt half untucked, collar scratchy, shoes already ditched in the hallway. He flopped onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, lips tight.

He was grounded. Obviously. But in their rush to moralize and lecture, his parents had forgotten to take his phone.

The buzz came soft against his leg, and for a second, he thought maybe it was one of the guys. Ray, maybe.

Unknown Number:
“I hope your parents didn’t kill you. I’m not trying to bother you, I just didn’t want you thinking I didn’t notice. You looked at me. You don’t have to say anything. Just don’t lie to yourself :P”

Frank's stomach dropped.

Illi.

It was her.

He hadn’t given her his number. She must’ve gotten it from Mikey, maybe while he wasn’t looking. Maybe days ago.

He read it again. And again.

His phone sat heavy in his hand.

He didn’t answer.
But he didn’t block the number either.

He pursed his lips, staring at the screen until it dimmed, then lit up again as his thumb hovered over it. His eyes were glassy. He blinked hard, refusing to let anything fall, but it burned.

Being an only child meant the house was always quiet. Meant there was no one to take the heat off him when things exploded, no one to whisper jokes at the dinner table or hide with when their parents got mean about the wrong things.

It got pretty fucking lonely. Especially now. Especially when someone had noticed—really noticed—and it scared the shit out of him.

He set the phone on his nightstand, face down like that might shut it all out. Like that would make her words stop echoing in his skull.

He buried his face into his pillow and let out a shaky breath, jaw clenched.

He wasn’t going to cry.
He wasn't.

He grew up with the mentality that guys don’t cry. That they’re not supposed to. It had been drilled in early—by his dad’s silence, his mom’s disappointment, the way people looked at you like weakness was contagious. Crying was something you did alone, if ever. You swallowed it down, bit your tongue, and kept going.

And he believed it. Even now. Even after everything.

But Frank wasn’t ignorant. Not even close. He wasn’t oblivious to pain, to nuance, to people. He saw the way things cracked beneath the surface. He just didn’t know what to do with it when it was his surface, when it was his heart in the open.

He was just… real. That’s all. Real in the way where it hurt sometimes, in the way that made you quiet when it felt too loud inside. Real enough to know that the ache didn’t go away just because you ignored it.

He turned over, arm slung across his eyes, pillow pulled over his head.
Still not crying.
Still breathing like it didn’t hurt.

He’d spent all day doing nothing. Just laying there, staring at the ceiling until his eyes blurred or shifting from one side of the bed to the other like it made any difference. The hours dragged, heavy and slow, the quiet in the house making everything louder—his thoughts, the ticking clock, the creak of floorboards.

His phone stayed by his side, though he hadn’t gotten another message. Not that he expected one.

He dreaded waking up in the morning. Dreaded slipping into that stupid uniform and pretending to care about math or literature or whatever the hell else they wanted him to focus on. He dreaded walking into school and seeing them. Her. Pretending none of it mattered, like something inside him wasn’t still shaking.

Worse, he dreaded going straight home after, not being able to hang out, to breathe away from the tight air of this house. His parents had made it clear—he was grounded for two weeks. Two weeks of this.

Until his birthday.

Halloween.

He let that settle in for a second. Happy birthday to him.

Unfortunately, he woke up in the morning.

Eyes puffy, limbs heavy, and the air in his room too still. He rolled out of bed like it was a punishment in itself, tugging on the wrinkled uniform he’d left in a crumpled heap the night before. It smelled like dust and apathy.

He didn’t bother with breakfast. Didn’t even look at his parents.

The walk to school felt longer than usual. The cold bit at his fingers, the wind pulling at his sleeves like it wanted him to turn back. But he kept walking, head down, earbuds in though the music was off—just something to keep the world a little farther away.

He didn’t want to think about the texts or the dreams or the way Illi had looked with that stupid pillow in her lap, playing with his hand like it didn’t mean anything.

He didn’t want to think at all.

So he didn’t.

He just walked.

School smelled like floor wax and teenage regret.

Frank trudged past the front gates, half-expecting to feel everyone’s eyes on him, like they somehow knew he’d spent the entire weekend grounded, like they could smell the guilt and weirdness radiating off him. But no one looked. No one cared.

Except maybe Mikey. He was leaned against his locker, hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands, eyes flicking up as Frank approached.

"You look like shit," Mikey said, casual as ever.

"Thanks," Frank muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“You coming to lunch?”

Frank hesitated. His mind flashed to Illi. Her text. Her lips. Her nails, painted and chipped and beautiful. The way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

Mikey didn’t press. Just nodded like he knew anyway. “If you change your mind, same spot.”

Frank mumbled something noncommittal and made his way to homeroom. The halls were loud in a way that made his brain hurt. A blur of backpacks and sneakers and too much cologne. His seat was at the back, like always. No one talked to him, which was good. Because he didn’t have it in him to play normal.

His thoughts felt like static—Illi’s voice looping over and over in his head, the way she'd said “Even Mikey has my number,” like she didn’t care but kind of did. Like she was laughing it off but watching closely.

The worst part was that he wanted to text back.

He wanted to text back more than anything.

The bell rang.

Chemistry was next.

His stomach flipped.

He told himself she probably wouldn’t sit next to him again. Probably got the hint. Probably realized how fucked up everything was.

But when he got to the classroom, she was already there.

And of course—she was in his seat.

She looked up at him like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t been a total asshole.

Frank stood there, heart beating way too fast for something so stupid.

"You’re in my seat," he said, voice flat, trying to find that distance again.

She smiled, soft and unbothered. “Guess we’re partners now.”

And he couldn’t even argue.

Because he wanted to sit next to her.

Frank didn’t say anything. Just dragged the stool out with the metal legs screeching against the floor, dropping his backpack beside him with a thud. Illi already had her goggles on, pushed up slightly so they sat more in her hair than over her eyes. She looked stupid. And really, really pretty.

Mr. Davis clapped his hands once at the front of the room. “Alright, today we’re walking through the first part of the reaction series. No flames, just solutions, so if you blow something up, I’m assuming it’s intentional.”

A weak laugh spread across the room.

Frank slid the goggles on, adjusting the strap behind his head as Illi moved a beaker closer between them.

“You gonna do anything?” she asked, raising an eyebrow as she measured out the sodium carbonate with way too much confidence.

Frank shrugged. “You look like you’ve got it covered.”

She huffed, a little amused. “Just don’t knock anything over.”

He didn’t answer. Just watched her hands—small, ringed fingers steady as she poured the clear liquid into the beaker. The reaction fizzed softly, releasing a little puff of gas and a weird smell that made Illi wrinkle her nose.

She shoved the worksheet toward him. “Write the reaction down. I did the math.”

He stared at the sheet for a second too long. Then grabbed a pencil and started scribbling, barely legible.

“You have chicken scratch,” she muttered.

He rolled his eyes. “Sorry I’m not a fucking calligrapher.”

Their shoulders bumped once—barely. A stupid, meaningless thing. But Frank sat very, very still after it happened.

“Relax,” she said, more gently this time.

Frank didn’t look at her. His eyes were fixed on the bubbling beaker. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Illi blinked. “In class?”

“In my seat.”

She went quiet. The beaker fizzed out.

When he finally looked at her, her expression had changed. Still steady. But quieter.

“I’m not trying to mess anything up,” she said. “Okay?”

Frank stared at her goggles. At the way her lashes curled under them. “You already are,” he muttered.

Mr. Davis shouted something about safety protocols and a kid in the corner nearly dropping a graduated cylinder.

Frank didn’t move. He didn’t breathe for a second too long.

Illi just turned back to the table. Took notes.

And Frank sat there—still and silent—pretending like the stupid burning in his chest was just from the chemicals.

Frank had his head ducked, pencil moving across the worksheet in jerky, annoyed motions. He wasn’t doing it because Illi told him to—just… whatever. It was easier than arguing. And he wasn’t about to let her act like he couldn’t handle some basic reaction equations.

He wrote the last line, pausing to double check the math she’d scribbled next to it, then turned slightly in his seat to say something—

“BOO!”

Illi’s face was suddenly right there. Way too close. Her hands popped out on either side of his head like claws.

Frank yelled. It wasn’t dignified.

His stool scraped against the tile with a loud screech as he flinched back so hard he nearly toppled over. He grabbed the edge of the lab table to stop himself from going all the way down.

Illi was dying laughing, her goggles askew now, hair falling forward as she leaned against the table and snorted. “Oh my god, you should’ve seen your face.”

Frank's face was flushed all the way to his ears. “What the fuck, Illi—Jesus.”

“I barely did anything!” she grinned, tilting her head. “You’re just jumpy.”

“I’m not—” He stopped himself before he could sound even more defensive. “You almost killed me.”

“Totally worth it,” she said with a smirk.

Frank scowled and turned back to the table, brushing his hair out of his face and mumbling under his breath. But the side of his mouth was twitching like he couldn’t quite keep the smirk down.

She sat back on her stool, still watching him.

And Frank, despite himself, couldn’t help glancing at her again. Still trying to pretend it didn’t mean anything.

Frank kept his eyes on the worksheet, trying to pretend like his pulse hadn’t spiked. Like his knees didn’t feel a little shaky. Like he didn’t still smell Illi’s shampoo or whatever perfume she sometimes used—the soft kind that clung to her sleeves and made it even harder to not notice her.

“Are you gonna write the conclusion?” she asked after a beat, nudging his arm lightly with her pencil.

He exhaled slowly through his nose. “Already did,” he muttered, pushing the paper toward her without looking.

Illi glanced at it, then leaned down to read closer. Her elbow bumped his again.

He swallowed. Tapped his pencil against the table. She didn’t move away.

“Looks good,” she said after a second, sitting back. “You’re getting better at this.”

Frank rolled his eyes, lips twitching again. “I’m not bad at Chemistry.”

“You just don’t apply yourself,” she teased, kicking his boot under the table gently.

He couldn’t stop it this time—a laugh escaped him. Quiet. A little strained, but real. “You sound like every teacher I’ve ever had.”

Illi grinned, sitting up straighter, like she’d won something.

When the bell rang, it was loud and shrill and Frank stood too fast like it might help him escape whatever was happening in his chest. He grabbed his bag, slinging it over one shoulder.

“See you at lunch?” she asked, voice a little softer now. Like she didn’t want to scare him again, but not for the same reason as earlier.

He hesitated. Just a second. Then nodded. “Yeah.”

As he walked out into the hallway, the weight of everything came crashing back in. He hadn’t even remembered to keep his distance. Hadn’t told himself not to look at her or listen too hard to her laugh. He’d just… let himself exist near her.

It scared the shit out of him.

Frank pushed through the crowd, head low, hands shoved into his hoodie pocket. His ears were still pink.

It was getting harder to pretend none of it mattered.

Frank kept his head down as he walked, backpack slumped heavy on one shoulder, sneakers dragging a little more than usual. He couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t shut his brain up—like the moment in Chemistry had left some kind of crack open that wouldn’t close.

He liked not avoiding her. That was the worst part. He liked when she smiled at him, liked hearing her laugh, even if it was at his expense. It made him feel lighter. It made school bearable. It made his chest tight in the kind of way that felt… alive.

And then came the guilt.

He wasn’t supposed to feel that way. Not about her. Not about Mikey’s sister. Not about the girl everyone made a big deal about behind her back and sometimes to her face. He wasn’t supposed to want to sit closer, or miss her when she wasn’t around.

Frank chewed the inside of his cheek, slipping into the back row of his next class and slumping low in the chair. His hands fidgeted with the sleeves of his hoodie, pulling at loose threads, tugging them until they curled around his fingers like anchors.

Maybe he was broken. Maybe there was something wrong with him.

He stared blankly at the whiteboard as the teacher started rambling about something he didn’t catch. His leg bounced under the desk, and the whole room felt too quiet despite the noise.

What the hell was he doing?

Frank pressed the heel of his hand into his eye socket until stars sparked behind his eyelid.

He wanted to be near her, and he hated himself for it.

He hated it.

Hated that he kept checking the clock every five minutes, hated how his pencil hadn't moved in ten, hated how all he could think about was lunch—just to see her again. Just to hear her voice. Just to catch her looking at him the way she did sometimes, soft and curious, like she knew he was full of shit and didn’t care.

He slouched further in his seat, chewing his thumbnail now, mind running too fast and nowhere good.

Maybe he wished he saw her more.

God. Fuck. He did. And he hated that more than anything else.

Because what the hell did that even mean?

What was he supposed to do with that? That he thought about how her lips curled when she teased him, or how she always looked like she belonged in every moment, like she wasn’t trying to impress anyone but still managed to get under his skin more than anyone else ever had?

He squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head to the desk for a second, muttering, “Fuck,” under his breath.

He didn’t even want to repeat it in his head. Couldn’t say it out loud, not even to himself. Not the stuff that kept looping, that kept crowding his chest.

Because if he said it, it would make it real. And if it was real, he wouldn’t know how to live with it.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, low under the desk like the teacher wouldn’t notice. The screen lit up, and there it was—her message from the other day. The one he hadn’t answered.

Casual, like it wasn’t a big deal. But it was. At least to him.

He stared at it for a second. He didn’t know why he had waited so long to reply. Maybe he thought ignoring it would help everything settle down. Maybe he was scared she’d text back again if he answered. Maybe he just didn’t know what he wanted.

But now, something in him twisted. Something small and stupid and aching.

He held his thumb there for a second before finally tapping the emoji.
👍

That was it. No words. Not even a “yeah.” Just the dumb little thumbs up.

Late. Pointless. Kind of meaningless.
But not really. Not to him.

He locked the phone and dropped it onto the desk. Bit his cheek. Tried to pretend it didn’t make his chest feel lighter for a second.

The bell rang and Frank didn’t wait this time. He was already halfway out of his seat when the teacher was still calling out something about homework. The hallway buzzed loud as always—lockers slamming, laughter, sneakers squeaking against the floor—and Frank moved through it like he had somewhere important to be. Like he hadn’t spent all morning pacing his brain into pieces.

He found them outside, same spot as usual under the shade where Mikey liked to sit. Ray was already there, talking with his hands like always, and Illi was leaned back on her elbows, eyes squinting at the sun. Her lip was glossed again. Mint, he guessed. She looked up when she saw him.

“Hey,” she said simply, like she hadn’t noticed the emoji or how he'd gone quiet again. Or maybe she had, but she wasn’t going to make it weird.

Frank gave her a nod, sat down next to Mikey. His heart was kind of racing. Not like he was nervous, not exactly. Just... tuned in. Like everything felt a little louder around her.

He didn’t say much at first. Just peeled the wrapper off the sandwich he’d shoved into his backpack that morning, but his eyes kept darting. At her. At the way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. At her chipped nail polish when she opened her drink. The way she laughed at something Ray said.

And he hated it. Hated that this was starting to feel like routine. Like he needed this. Like being around her made everything feel a little easier to breathe.

Mikey started talking about a flyer he saw for another local show, something small at the skate park next week. Ray was in immediately, asking if they'd go. Illi just raised a brow at Frank, curious but quiet.

Frank shrugged, not trusting himself to say much else. He bit into his sandwich. Forced himself not to look again.

But he still did. Just once. Okay—twice.

Frank’s face flushed before he could stop it.

Illi had turned toward him when Ray and Mikey got caught up talking about which bands were actually worth seeing. She wasn’t saying anything—just watching him. And when he met her eyes, she smiled. Small. Like it wasn’t fully formed, like she didn’t quite get him either. Her brows pulled together in that soft, puzzled way she got sometimes, like he was something to figure out. Like she was trying to read him.

It wrecked him.

He looked down fast, pretending to wipe his hands on his jeans or check something in his bag—anything not to be seen. But the heat was already spreading across his cheeks and down his neck, and he knew she saw it. He could still feel her looking, even when he didn’t glance up.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He wasn’t supposed to feel like this. But the smile stuck with him anyway, all uncertain and quiet and weirdly intimate, like she knew exactly how much space she took up in his head.

Frank got home and collapsed on his bed face first, the weight of the day sinking into the mattress with him. He didn’t even bother changing or kicking off his shoes. The lights were still off, curtains drawn, and the stale air in his room clung to him like guilt. He had homework—he knew he had homework—but he didn’t care. Couldn’t bring himself to care.

All he could think about was her.

Illi. Her stupid smile. The way she looked at him at lunch like she could see through all the bullshit he tried to put up. The way it made him feel—like something sharp and soft at the same time. Like everything in him wanted to push her away and pull her closer all at once.

He groaned and flipped onto his back, pulling his phone from his pocket.

He told himself it was for the homework. That he just needed to get the assignment. That he’d copy it—yeah, right—just enough to turn something in. Everyone knew Frank Iero didn’t give a shit about copying homework. He didn’t care to do it at all.

But he stared at her contact for a long second—"Illi (Don’t Be Weird)"—and then finally typed:

“u get the chem homework?”

He hit send. Told himself again that’s all it was. Just homework. Just an assignment.

And totally not because he wanted to talk to her. Not because he missed her. Not because she’d smiled at him and it hadn’t left his head since.

His stomach twisted and churned like it was trying to tie itself in knots, flipping and flipping until he had to press a hand against it, grimacing. He chalked it up to bad food—some old pizza or whatever junk he’d shoved down during lunch. That had to be it.

Definitely not nerves.

Definitely not because he just texted Illi and was now lying in bed like a total idiot waiting for her to answer like his life depended on it.

He shut his phone fast, like he’d done something wrong. Tossed it onto the bed beside him but it didn’t land right, bounced once and landed screen-down near the edge. His heart was racing like he’d just outrun something.

Bad food. That’s all.

He flopped onto his side, burying his face into the crook of his arm, like that would make his brain shut up. It didn’t. It kept whispering things he didn’t want to name. Things that made his stomach flip all over again.

God. He was so screwed.

Frank stood up way too fast, heat rushing to his face like a goddamn flood. He rubbed at it, palms dragging down over flushed skin, then shoved his hands up into his hair until his elbows touched at the top of his head. He looked like he was trying to keep his skull from cracking open, pacing out of his room like the floor was on fire.

He walked down the hall with that dazed, scattered shuffle—like if he stopped moving he might start screaming. Or thinking. Or worse.

The kitchen tiles were cold under his socks, the kind of cold that usually grounded him. Not this time. He yanked open a cabinet and grabbed a glass like it had personally offended him, filling it with water from the tap and trying to drink it before his hands could shake enough to spill it all over himself.

The water didn’t help. His mouth was dry anyway. His face still burned.

He leaned against the counter, tapping the side of the glass with his finger. Dumb, dumb, dumb. He didn’t even know what he was waiting for. Her answer? Her not answering?

This wasn’t just about homework. It had never been about homework. And now, it felt like something in him was trying to claw its way out.

Frank nearly jumped out of his skin when his mom’s voice cut through the quiet.

“You okay?” she asked, and he flinched so hard he almost dropped the glass.

He turned, eyes wide, heart in his throat. “Jesus—Mom.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Language.”

He blinked, trying to play it off. “Sorry. You scared me.”

She stepped closer, squinting at him. “You look flushed. Are you coming down with something?”

Frank immediately took a big, performative gulp of his water. “No. I’m fine.”

“You sure? Your face is red.”

“I said I’m fine.”

She gave him that look—half skeptical, half suspicious. The one that said she wasn’t buying it but didn’t have the energy to press. “Well, drink more water. If you start feeling off, let me know. I can make tea.”

He nodded, maybe a little too quickly. “Yeah. Okay.”

She lingered for another beat before walking past him to grab something from the fridge. Frank stayed there, back to the counter, eyes glued to the glass in his hand like it could anchor him, like it wasn’t taking every shred of willpower to not check his phone.

He couldn’t tell his mom. God, no. How do you even explain something like that?

That there was this girl. A girl who wouldn't leave him alone, not in the way where she was annoying or clingy or loud—no, worse. In the way where she was always there. In his head. In his chest. In every damn quiet moment.

And she was perfect. Not like model-perfect, but real-perfect. In the way she talked with her hands and laughed from her stomach and sat too close without realizing it. In the way she made Frank feel like the ground beneath him wasn’t solid, like he might float away or crash straight through it. And it scared him. It really scared him.

Because he’d never felt anything like it for anyone. Never wanted to. Never had to.

And now there was Illi. Freak, weird, soft-voiced Illi with her chipped black nail polish and her stupid bracelets and her warm skin and the way she said his name like it was something soft. Illi, who was Mikey’s sister. Illi, who wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

Which—she didn’t.

He didn’t even like her.

He went back to his room, hands stuffed into the pockets of his hoodie like that would hold him together. His breath hitched—just once—as he shut the door behind him and leaned against it for a second too long.

Then he moved, automatic, like muscle memory was guiding him. Threw himself back onto his bed, the mattress creaking under the weight and frustration of it all. One arm draped over his eyes as if that would keep everything out. It didn’t.

His chest felt tight, his throat worse. He let out a shaky exhale that caught on the end, and for a second he was sure he might cry. He didn’t.

Instead, he reached for his phone, heart crawling into his throat like it already knew what it wanted.

He unlocked it.

No new messages.

He checked anyway. Just in case he missed something. Just in case she said something. Nothing.

Just the last thing he sent, sitting there like it meant something more than it was supposed to.

Frank stared at the screen like it might change.

It didn’t.

Frank hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep. One second he’d been lying on his bed, drowning in thoughts that wouldn’t shut up—thoughts about Illi, about how she looked at him, the way her lip curled when she smiled, the stupid bracelet she kept fidgeting with—and the next, his room was darker, heavier, quiet in that weird way things get after a nap.

His eyes cracked open. First thing he did was reach for his phone, the screen lighting up as he tapped it.

A pit bloomed in his stomach. No new notifications.

He checked anyway. Clicked into their messages.

Before he’d knocked out, before his body had just shut down from the emotional whiplash of the day, he’d sent her a message.

Just that. Like he didn’t care. Like it wasn’t an excuse to talk to her.

Which it wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

That’s what he told himself again as he stared at the screen, still lying flat on his back, thumb hovering like it might say something else if he tapped hard enough.

Just a question. Just homework. Nothing else.

Right.

He wanted a reply. God, he needed one. He didn’t even know why.

Well.
He kind of did.

He wanted to hear from her. That was the truth, no matter how many times he tried to bury it under a pile of excuses. Homework. School. Whatever. None of it mattered. Not compared to the way it felt when she smiled at him or leaned in close or just… looked at him like she saw something worth looking at.

Meanwhile, Illi was lying on her stomach across her bed, earbuds in, legs lazily kicking the air. Her sketchbook was open under her arms, the page half-full of something she hadn’t decided if she liked or not. A couple smudged lines, a shape she hadn’t committed to. The soft hum of her playlist buzzed in her ears as her pencil moved, loose and unbothered.

Her phone buzzed earlier, but she hadn’t checked. Figured it was Mikey or Ray or some school group chat.

It wasn’t until she paused the music—maybe just to shift her weight, maybe just a flicker of boredom—that she finally tapped her screen.

And saw his name.

Frankie!! 

“u get the chem homework?”

She blinked.

Sat up a little.

A smirk tugged at her lips.

Illi tilted her head, rereading the message.
So casual. So him.

She giggled, fingers flying over the screen as she typed back:
“yeah i understood it. you didn’t?”

She stared at it for a second, biting her lip before hitting send.

Frank's phone buzzed.

He froze.
Like the sound had struck him in the chest.

Heart suddenly pounding like it was trying to break out of his ribs, he scrambled to unlock his screen. The second he saw her name, his breath caught.

He read the message once.
Then again.

Then again.

And somehow—somehow—it made everything in his chest feel like it was trying to unravel at once.

Frank stared at the message for a second too long, thumbs hovering above the keyboard like this was some kind of test.

Then he typed:
“no not really"

Paused. Thought about deleting it.
Didn’t.

Hit send.

Then he tossed the phone on his bed like it burned to hold it, hands dragging down his face as he muttered, “Smooth, Iero. Real smooth.”

Frank picked his phone back up when it buzzed again.

“you should probably look at your notes again lol”

That was it. No offer to send the homework. No sugarcoating it. Just that.

He stared at it. Almost smiled.

Almost.

This girl was something. Not mean. Not fake. Not trying too hard. Just real.
She didn’t fall over herself to help him, didn’t act like she had to. She joked. She teased. And somehow, it made his chest feel too tight and his stupid stomach do that annoying flipping thing again.

He set the phone down slowly this time. Sat there with his hands between his knees, just… thinking.

He stared at the screen like it might tell him what to say. Like maybe if he looked hard enough, the right words would just form on their own.

But nothing did.

Because what did you even say after “look at your notes again lol”?
How do you keep talking to someone without making it obvious you want to? That you're trying?

He typed:
“yeah i probably should”

Then deleted it.

Typed again:
“i don’t even know if i took good notes lol”

Deleted that too.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, brows pulled together like this was some kind of pop quiz. Like keeping a conversation going with Illi McMillan was supposed to be easy—but for him, it felt like walking a tightrope blindfolded.

Eventually, he just sent:

“guess i’ll check”

It wasn’t good. Wasn’t clever or funny. But it was… something. Enough to maybe give her a reason to answer again.

God, he hoped she did.

Frank blinked.

The first picture made him recoil slightly. What the hell was that statue? He stared at it for a second too long, grimacing. It looked like something cursed. Like it was gonna crawl into his dreams and haunt him for the rest of his miserable life. He started typing:

“what the hell is that”

But before he could hit send, the second image loaded.
And just like that, his breath caught.

It was Illi. Sort of.

It wasn’t a cute selfie, not intentionally. It was weird and silly and completely her. A dumb angle, her face scrunched up, not trying to be pretty—just being goofy. But that was the thing. She was pretty. Stupidly so. Even with that dumb face and the way the light hit her in the most unflattering way, she still looked like herself.

And he hated that it made his chest do that thing again.

He ended up sending:

“ok wtf is that first pic i’m gonna have nightmares”

Then, after a long pause, fingers hovering—
“you look dumb”
Sent that too.
Deleted what he really wanted to say.

Illi’s phone buzzed again.

She turned her head lazily against her arm, grinning before she even looked. She had a feeling it was Frank. And she was right.

It was a picture—taken from that same ridiculous low angle. Frank’s face filled the frame. His expression was flat, unimpressed. He had his eyebrows raised like, really? His lip ring caught the light just a little, and his messy hair flopped into the top of the shot. He looked like he had leaned way back to get the worst angle possible.

Illi let out a small laugh. Not a giggle—an actual, dumbass kind of laugh.

She replied:

“you look so handsome”

Sent it. Immediately followed it with,

“jk you look like you’re about to ask me if I’ve heard the word of the Lord”

And then she waited. Grinning into her pillow.

Frank stared at her texts, lips twitching like he was trying not to smile.

Handsome.

Yeah, okay.

The second message made him actually huff out a quiet laugh through his nose. He typed, paused, backspaced. Thought about it too long before settling on,

“i was but u look like u’d slam the door in my face”

“also ur the one who sent me a pic lookin like a gremlin”

He laid back against his pillows, phone resting on his chest, staring at the ceiling.

God, she was annoying.

He kind of loved it.

Illi’s phone buzzed again almost immediately.

She grinned, fingers tapping quickly as she typed back,

“Only if you promise to sing hymns really loud"

A second message followed right after:
“Gremlin? rude. but okay, you’re the punk with the lip ring"

"guess that makes us both gremlins"

She waited, biting her lip, curious how Frank would fire back.

Frank’s phone buzzed again almost immediately. He read her message and couldn’t help but smirk.

“were both gremlins huh? what a nightmare lmaoo”

He paused, then added,
“but don’t get used to it"

"im still way cooler than u"

He hit send, lying back with a grin, waiting to see if she’d bite.

Illi’s phone buzzed again and she smirked at Frank’s message. She typed quickly, almost without thinking:

“Nightmare sounds about right"

"Can’t say I’m complaining"

Then, after a beat, she added,
“cooler than me? yeah shore I’m probably the reason you’re suddenly paying more attention”

She sent it before she could second-guess herself, a faint flush creeping up her neck.

Frank’s phone buzzed again. He read Illi’s message and felt that stupid twist in his chest again.

He typed back, fingers a little shaky but trying to play it cool:

“Yeah well dont get used to it"

After a pause, he added,

“Im still way out of ur league"

"gremlin"

Sent. Then stared at the screen like it might say something else back.

Illi didn’t reply with a quip this time. No teasing, no flirting—at least not on purpose.

Instead, she sent a picture of the drawing she’d been working on. It was still unfinished, pencil lines soft and sketchy, but it had her usual style.

A moment later, she texted,

"It's not done yet. Don’t flame it :p"

It wasn’t a bite back. It was something else—quieter. Comfortable. Frank stared at the drawing longer than he meant to, thumb hovering over his keyboard, unsure what to say but wanting to say something anyway.

It was a sketch of a vampire—tall, lean, fangs peeking out just slightly, eyes dark and sunken but still pretty in this cool, eerie way. Illi’s sharp style made it feel alive somehow, like the thing might crawl out of the page if she pressed harder with the pencil. Frank could already picture how rad it’d look once it was inked, with all those jagged lines and moody shadows she was so good at.

A beat passed. Then another. He finally typed:

"That’s sick as hell"

"u gonna finish it?"

He didn’t mean for it to sound so soft. But it did.

Illi replied a second later,

“Duh. He needs blood and a backstory.”

Then another message:

“I was thinking he’s the kind that only feeds on dudes who catcall”

And then, right after that:

“Totally unrelated to anything but if you ever catcall anyone I think I’ll kick you in the shin”

You could almost hear her tone through the text—half-joking, half-serious, but all Illi. Frank stared at the messages, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth before he could stop it.

Frank stared at the screen for a second, then typed:

“dam i was literally just abt to catcall u too"

He hit send, then immediately threw his phone on the bed like it was radioactive. His face was burning.

A second later, he grabbed it again and followed up with,

“not really"

"obviously i like my shins intact"

He rubbed his hands over his face and muttered, “What the hell am I doing…” but he didn’t stop texting her.

Illi replied with a photo first — the drawing again, zoomed in on the vampire's fangs, 

“he bites back”

Then a second message followed, like an afterthought.

“but you knew that”

Her quiet laugh slipped out, muffled by the pillow. Mikey looked down from the top bunk with a suspicious side-eye but said nothing, flipping his comic page a little louder.

Frank stared at the screen a little too long, thumb hovering like he didn’t know what to say—because he didn’t. He finally typed.

“what if i bite first”

Paused. Considered deleting it.

Didn’t.

Sent it anyway, then tossed the phone onto his bed like it burned him, sitting up with his hands on his head, muttering to himself, “What the fuck is wrong with me.”

Illi’s reply came fast. Too fast. Frank flinched when the notification buzzed again.

“bro why are you trying to start a vampire turf war rn”

Then another,

“you bite me i bite back"

"simple math 🧛‍♀️🧛”

And one more, because of course she couldn’t stop there.

“also ew you're gross don’t talk to me”

Frank stared at the last message, a grin pulling at his lips before he could stop it. His fingers hovered over the screen, still warm from holding back a laugh.

Frank typed back.

“u are not a vampire u literally eat pop tarts and cry during sad movies”

Three dots blinked immediately.

Illi sent,

“that’s vampire culture actually”
“emotional depth, refined palate, sun allergy.”

Then, just to really seal it,

“plus i’ve never seen you and dracula in the same room sooo 🤷‍♀️”

Frank snorted, almost dropped his phone. She was so dumb. And kind of funny. And kind of—
No. Whatever. She was Mikey’s sister.

Frank chuckled as he typed:

“vampire poser"

"wear it like a badge”

He sent it, already expecting her to fire back.

Almost instantly, her reply appeared:

“poser? nope i'm the real deal”

Before Frank could type another word, Illi’s message popped up.

“I’m gonna get ready for bed. Goodnight, Frankie!!!!!! Don’t let them suck your blood................”

Frank stared at the screen for a moment.

“Night”

He set his phone down, then lay back on his bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. A goofy, uncontrollable smile spread across his face—like some teenage girl caught in a daydream he wasn’t ready to admit to.

Frank tried not to think about Illi being Mikey’s sister, or how strange she was, or how much he told himself he didn’t like her. Because, he didn’t. Sure, she was funny and alright to talk to—but liking her? Not really.

Illi was quietly giggling into her pillow when Mikey swung his legs off the top bunk and climbed down. As he passed her, he shot a curious look her way and asked,
“What’s so funny?”

Illi buried her face in the pillow, trying to hold back the giggles slipping through.
“Nothin’,” she mumbled, voice muffled but shaky.

Mikey glanced over with a smirk. “Is it Frank?”

She shook her head, cheeks coloring just a little. “Can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

He raised an eyebrow, amused. “Come on, Illi. You can’t just be mysterious and not spill”

She grinned, biting her lip. “Maybe. Not today.”

Mikey squinted his eyes, shaking his head. “Your secret’s safe… for now.”

The next morning, Illi pushed open the school doors with a bounce in her step she couldn’t hide. From the moment she stepped into the crowded hallways, a smile tugged at her lips—soft, easy, and stubbornly stuck there.

She weaved through groups of students, her hazel eyes sparkling as whispers and glances swirled around her, but none of it mattered. Today, nothing could shake the quiet joy that had settled inside her chest, a feeling so unfamiliar it made her heart beat a little faster.

Even when someone called out the old name—loud enough for a few heads to turn—Illi barely blinked. Her smile only grew wider, like she was carrying some secret warmth no one else could see.

Illi strolled past a group of kids clustered near the lockers, her smile bright and wide—as if today was the best day she’d ever had. The group stared back at her, some with confused looks, others barely hiding their judgment. Not a single one smiled in return.

She didn’t care.

With a lightness in her step, Illi made her way to her first period, pushing through the dull routine and getting it over with. But it was in Chemistry where the glow really took hold.

She weaved through the rows of desks until she reached the seat beside Frank’s. Sliding in quietly, she settled herself, practically beaming as she waited for him—her eyes flickering to the door every few seconds, hoping he’d show up.

Minutes later, the classroom door swung open and Frank stepped in. His hair was messy as usual, his red tie hanging loose around his neck, blazer slung casually over one shoulder. His white shirt was wrinkled, like he’d just rolled out of bed.

He made his way to the back of the room, eyes flicking over the scattered students until they landed on Illi, sitting beside his desk, her smile impossible to miss.

He paused, then slid into the seat next to her. For a moment, he said nothing, pretending not to notice the way her grin stretched wider, like she was holding onto some secret happiness.

Finally, he broke the silence with a low, “Hey.”

Illi smiled back softly. “Hi.”

They settled into the lesson, eyes on the teacher as the chemistry experiment unfolded in front of them. Illi’s attention was mostly focused, but every now and then, a quiet chuckle would escape her lips—small and barely noticeable, like she was remembering some private joke only she knew.

Frank caught her laughing once or twice and glanced over, confusion flickering across his face. It threw him off. Illi McMillan was weird, he thought. But… maybe not in the way he’d expected.

While Frank was grounded, the days blurred into each other, each one marked by the dull routine of being stuck at home. He told Ray and Mikey about it and that if he tried to sneak out again, he'd be in deep shit—so no hanging out after school for the next two weeks. It wasn’t exactly the news they wanted to hear, but they understood.

What kept the time from dragging too painfully slow was the constant ping of his phone. Illi. They’d text back and forth, sometimes about nothing at all—music, stupid jokes, or weird doodles she’d snap pictures of. Other times, their conversations dipped into more serious territory, things neither of them said out loud but shared in typed words.

Frank wasn’t sure when it started, exactly—the way his chest would tighten a little when her name popped up on the screen or how he found himself waiting for her replies more than he wanted to admit. Even though he told himself it was just because he was bored, or because Illi was Mikey’s sister and therefore unavoidable, there was something about those texts that felt… different.

The two weeks flew by faster than he expected, filled with quiet moments and stolen conversations between classes or late at night when the house was dark and still. And through it all, Illi’s messages were like a lifeline, pulling him out of his own head when he needed it most.

Frank was sprawled across Mikey’s bedroom floor again, fingers pulling at the frayed ends of the carpet as he leaned against the side of the bed. His grounding was finally over, and he wasn’t about to waste a second of freedom. Ray was next to him, a Coke can resting by his knee, and Illi sat cross-legged across from them with her sketchbook open but ignored, the pencil in her hand just something to fidget with.

They were talking about birthdays. Mostly Frank’s—he was going to be seventeen in exactly two days.

“Seventeen sounds fake,” Frank said, voice flat but amused. “Doesn’t even feel like I’ll be older.”

Mikey shrugged, sitting on the bed above them with his legs dangling off the edge. “Seventeen’s whatever. Doesn’t come with any perks.”

“You can watch rated R movies by yourself legally,” Ray said, smirking as he nudged Frank’s arm.

“I’ve been doing that since I was like ten,” Frank shot back.

“I know,” Ray replied. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t illegal.”

Illi glanced up from her sketchbook, a grin playing at her lips. “I think seventeen's cool. It sounds... I don’t know. Like a grown-up number. Less like a fake teenager number.”

Frank raised an eyebrow at her. “What the hell is a fake teenager number?”

She shrugged. “Thirteen’s a fake teenager number. Fourteen too. Sixteen is like, overhyped. But seventeen sounds like—‘I survived this long. Respect me.’” She giggled, twirling the pencil between her fingers. “You’ll see.”

Frank was trying not to look at her too much, especially with how easily she smiled when she talked. But it was hard not to. “You’re seventeen, though.”

Illi nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be eighteen in April.”

“That makes you older than me,” Frank said, then looked at Mikey. “Older than you too.”

Mikey groaned. “Yeah, she’s ancient. My parents waited a year to put her in school so we’d be in the same grade.”

Frank blinked, looking back at her. “Wait—seriously?”

Illi nodded again, more reserved this time. “Yeah. I was ready for school, but they didn’t want to separate us. So I stayed home an extra year.”

Frank hummed. “Huh.” He let the thought roll around in his head for a moment, then muttered, “Weird.”

“What, that I’m older?” Illi tilted her head, smile twitching again.

He looked down. “Yeah. You don’t act like it.”

She threw a pillow at him.

Ray laughed as Frank dodged, barely, the corner of it still catching his shoulder. Mikey just shook his head from the bed above.

“You’re still a baby,” Illi said, smirking.

Frank narrowed his eyes. “I turn seventeen in two days.”

“Exactly. Baby for forty-eight more hours.”

Frank muttered something under his breath, something that made Ray laugh again, and Illi grin wider.

The room was warm, full of dumb jokes and the soft hum of a playlist playing through Mikey’s speakers. For a moment, Frank didn’t think about how complicated everything felt. He didn’t think about how Illi was Mikey’s sister, or how he wasn’t supposed to like her. He just sat there with his friends, counting down the hours to his birthday, and letting himself smile. Just a little.

__

Chapter Text

__

The days slipped by faster than Frank had expected. Now, here he was—Halloween morning, his birthday. Seventeen.

He stirred awake, eyes heavy and unfocused, staring up at the cracked ceiling of his room. The gray light filtered through the blinds, casting long lines across the walls. A Friday. Not the worst day to have school, but still — it was his birthday.

He didn’t want to go.

Birthdays were a scam, he thought bitterly. A loud reminder that time was moving too fast, dragging him toward some grown-up version of himself he wasn’t ready to meet. Growing up felt gross—awkward, confusing, and full of things he didn’t want to face.

So he stayed still for a moment longer, pulling the blanket closer and wishing the day away.

Eventually, Frank rolled out of bed and trudged toward the bathroom. The thought of putting on his stupid, wrinkled uniform—the one his mom always nagged him to iron—made his stomach twist. Something about “representing the family,” she’d say, like the crease in his blazer and crooked tie actually mattered to anyone.

He didn’t care.

He pulled the blue blazer on over his white button-up, snagged the red tie from the chair, and tied it quickly, leaving it a little loose. The black pants were stiff and itchy, but he shoved his hands into the pockets and tried not to think about it.

In the bathroom mirror, Frank brushed his teeth with half-hearted strokes, then splashed cold water on his face. He dragged his fingers through his brown, messy hair, trying to make it look less like a rat had just run across it. A little water, a few shakes, and it was as good as it was going to get.

Frank stepped out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, the soft morning light casting long shadows across the linoleum floor. His parents were already there, sitting at the table with their usual forced smiles. The moment they saw him, their faces brightened—like they’d been waiting for this exact second.

“Happy birthday, Frank!” His mom stood up and moved toward him, arms open wide.

Before he could say anything, she pulled him into a quick, tight hug, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Seventeen, huh? Nothing really special about it. Just another year. Nothing really different from sixteen.”

Frank didn’t argue. Seventeen wasn’t special. Not to him. It was just another number, another day on a calendar that didn’t care how he felt. The way his mom said it—like it was no big deal—only made it worse. Seventeen was supposed to mean something, right? Supposed to feel like you were almost an adult, like the world was waiting for you to step up. But to Frank, it felt empty. A pointless checkpoint in a race he never wanted to run.

He thought about all the expectations people put on birthdays—the presents, the parties, the “happy birthday” wishes from people who barely knew him. But deep down, none of it mattered. Growing up was just a slow, clumsy shuffle toward more responsibilities, more rules, more disappointments.

He could already feel the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders.

Sitting down at the table, he kept his eyes low, tracing a crack in the paint on the wall as his mom fussed over making pancakes and his dad hummed some song on the radio. They meant well, but Frank wished they’d just let it be a normal day. No fuss. No expectations.

Because for him, seventeen wasn’t special at all. It was just another day to get through.

Frank’s birthday morning felt awkward from the start—like he was a reluctant actor shoved onto a stage he didn’t want to be on. The small stack of gifts on the kitchen table looked neat enough, wrapped in glossy paper with shiny bows, but they didn’t spark any real excitement inside him. When his parents launched into their version of the birthday song, their voices off-key and loud, Frank managed a tight smile, appreciating the effort but feeling every second stretch awkward and unfamiliar.

He sat there eating pancakes that were more syrup than substance, chewing slowly as his parents peppered him with questions. “So, any plans for today? Want to invite friends over? What about a party this weekend?” Their voices droned on, but Frank barely heard them.

His thoughts drifted, zoning out beneath the weight of their expectations. He wasn’t interested in parties or presents, not really. He didn’t want to plan some big celebration or pretend he was thrilled. The whole thing felt forced—like he was ticking off boxes instead of living.

Still, he answered them with half-hearted grunts, trying to seem polite even as he felt a rising frustration bubble beneath his calm exterior. He just wanted the day to pass quietly, to slip by without too much fuss or attention.

When the questions finally slowed, and the pancakes were gone, Frank pushed his plate away, hoping the rest of the day wouldn’t be as uncomfortable as this morning had been.

Frank barely registered his parents’ voices the first time they asked about party plans. He just wanted to get through breakfast without the questions drilling into him. But when the same questions came again—more pointed this time—he sighed and muttered, “I’m probably just gonna go to Mikey’s.”

His mom’s eyebrows knit together, like that wasn’t good enough. “Frank, you’re seventeen. You should have a proper birthday party. Invite your friends, celebrate a little.”

His dad nodded in agreement, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s not every day you turn seventeen.”

Frank felt the weight of their expectations press down harder. He didn’t want a party. He didn’t want to be the center of attention or deal with all that noise and fake smiles. But pushing back wasn’t worth the fight this morning. So, after a long pause and a shrug, he said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll tell my friends.”

His mom smiled, clearly pleased. “That’s my boy. We’ll help you plan it.”

Frank nodded, already thinking about how he’d rather be anywhere but here, surrounded by people expecting him to be excited.

They decided to set the party for the day after—Saturday. Frank didn’t want to plan a thing. Honestly, if his parents wanted to handle all the details, fine by him. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be shit happening.

Dragging himself through the morning routine, he finally made it to school. At his locker, he yanked it open and started rummaging through the clutter inside—old notebooks, half-empty pens, a wrinkled flyer for some school event he didn’t care about. The noise and buzz of students filing past barely registered as he kept his head down, trying to ignore the weight of everything waiting for him outside this small metal box.

Frank slammed the locker shut—harder than he meant to—and whirled around, eyebrows knitting in surprise.

There, standing just behind the locker, was Illi, her usual mischievous smile lighting up her face like she’d just caught him in some secret.

“Hey,” she said softly, tilting her head like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Frank blinked, caught off guard. He wanted to look annoyed, push her away, say something sharp—but instead, all he could manage was a stiff nod.

Illi didn’t say anything more. Just kept smiling, that easy, calm kind of smile that somehow made the crowded hallway feel a little less heavy.

Illi held his gaze for a moment before breaking into a soft smile. “Happy birthday,” she said quietly, holding out a small box. It wasn’t neatly wrapped—just plain brown paper folded over and taped—but it looked like she’d tried.

Frank stared down at the box, then back up at her. “Thanks,” he muttered.

He hesitated a moment, then asked, “Should I open it now?”

Illi shrugged, a little grin tugging at her lips. “Only if you want.”

Frank nodded and slipped the box into his backpack, the weight of it somehow grounding him. “I’ll check it later.”

She smiled again, then turned to head down the hall, leaving Frank standing there with his thoughts swirling and something unfamiliar—maybe hope—settling quietly in his chest.

At lunch, Frank made his way over to where Illi and Mikey usually sat. Today, Ray was there too.

Mikey looked up as Frank dropped his tray down and grinned. “Happy birthday, man.”

Ray nodded, giving a quick, “Yeah, happy birthday.”

Frank shrugged, trying to keep it casual, but the small nod of appreciation was there. He slid into the spot next to Illi, who gave him a quiet smile that felt like a secret between them.

For once, the noise of the cafeteria didn’t seem so loud, and the awkwardness of the day softened just a little.

The chatter around the table was familiar, a mix of Frank’s sharp-edged remarks, Illi’s dry sarcasm, Ray’s quick jokes, and Mikey’s laid-back humor weaving together like a weird, comfortable rhythm.

“So,” Ray started, grinning as he poked at the fries on his tray, “Frank, you finally gonna have that party your parents are buzzing about? Or are you gonna bail and leave them hanging like always?”

Frank rolled his eyes, voice low but clipped. “Yeah, sure. I’m gonna throw the biggest, most epic party the school’s ever seen. Complete with fire-breathing dragons and unicorns.”

Illi snorted, smirking. “I’d RSVP just for the dragons.”

Mikey laughed, nudging Frank. “Come on, man. You gotta admit, it’s kind of cool they care enough to make you do it.”

Frank scowled, but there was something soft in his eyes. “I don’t need a party to know I’m turning seventeen.”

Illi leaned forward, voice teasing but gentle. “Maybe you just need the right people around to make it not suck.”

Frank glanced at her, caught off guard by the sincerity buried beneath her usual weirdness. “Yeah, well. We’ll see.”

Frank shrugged, voice rough but casual. “It’s tomorrow. Saturday night. If you guys wanna come.”

Illi’s eyes lit up, a small smile playing on her lips. “Count me in. Wouldn’t miss it.”

Mikey grinned, nodding. “Yeah, same here. Gotta celebrate the big one.”

Ray stretched, looking between them. “Well, I’m not one to say no to free food and bad music. I’m there.”

Illi poked at her food with a little grin, Mikey was animatedly talking about some new bass riff he’d been working on, and Ray tossed in a joke that made Illi snort-laugh.

Frank was half-smiling, mostly watching them, feeling the weight of his birthday but trying not to make it a thing.

The bell started to clang in the distance, slow at first, then louder.

Frank glanced at his tray, then back up, shrugging.

“Hey, I’ll probably swing by later,” he said, pushing his half-eaten sandwich aside. “We can rot in your room again. Play some shit loud, maybe scare the neighbors.”

Mikey grinned, eyes lighting up.

“Hell yeah. We’ll make it a thing.”

Illi nodded, still smiling like the world was a little less heavy today.

Ray threw a casual glance at the clock.

“Better get moving before they kick us out.”

They gathered their things as the bell echoed once more, a signal that the day kept rolling on — but at least, for now, they had this.

Frank headed straight to Mikey’s after the final bell, cutting through the cold October air, blazer stuffed in his backpack and tie already half-off. The whole “birthday” thing had started to fade from his mind by the time he got to the familiar front steps. He knocked once and let himself in like usual.

Upstairs, Mikey’s room was dim like always — blinds down, posters everywhere, the same scratched-up carpet Frank had probably spilled soda on three separate times. Illi was already there, curled up on the floor in a hoodie that definitely wasn’t hers, some horror movie paused on the screen. Ray sat cross-legged by the bed with a bag of chips between his knees.

Frank didn’t say much when he walked in. Just dropped his bag, kicked off his shoes, and flopped down next to Illi with a sigh.

“Happy birthday, loser,” she said, poking his arm.

Frank smiled a little. “Thanks. I hate it.”

Mikey tossed him a soda from across the room. “Seventeen’s the new sixteen.”

“Seventeen’s nothing,” Frank muttered, cracking the can open. “Feels exactly the same except now everyone keeps asking me if I’m having a party and if I’ve ‘figured it all out yet.’ Like I’m supposed to have a PowerPoint ready or something.”

They all laughed. The movie played in the background, mostly ignored as they drifted between conversations about costumes they didn’t wear, shitty candy, and horror movies that actually held up.

Somewhere between topics, Frank’s phone buzzed. He checked it — a text from his mom.

Mom: Hey sweetie, when are you planning on heading home?

He stared at it for a second, thumb hovering over the screen. Then he sighed.

“They want to know when I’m coming home.”

“You can say never,” Illi said, turning toward him, her cheek against the carpet.

“Yeah,” Frank said, smirking. “Maybe I just live here now.”

Ray nodded. “We could build you a nest in the closet. Very vampire-core.”

Frank rolled onto his back, stretching, the cold soda can balanced on his stomach. “They’ll live. I’ll go home when the sun sets or whatever.”

“Very dramatic,” Mikey said, tossing a pillow at his head.

Frank grinned, not moving to dodge it. He kind of liked it here — the mess, the noise, the way time didn’t feel real. Maybe birthdays weren’t so bad, as long as he could spend them like this.

Later that night, the lights were off except for the blue flicker of the TV screen, casting strange shadows across Mikey’s room. A blanket was draped across Frank and Illi’s laps, a half-empty bowl of candy resting between them. Wrappers were scattered all over the floor — fun-sized chocolates, sour stuff, a couple of lollipops no one wanted.

“Why is everyone in this movie walking like they’re hypnotized?” Frank asked around a mouthful of gummy worms.

“Because it’s Suspiria,” Illi said, like that explained everything. “It’s not supposed to make sense. It’s just vibes.”

“It’s like watching a fever dream,” Ray muttered from where he was camped out against the dresser, legs stretched. “But, like, in Italian.”

“That’s the whole point,” Illi said. Her eyes hadn’t left the screen. She was leaned forward a little, totally absorbed. “You’re not supposed to think, you’re supposed to feel it. It’s all the color and the music and—”

“—and the completely unhinged screaming?” Frank said, raising an eyebrow just as a character on-screen let out an ear-piercing wail.

“Yes. Exactly.” She grinned. “You get it.”

Frank shook his head but smiled, chewing slowly as he slouched further into the pile of pillows and blankets behind them. Their shoulders bumped gently when Illi shifted to grab another piece of candy. He didn’t move.

Mikey, curled up in the desk chair like a cat, had gone quiet, probably half-asleep with his hoodie pulled over his face. Ray was still making sarcastic commentary every few minutes, but softer now — the way people talk when it’s late and no one wants to admit they’re getting tired.

Frank looked over at Illi again, who was mouthing some of the lines. Of course she knew them. Of course this was her favorite movie. He didn’t really get it, but he liked watching her watch it.

“I like it,” he said suddenly.

Illi looked over. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Not the movie. I mean, like… this. Being here. With you guys.”

Illi blinked, then smiled like she meant it all the way to her ears.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

And they sat there, candy between them, the glow of Suspiria playing across their faces. No one said much after that. They didn’t really need to.

It scared him. Really scared the shit out of him that everything felt so okay when he was with Illi.

Not just okay — but easy. Like he didn’t have to try so hard to be funny or sharp or interesting. Like he could just exist next to her, shoulder to shoulder under a shared blanket, watching some insane Italian horror movie she probably knew every frame of.

Yeah, Mikey and Ray were cool. His friends. His people. But Illi was… different.

Weird.

Not in the way people at school said it — not like an insult. She was weird, sure, but in a way that made Frank feel less insane about his own brain. She’d laugh at shit no one else noticed, say things that made no sense but somehow landed just right. And when she looked at him — really looked at him — it wasn’t like she was trying to figure him out.

She already had.

That’s what scared him. That she could sit next to him like it was nothing, candy in her hand, pinky brushing against his, and he’d feel… calm. Safe, even.

He wasn’t used to that.

He glanced over at her again, watching the way her eyes lit up at the red-drenched scene on screen, like it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

She was weird. And he liked her way too much.

Chapter Text

__

School dragged on like it always did—endless periods under fluorescent lights, teachers droning on while they sat in stiff blazers and ties that felt like nooses. But every day, once the final bell rang, they’d meet up and head to the Way-McMillan garage. It became their little sanctuary—walls lined with amps, wires everywhere, scribbled lyrics taped to the walls. Their instruments stood waiting for them like old friends.

They practiced the song every day after school, tweaking lines, changing chords, and getting more confident with every run-through. Illi had stopped saying she couldn’t sing. She still looked unsure sometimes, but she sang anyway—loud, raw, and weird in a way that worked. Frank never said it out loud, but he thought her voice sounded like something scraped out of his ribs—strange and true.

School days felt longer than ever. Lunch was still theirs—filled with inside jokes and stolen fries, weird looks from other students who never quite figured out what to make of the four of them. The weirdest looks were always for Illi—just for existing like she did, unapologetically offbeat, never flinching under the weight of it.

It was almost winter break. Just one more week. They were all counting down the days—every class, every dragged-out morning was one step closer to more time in the garage, more time being who they actually were.

Yeah, Illi always understood what was going on in Chemistry. She just didn’t care. Or maybe she did, but not in the way the school wanted her to. Frank never understood it—atoms and formulas and why it mattered if a covalent bond was this or that. He didn't even copy enough homework to stay afloat, scraped through labs with guesses and half-effort.

Their teacher was the kind who liked making an example out of people. He walked through the rows, placing tests face down like he was laying gravestones, and in a sense, he was. When he got to Illi’s desk, he dropped hers with a little extra force. Frank’s landed on his desk with less drama.

Illi flipped hers over immediately and grinned when she saw the big, red F at the top. She didn’t even look surprised. Almost cheered, like failing was some sort of win. Frank stared at his own test—C. Somehow. He didn’t know how he managed that. He looked over at Illi.

“Dude,” he whispered, tilting his paper toward her. “How the hell did I pass and you didn’t?”

Illi just smiled, biting into the corner of her paper like it was a snack. “The trick is aiming for disappointment.”

Frank blinked at her. Then just nodded, like—yeah. Okay. That tracked.

They had a lab that day—some final experiment the teacher called a “fun wrap-up” before winter break. He said the rest of the week would be for catch-up work, and the last day before break they’d watch a movie. A mercy offering before sending everyone off into two weeks of semi-freedom.

Frank and Illi pulled on the foggy, scratched-up goggles from the bin. The lab table smelled like bleach and melted plastic. Their assignment had something to do with mixing liquids and observing reactions, but the instructions were vague, like even the teacher didn’t care anymore.

Illi tilted a beaker filled with a pale yellow liquid and squinted at it.

“Bet you won’t drink it,” she said, grinning like a feral cat.

Frank scrunched his face. “It looks like radioactive piss.”

“That’s not a no.”

He stared at her. Then the liquid. Then back at her. He had the backbone of a cockroach when it came to backing down from a challenge—especially when Illi was smirking at him like that. He grabbed the beaker, lifted it, and took a sip.

It was warm. And metallic. And awful.

He gagged, set it down, and covered his mouth like he was about to combust from the inside out. His eyes were wide like something was already mutating.

Illi burst out laughing. Loud enough to turn heads. “Oh my god, you're so stupid. Why would you actually do it?”

Frank coughed. “You dared me!”

“I didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to actually do it,” she snorted, wiping tears from her eyes.

He leaned on the table, dramatic. “If I start glowing, you better make it look like an accident.”

“You start glowing and I’m selling tickets,” she said, still grinning.

“Fair.”

Frank was laughing too, wiping the corner of his mouth with his sleeve and shaking his head like he couldn’t believe he actually drank it. Which, to be fair, he couldn’t.

They kept going with the lab, trying to take it seriously but quickly slipping into their usual rhythm of small, harmless bickering.

“No, that one goes in first,” Illi said, reaching over to grab a small vial out of his hand.

Frank pulled it away, holding it above his head. “No, it doesn’t, I read the instructions. It literally says this one first.”

“You’re reading it wrong. Give it.”

“Give me a second,” he argued, dragging the paper over with his other hand and holding it to her face. “Look—‘add solution B to solution A.’ This is solution B.”

Illi didn’t even blink. She reached over, plucked the instructions from his hand, scanned them, then smirked.

“This is solution C, genius.”

Frank froze, looked at the label, then at her, then let out a breath through his nose. “I hate that you’re always right.”

“You don’t hate it,” she said, smug, and grabbed the correct beaker.

He muttered something under his breath that made her laugh again.

They got back to work, shoulders bumping occasionally as they leaned over the same notebook, their voices low and snappy in that way only people who actually liked each other could manage.

Eventually, the bickering started up again—something about how long to heat the mixture and whether the beaker should be moved off the flame. It escalated fast, as usual.

“You literally don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Frank said, pointing the stir rod at her like it was a sword. “Just admit I’m right this one time.”

Illi raised an eyebrow. “Frank, if I let you be right once, you’d explode from the dopamine. I’m saving your life.”

“Oh my god, you’re insufferable,” he groaned, dramatically dragging a hand down his face.

She leaned over the table, grinning. “Say that again. Louder. For the people in the back.”

Instead, Frank stuck his tongue out at her.

Illi immediately mirrored him—hers sharper, nose scrunched further.

Frank exaggerated his, scrunching his nose further.

Illi snorted. “You look like a dehydrated frog.”

“Thanks. You look like a raccoon that found God”

“Best compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

They went quiet for a second, just grinning at each other, goggles slightly fogged, beakers bubbling faintly behind them.

The days blurred together, cold mornings and long classes crawling toward break. By the final day, the halls were buzzing with fake cheer—teachers playing movies, students already halfway gone. But Frank’s morning had been shit from the jump.

He was already on edge when it happened. The usual sneers from the football guys turned into words, and the words turned sharp. It wasn’t new—they always had something to say. About his piercings, his hair, the gloves, his friends. About Illi. Especially about Illi.

Frank didn’t swing first. He never did. But they knew exactly how to get under his skin.

One of them shoved him, another threw the first punch. That was enough.

He fought back. Sloppy and angry, but he made it count. A teacher broke it up before it got worse, dragging them apart, blood on someone’s lip, knuckles scraped.

Now he sat outside the nurse’s office with an ice pack and a split lip, pissed and tired. The halls were quiet again. Like nothing happened. Just one more fight to add to the list.

He dragged his hands down his face, palms cold against the heat still burning in his cheeks. He couldn’t even remember what they said now—just flashes of smirks, the tone of their voices, the shove to his shoulder. All he knew for sure was that they swung first.

Didn’t matter what started it. It was always the same. Always something. His lip ached, the metallic taste of blood still faint on his tongue. He pressed the ice pack harder against it, jaw clenched.

What a perfect way to start break. His already shitty morning, now just officially worse.

The nurse started talking to him—something about protocol, about how lucky he was nothing was broken, how he really needed to try and stay out of trouble. Her voice was calm but distant, like static under water. Frank barely registered it. His brows stayed knit, eyes fixed on the floor, fingers flexing around the ice pack like it could ground him.

He gave a half-hearted nod. He wasn’t listening. Not really. Not with his knuckles still aching and his brain replaying the way that fist had connected with his jaw. Not with everything in him buzzing from frustration and leftover adrenaline.

It wasn’t serious enough to land him in the principal’s office, but apparently being in the nurse’s office meant his parents had to be notified. Frank asked the nurse not to tell them. She gave him a sorry look, a quiet apology in her eyes, but he knew she couldn’t keep it from them. Some rules were just rules, no matter how much you begged.

Frank eased the ice pack onto his jaw as he slid into the lunchroom, his face tight with frustration. Mikey looked up right away, eyes narrowing.

“What happened?” Mikey asked, already knowing it wasn’t good.

Frank clenched his jaw. “Those football assholes. They started it”

Illi raised an eyebrow from her seat. “Figures. Always picking fights and never owning up.”

Ray shrugged, smirking a little. “So you just stood there?”

Frank shot him a hard look. “Hell no. No way”

Mikey leaned back, worry wasn't an issue. Not with Frank. “You okay, though? That looked like it hurt.”

Frank shrugged, trying to keep it together. “I’ll survive”

After school, they piled into the garage, the usual clutter of gear and cables surrounding them. Frank knelt by the amp, plugging in his guitar and tuning the strings, his fingers working with practiced ease. Illi fiddled with the microphone stand, adjusting its height just right, her focus sharp.

Mikey leaned against an old workbench, glancing between them. “So... any ideas for a title yet?” he asked, a hopeful edge in his voice.

No one looked up. Frank strummed a few chords, then Illi hummed quietly, shaking her head.

“Nah,” Frank finally muttered, “No clue. Just feels like it needs to find itself first.”

Illi gave a small smile, “Yeah, it’s still figuring out what it wants to be.”

Mikey nodded slowly. “Well, whenever it’s ready, I’m ready too.”

They played through the song, the garage humming with energy and echoing the unpolished song. Illi bounced her knee, shaking her head side to side as she sang the opening lines:

“Well, if you wanted honesty, that’s all you had to say.
I never want to let you down or have you go,
It’s better off this way.
For all the dirty looks, for photographs your boyfriend took.”

At the line about photographs, Illi pretended to snap pictures with an imaginary camera, smirking. Frank and Ray jumped in on the backup vocals, weaving their voices together, moving around the cramped space, caught up in the moment and the music.

They ran through the song again. When the part hit, “Trust me,” Frank stepped forward, his voice low and confident. Illi followed right after with the “I’m not okay” lines, her tone raw and real. As the last note faded, they all exchanged grins, breath a little heavier but smiles wide. It was a good run—better than they expected.

They finished up in the garage, unplugging amps and setting their instruments aside before heading into the house. The living room was warm, a little cluttered, familiar. They all sank onto the floor, backs against the couch or the coffee table—except Illi, who stretched out across the couch like it belonged to her, one leg dangling off the edge.

She looked at them, head tilted, a candy cane from the bowl on the table now in her mouth.
“So,” she said around it, “what do you losers want for Christmas?”

Frank rolled his eyes, Ray leaned back with a laugh, and Mikey muttered something about world peace.

Mikey said something about a new set of bass strings and maybe a Misfits hoodie he saw at the mall. Ray wanted this limited edition pedal he'd been obsessing over for weeks—he even pulled out his phone to show them a picture of it.

Frank just shrugged, eyebrows tight like the question made him think too hard. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, reaching for a stray piece of popcorn in the bowl on the table. “Nothing, maybe. Whatever.”
Then he looked up at Illi. “What about you? What do you want?”

Illi twirled the candy cane in her mouth like it was some kind of wand, then pulled it out and rested it against her bottom lip.
“Hm,” she said, eyes narrowing dramatically. “A taxidermy frog”

Ray let out a choking laugh.
Mikey blinked. “...What?”
Frank just stared, a smirk pulling at the edge of his mouth.
“There it is,” he said. 
Illi grinned, satisfied. “You asked.”

They kept chatting—nothing too interesting, a mix of inside jokes, music talk, and complaints about school—but somehow, they never got bored of each other.

Then, out of nowhere, Illi sat up straighter on the couch, her eyes lighting up with one of her strange ideas.
“Do you guys wanna bake something?”

All three of them turned to her like she’d just said she wanted to build a rocket in the garage.
Frank squinted. “Why?”
She blinked, dead serious. “I feel like mixing flour and eggs and pretending I know what I’m doing.”
Mikey leaned back. “We don’t have a recipe.”
“Even better,” Illi replied, already standing. “We’ll wing it.”
Ray raised a brow. “That sounds like a science experiment gone wrong.”
Frank groaned, but stood up anyway. “Fine, but if I die from whatever the hell you make, I’m haunting you specifically.”
Illi clapped her hands. “Deal.”

Illi took the flour and sugar out of the pantry with the kind of confidence that suggested she’d done this maybe once in her life. Mikey wandered over to the fridge, grabbing a carton of eggs like they were somehow going to be useful. Ray was already rummaging through cabinets, pulling out bowls, handing one off to Illi with a small, doubtful shrug.

Frank grabbed a handful of mismatched spoons from the drawer, dropping them loudly on the counter. “So what exactly are we making?”

Illi didn’t even look up. “Who knows.”
“Cool,” Frank said flatly. “Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

They spread everything out on the counter like they knew what they were doing—flour bag already half-spilled, sugar in a crooked container, eggs dangerously close to the edge.

They had about two usable bowls between the four of them—chipped, slightly mismatched, but it didn’t matter. Illi poured what she guessed was the right amount of flour into each, the dust clouding up around her hands and floating into the air like a challenge. She moved fast, a little chaotic, splitting the flour between the bowls with zero measuring involved.

Mikey followed up by dumping a generous scoop of sugar into one bowl. He stared at the other blankly for a second, then moved on like he’d done his part. “You didn’t put sugar in that one,” Frank pointed out.
“I think that one’s for the savory cookies,” Mikey deadpanned.
Illi smirked. “What even is a savory cookie?”
“No idea,” Mikey replied, already cracking a grin.

Ray cracked the eggs into each bowl with surprising precision, like he was used to doing this or just lucky. A little shell got into one, which he fished out with a spoon before shrugging. Frank grabbed the milk, twisted the cap, and poured some into both bowls, no measuring there either.

Illi took over mixing the first bowl, spoon clanking against the side as the flour puffed up around the edges. Ray grabbed the other and started stirring, less chaotic, more controlled, brows furrowed in mild concentration as the mess slowly started resembling dough.

Illi giggled as she dipped a finger into the dough, scooping a bit out and tasting it. Her eyes lit up.
"This one's actually good," she said, grinning, holding the bowl out like it was a prize. "Here. Try it."

Frank raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t even measure anything.”
“Exactly,” she said, like that was the reason it worked.

They each tried it—Frank first, then Mikey and Ray. It was the bowl with the sugar, thankfully. Mikey, ever the curious one, dipped into the other bowl too. The moment it hit his tongue, his face twisted like he’d been hit with a lemon.
“Oh my god, that’s disgusting.”
Illi laughed, practically cackled. “You just tasted regret.”
“Literal flour paste,” Mikey said, wiping his tongue with a paper towel.

Ray moved to the cabinet, pulling out the bag of chocolate chips and immediately dumped a reckless amount into the good bowl. More than a handful, definitely more than needed.
“Dude—” Frank started.
“It’s Christmas,” Ray shrugged, watching them fall in like a cascade of edible chaos.
“Okay, fair,” Frank muttered.

Christmas wasn’t for a few more days, but whatever—close enough, Frank figured. Ray’s logic held up. Sort of.

They stirred the dough together, chocolate chips barely holding it together now, the ratio totally off but still somehow looking edible. Illi reached in first, grabbing a chunk and rolling it into a ball with her palms, setting it on the parchment paper Mikey had just laid down on the tray.

Mikey reached in next, about to grab his own handful, and Illi immediately snapped, “Ew—no. Wash your hands, all of you.”

Frank blinked. “You didn’t even wash yours.”

Illi shrugged, already forming the next cookie. “I’m the exception.”

“Of course you are,” Mikey muttered, heading to the sink.

Ray held up his hands like he was about to perform surgery. “I’m clean,” he said with mock sincerity, then immediately got shoved toward the sink by Frank.

They washed their hands—grudgingly—and came back to the counter, grabbing handfuls of dough and rolling them into uneven balls. Ray said they should roll them in flour first because that’s what you’re “supposed to do,” and none of them knew enough to argue, so they followed.

It didn’t help. If anything, it made everything worse.

Flour ended up everywhere. On their faces, on their sleeves, in the creases of their fingers, somehow even in Mikey’s hair. Illi had a white streak across her cheek like war paint, Ray’s hoodie had taken most of the damage, and Frank—well, Frank was dusted like a pastry.

“You have some on your face,” Illi said through a giggle, gesturing vaguely toward him.

Frank wiped at his cheek with his wrist. “Where?”

“Everywhere,” she said, stepping forward with a smile that always made something tighten in his chest. She brought her hands up and cupped either side of his face, pretending to wipe it off, but her palms were already covered in flour. All she really did was smear it more—leaving white streaks under his eyes and across his cheeks.

“You’re just making it worse,” Frank muttered.

“I know,” she said sweetly, then smacked both cheeks lightly like a proud grandmother. “Perfect.”

Frank scrunched his nose and said, “I look stupid,” swiping a bit of flour off his shirt and flicking it at her.

They all laughed, going back to rolling the dough, forming misshapen balls and lining them up on the tray like they knew what they were doing.

Then Illi froze. “Wait… did we preheat the oven?”

Everyone stopped.

Mikey looked at the oven, then back at them. “...Nope.”

A collective groan echoed through the kitchen. Frank dramatically collapsed into the nearest chair like it was the end of the world. “Cool. Guess we wait.”

Ray moved to preheat the oven, muttering something about how they were definitely gonna burn them, and then they all just sat around the kitchen waiting for the beep, slightly sugared, slightly floured, and entirely content.

Eventually, the oven beeped. Cheers were had. And the tray of chaos cookies was finally slid in.

The smell of cookies baking filled the kitchen—warm and sweet, a little uneven like everything they did together. Some of the cookies looked vaguely normal, others were strange shapes Ray and Frank swore were bats or tiny monsters.

Illi was leaning against the counter, finger swiping a bit of dough from the edge of the bowl, when she heard footsteps.

Their mom walked in, pausing in the doorway as she took in the mess. Flour everywhere, chocolate chips on the floor, bowls stacked high in the sink.

"You better clean all this up before your dad sees it," she said, hand on her hip.

Then her eyes landed on Illi. There was a beat, like always. The pause. Then, carefully, “Illi… you’re staying for dinner, right?”

Illi blinked at her, a little confused. “I live here.”

Their mom gave a stiff nod, like she hadn’t meant to ask. “Right. Well. Clean it up.”

She turned and walked off, and Illi just stood there for a second before reaching for a rag. Frank looked at her, not saying anything, but moved closer and started helping without a word.

Frank grabbed a rag and started wiping the counter beside her, smirking.

“So… you staying for dinner?” he asked, glancing at her with a teasing glint in his eye.

Illi rolled her eyes, but she laughed anyway, bumping her shoulder against his. “Shut up.”

“Just making sure,” he said, mocking innocence. “Wouldn’t want you to overstay your welcome. In your own house.”

“Maybe she meant something else,” Illi muttered, wiping harder at a patch of flour. “Or maybe she didn’t.”

Frank didn’t say anything at that. He just kept wiping, the sound of the oven humming behind them. The laughter from Mikey and Ray in the background. It didn’t need to be said. He was already on her side.

The oven beeped, and Ray jumped up like it was some grand event.

“I got it, I got it,” he said, grabbing two kitchen rags like oven mitts and dramatically swinging the door open.

“Use the actual mitts,” Mikey said from the floor.

“These are mitts,” Ray argued, already sliding the tray out. He placed it on the counter with a loud clunk, the cookies uneven and weirdly shaped, some barely holding together.

“These are the ones without sugar,” he announced, setting them proudly in the center like a cursed offering.

Frank squinted at them. “They look... edible.”

Illi tilted her head. “They look like regrets.”

“Hey, at least we baked something,” Ray said, holding up his rag-covered hands. “No one died.”

“Yet,” Frank muttered, leaning in to poke one with his finger.

Mikey grabbed the cups from the cabinet, setting them on the counter with a soft clatter. Ray followed behind, pitcher in hand, pouring way too much into each cup—like they were prepping for battle, not dessert. The tray of cookies was carefully carried to the table, a team effort, the four of them walking like it was some sacred mission.

They grabbed paper plates—because no one was about to volunteer for dish duty—and spread out around the table. Illi was the first to reach for a cookie, her fingers brushing the edge of one before picking it up gently. It was soft still, warm and slightly falling apart at the edges. She smiled a little and dropped it onto her plate. She reached for one of the sugarless ones too, curious.

The others followed. Frank grabbed two, holding one in each hand like he was weighing his odds. Mikey poked at one, skeptical, while Ray snatched a weirdly shaped one that he claimed looked like a rabbit but definitely didn’t.

They all had their picks, their plates half-filled with successes and potential disasters, waiting for the moment they’d actually try them.

Illi lifted the cookie to her mouth and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully before shrugging. “It’s good,” she said with a nod, not totally convinced but not disappointed either.

The others followed. Mikey took a cautious bite, raised his eyebrows like it wasn’t bad. Ray gave a thumbs up with his mouth full. Frank, on the other hand, bit into his and immediately made a face.

“This tastes like cardboard,” he said, reaching for his cup and swallowing a mouthful of milk to wash it down.

Then came the second tray—the ones without sugar. They each grabbed one, exchanging glances like they were about to do something stupid. Illi bit into hers first again, slow and curious. Her smile came gradually, her chewing just as slow. “Okay, this one’s kinda—” she started.

Frank didn’t wait. He bit into his, froze, then reached for a napkin and spit it out without shame. “Nope,” he muttered, wiping his mouth. “Absolutely not.”

They all chimed in at once, laughing.

“You’re so picky,” Mikey said, shaking his head.

“Dumbass,” Illi grinned, kicking his foot under the table.

Ray snorted. “It’s not that bad, you baby.”

Frank just raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t care,” he said, mouth half full of milk. “That shit was nasty.”

"Our sweet baby" Illi cooed.

Despite the complaints, he reached for one of the cardboard-like chocolate chip cookies again, the ones with sugar. Biting into it with a dramatic sigh and furrowed brows, chewing like it was a personal battle he intended to win.

They had finished off most of the cookies, Illi tossing the tray of inedible ones into the trash with an overexaggerated “blegh,” while stuffing the barely-passable cardboard ones into a ziplock bag like they were worth saving.

Cleanup was more of a group effort in name than in execution—bowls rinsed but not exactly spotless, flour wiped off counters but still dusting the air, chocolate chips that had rolled under the fridge long forgotten.

Later, they collapsed back on the couch, limbs tangled and stretched across cushions and each other. The TV was on but no one was really watching.

“We should go ice skating tomorrow,” Illi said, legs curled under her.

Frank groaned, “Why do you hate me.”

Ray leaned his head back, grinning. “I’m down. Just know I’m not saving any of you when you fall.”

“I’ll save Mikey,” Illi said without hesitation.

“Of course you will,” Mikey muttered with a fond eye-roll.

Plans were made—half-serious, half-chaotic, but plans nonetheless.

The next day, Ray and Frank trudged up the driveway to Illi and Mikey’s house, snowflakes dotting their jackets and clinging to their hair. The light New Jersey snow had started earlier that morning, enough to make the air sting but not enough to cover the sidewalks yet.

Frank knocked, stuffing his hands back into his pockets. Ray rocked on his heels behind him, breath fogging in the cold.

A moment later, the door creaked open. Their dad stood there, squinting out at them. He looked like he'd just gotten home from work or maybe never left the house at all—his hair messy, sweatshirt slightly wrinkled.

He blinked. “You two again?”

Frank nodded once. “You’re not getting rid of us.”

Their dad stepped aside without argument, letting them in with a muttered, “Shoes off,” before disappearing back into the house. The warmth hit them immediately, the familiar smell of something cooking—or burning—lingering faintly in the air.

Frank had never ice skated in his life. How hard could it be, though? It was just walking. On ice. With knives strapped to your feet.

Mikey finally found his jacket, zipped up to his chin, and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Okay, I’m ready,” he announced, voice slightly muffled behind his scarf.

“Tell Mom and Dad we're leaving,” Illi said, halfway out the door already, pulling her gloves on.

“Bye!” Mikey called into the house, not waiting for a response before pulling the door shut behind him.

The four of them stepped into the soft crunch of snow, their boots leaving tracks behind as they walked down the street. Condensation curled from their mouths with every word, conversations floating into the cold air, mingling with laughter and the distant sound of traffic tires moving across slush.

Frank tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, watching the white dust settle into Illi’s hair as she walked ahead, talking animatedly to Ray. He kicked a chunk of snow with the side of his boot, pretending he wasn’t just a little nervous about the whole skating thing.

Frank's brows were knit as he stared at the ice, his lip ring pulled between his lips like it might give him some kind of comfort—or warmth. His skeleton gloves, the ones he practically never took off, were still on, tucked deep into the pockets of his jacket. He shifted on his feet, snow crunching beneath his boots as they made their way to the rink.

It was about a fifteen-minute walk, enough to turn their noses pink and make Mikey complain at least twice. The outdoor rink came into view, a white sheet of ice surrounded by string lights and the sound of blades carving smooth lines through frozen water. Music played faintly from nearby speakers—some old holiday song playing just loud enough to be cheerful and slightly annoying.

They walked up to the booth, borrowed skates that didn’t fit quite right, and made their way to one of the benches at the edge of the rink to sit and lace them up. Frank stared at his pair like they might bite him.

Illi pulled hers on with ease, tugging the laces tight and standing up like she'd done it a thousand times. Ray was struggling with his left foot. Mikey already had one on, rocking it side to side with a frown like it wasn’t trustworthy.

It was cold, still—obviously, being outside in the middle of New Jersey winter—but there was something warm about it too. Something in the way they were all bundled up and fumbling with laces, the way their laughter cut through the chill like smoke.

Frank finished strapping his skates, the stiff boots creaking slightly as he stood. He grabbed Mikey's shoulder for balance, muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a regret. Mikey just laughed, steady on his feet already.

They made their way to the rink, stepping onto the ice one by one. The moment Frank’s blades hit the slick surface, he turned so his back was against the railing, both hands gripping it like his life depended on it. His legs shifted awkwardly beneath him, ankles unsteady as he tried to find his balance.

He wobbled hard once—heart jumping to his throat—but managed to stay up, clinging tighter to the cold rail. "This is stupid," he muttered, glaring at the ice like it had personally offended him.

Frank began to inch forward, pushing off the railing with hesitation. His movements were slow, stiff, calculated. He kept his knees slightly bent like he’d seen people do, but his arms were out just a little too far for balance.

Illi was already twirling, effortless in the middle of the rink, her jacket puffing slightly with each spin. Mikey and Ray moved at a normal pace, skating with ease like they’d done this a hundred times before.

Frank, though—if you looked closely, past the furrowed brows and the concentrated stare—he looked nervous. Like he was trying too hard not to look like he was trying at all. Acting like he had it under control, like he knew what he was doing, but his tight grip on invisible confidence gave him away.

Mikey skated by, slowing just enough to ask, “You need help or something?”

Frank shot him a glare like he’d just insulted his entire existence. “No,” he said flatly, sharp like a warning. Mikey just shrugged and kept moving, not bothered.

Frank pushed forward again, gliding a few inches more. It looked almost smooth—until he stumbled, arms flinging out to catch himself before he fell. He caught his balance just in time, his breath catching in his throat.

Illi skated over, her brow raised, an amused smirk tugging at her lips. “You sure you don’t need help?”

Frank huffed, brushing imaginary dust off his jacket like the near-fall hadn’t happened. “I’m fine.”

He was so sure of himself that he pushed forward again — and this time, he lost his balance completely, sliding down and landing hard on his butt with a surprised grunt.

Illi skated up beside him, her eyes sparkling with a mix of amusement and something unreadable, like she knew a secret he didn’t. She reached out both hands, silently offering to help him up.

Frank glanced at her hands, then quickly looked away, stubborn as ever, and pulled himself up unsteadily — nearly toppling over again.

Illi just stayed there, arms still outstretched, waiting patiently, her expression soft but insistent, as if daring him to take the help he clearly needed.

Frank shook his head, voice low but stubborn. "I don’t need help."

Illi just kept her hands out, patient and steady.

He gave her a confused look, like she was speaking another language.

Without a word, she bent down, grabbed one of his gloved hands, and started gliding backwards slowly, pulling him along with her.

Frank’s eyes widened. “Are you trying to kill me or something?” he muttered, half-panicked, half-amused.

She said, “Yeah,” without missing a beat, then kept gliding, pulling him along with an ease that made it look effortless.

“Bend your knees a little,” she instructed over the sound of their skates cutting into the ice. “For balance.”

Frank muttered something under his breath but did it anyway, his grip on her hand tightening as they kept moving.

They continued gliding across the rink, Illi’s smile bright against the cold as she asked, “Isn’t this fun?”

Before he could answer, she let go of one hand only to take his other, pulling them so they were facing each other. “Trust me,” she said, eyes glinting with mischief.

Without thinking, Frank’s grip tightened, his fingers curling around hers. Illi didn’t slow—she started to spin them, the world blurring around him while her laughter cut through the sharp winter air.

Frank cursed under his breath but didn’t object, his skates scraping lightly against the ice as they spun. He glanced up at Illi—laughing, cheeks flushed, smiling like the cold didn’t touch her—and he couldn’t help the smile tugging at his own mouth, no matter how much he tried to fight it.

They had slowed, the sharp scrape of blades softening against the ice. Illi let out a breathless laugh, saying she was dizzy, but—of course—she glided forward anyway, her momentum unbothered by her own words. Frank followed, testing his skates with a little more confidence now, telling himself he had the hang of it.

He wasn’t sure why he was still holding her hand. His fingers stayed curled around hers like they had a mind of their own, and he didn’t want to think about it too much. Thinking about it would make it real, and that would scare him—really scare him. So instead, he focused on the cold air biting his cheeks, the faint sting in his thighs from balancing, the way her black jacket swayed with each movement.

She looked back at him once, grinning, and tugged him toward the center of the rink. And he let her.

It was fun. Frank was having fun—really fun. His nose was red from the cold, his breath clouding in the air, but he was laughing through it, the sound slipping out without him even meaning to.

He liked this. Whatever this was. Hanging out with his friends, sure… but with Illi? Being close to her, side by side on the ice, it did things to him. Things he couldn’t name without giving them too much power. Things he didn’t want to look at too closely, because if he did, they’d stop being harmless. They’d stop being safe.

So he just let it be. Let himself laugh, let himself skate—badly—and let her be near.

She was hopping on the ice, little bounces that made her skirt sway and her hair shift over her shoulders.

Frank shook his head, trying not to grin. “You’re gonna fall,” he warned, voice edged with mock seriousness.

Illi just shot him a look over her shoulder, the kind that said you have no idea what you’re talking about, before taking another little hop.

Mikey and Ray circled around to where they were, both moving with more confidence than Frank could ever fake. Mikey pushed his glasses up again, slowing to glide next to Illi. “What’s he complaining about now?” he asked, smirking.

“She’s asking for a concussion,” Frank said.

“She’s fine,” Ray cut in, coasting past them effortlessly. “You’re the one we gotta worry about.”

He meant the ice. Of course he did. But something in Frank shuddered anyway, a flicker of instinct that made his chest tighten.

It wasn’t anything obvious—just the smallest shift, a step barely there, the kind you wouldn’t notice unless you were really watching him. Like his body knew something his brain didn’t want to say out loud.

Illi didn’t seem to catch it, still gliding lazily in a slow half-circle, but Mikey’s gaze flicked down at Frank’s feet and then back up to his face. There was the ghost of a question in his eyes, though he didn’t voice it.

Frank just shoved his hands back into his jacket pockets, eyes fixed on the scuffed white ice beneath them. “Whatever,” he muttered, as if that could shake off whatever the hell that was.

_

The next day, Frank picked up whatever loose bills and coins he could scrounge from the chaos of his drawers. It came to maybe twenty bucks and thirty-two cents—he counted twice just to be sure, though the second time stung worse than the first.

He scoffed, shaking his head at himself as he shoved the money into his pocket. Twenty bucks and thirty-two cents to get Christmas gifts for his mom, dad, Ray, Mikey… and Illi. He’d have to ration like he was on some sort of holiday survival mission.

He sat on the edge of his bed for a minute, staring at the half-torn posters on his wall, already mentally calculating who might get something slightly better than the others. Socks for Mikey, maybe a coffee mug for Ray—cheap but at least useful. For his parents… something that looked thoughtful but didn’t cost more than three bucks.

Illi was the wild card. The thought of her was enough to make him pause, tapping the coins in his pocket like they’d whisper an idea to him if he held them long enough. He didn’t know what she’d like. Worse—he cared too much about getting it right.

He walked down the road where the little row of shops sat in a line, their windows glowing warm against the cold evening. The sun was sinking, the sky bleeding out in shades of pink and orange before it gave way to blue. Snow was falling lightly—slow, lazy flakes that caught in his hair and clung to his jacket.

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, fingers brushing over the crumpled bills, the coins jingling faintly with each step.

A small gift shop caught his eye—not because it looked especially promising, but because it looked cheap enough to give him a fighting chance. The door creaked as he pushed it open, a little brass bell jingling overhead.

“Welcome,” a woman behind the counter said with a practiced smile.

Frank nodded once, quick and quiet, and drifted toward the nearest aisle. Shelves of trinkets and knickknacks stretched in front of him—ceramic figurines, novelty mugs, candles that probably didn’t smell as good as their labels claimed. He ran his gloved hand along the edge of one shelf as he walked, eyes darting from price tags to ideas in his head, calculating, rejecting, moving on.

The skeleton gloves were practically part of him at this point—thin at the fingertips now, the black fabric pilling, one of the seams near his thumb coming loose. He flexed his fingers against the knit absently as he moved down the aisle.

For Illi, he kept thinking something she could wear. Something that wasn’t just… stuff. A necklace maybe. A bracelet. Something that would sit on her and mean she’d think of him when she wore it—not that he’d ever admit that’s what he wanted.

He scanned the jewelry rack. Too expensive. Way too expensive. Even the clearance section mocked him with prices that would kill half his budget. He kept moving, shoulders slouching as he drifted toward the back of the store.

That’s when he saw it—a bin tucked against the wall, hand-scrawled sign taped to it: COMICS – $1 EACH.

He crouched down, the coins in his pocket clinking faintly as he leaned over and began flipping through the stack. Bright covers, some worn at the edges, some almost new. His lips curled into the smallest grin. For Mikey. Yeah. That was easy.

He started making a little pile beside him—things he knew Mikey would like, stuff with weird aliens, gritty noir, and at least one issue of Batman.

He ended up with two comics for Mikey, tucked under his arm like treasure. A few aisles over, a rack of socks caught his eye—bright yellow with some dumb phrase on them that Ray would probably think was hilarious. A dollar. He tossed them into his growing pile, grabbed another comic for Ray just to round it out.

He kept moving, scanning shelves like maybe something perfect would just appear if he stared hard enough. Near the front, a squat little plant in a ceramic pot sat on a display table. Green, alive, the kind of thing his mom would keep on the windowsill and fuss over. Five bucks. He hesitated, counted his change in his head, then picked it up.

For his dad, he found a bag of mixed nuts in the snack section—plain, simple, a dollar. He figured he’d make them each a card too. That was what mattered, right? The thought. The time. Not the price tag. At least, that’s what he told himself as he headed toward the counter, his whole Christmas plan balanced in his hands.

Inside, the air was warmer, thick with the smell of incense and something faintly metallic. Racks of shirts and hoodies crowded the space, every wall plastered with posters, pins, and little shelves stacked with jewelry that glinted under string lights. The music—something fast, loud, and unapologetically distorted—poured from speakers, rattling in his chest.

Frank shoved his free hand into his jacket pocket, bag swinging at his side as he wandered. He wasn’t sure why this place had pulled him in. Maybe the noise, maybe the way the window display had looked a little like chaos bottled up. His eyes skimmed past rows of chains and studded belts before catching on a small rotating rack by the counter—thin silver necklaces, black cord chokers, and bracelets with charms that jingled quietly when touched.

That’s when his mind flicked to Illi.

Frank walked up to the counter, fingers shifting the bracelets on the rack with a casual motion. The girl behind the counter leaned against it, her eyeliner sharp, hair dyed a deep black with streaks of electric blue, cascading over a long skirt and a simple tank top—gothic chic without trying too hard. She glanced at Frank with a bored expression, taking in his tight brows and restless eyes.

Without looking away, she asked quietly, like she could see right through him, “Who’s it for?”

Frank glanced up, eyes sharp but guarded. “No one,” he said flatly.

The girl smirked, unfazed. “I could help you pick if I knew.”

Frank hesitated a second before answering, “A girl”

Not even a friend. Just, a girl. He didn’t say Illi’s name, but she wasn’t just any girl. He knew that.

The girl nodded slowly, then pointed toward a row of silver bracelets tangled with charms—stars, hearts, other shit.

Frank shook his head. “Nah. She’s into vampires. Weird stuff.”

The girl raised an eyebrow, clearly interested now, but said nothing.

Chapter Text

_

No one mentioned it. No one brought it up.
No one knew.
No one besides Frank and Illi.

For the rest of winter break, Frank hung out with Ray and Mikey like normal—skateboarding, loitering at the comic shop, eating way too many gas station snacks—but he avoided Mikey’s house like it was cursed ground. Every time Mikey suggested they hang there, Frank found a new excuse, and it always turned into the same awkward back-and-forth.

"Wanna come over? We can play Halo or something."

"Nah, can’t."

"Why not?"

"Got plans."

"What plans?"

"You know… stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Mikey-stuff."

"That doesn’t even make sense Frank."
"Exactly."

Mikey would just stand there, eyebrows furrowed like he was trying to solve a murder case. Ray would glance between them like he was taking mental notes for later, chewing on a Twizzler in complete silence.

"You’ve been weird lately," Mikey would finally say.
"No I haven’t."

"Yes you have. You’re avoiding my house."
"I’m avoiding your Mom’s meatloaf."
"My mom hasn’t made meatloaf since, like, October."
"See? I’ve been scarred."

Frank would grin like he’d won the argument, but in reality his stomach was tight, his pulse picking up, praying Mikey wouldn’t push it further. He always changed the subject right after—usually to something loud and ridiculous so Mikey couldn’t circle back.

Frank was at the mall.

He’d blown Mikey and Ray off earlier with some half-assed excuse about “needing to get stuff,” which wasn’t even close to true. The real reason was obvious—Mikey’s house meant Illi would be there, and Frank just… couldn’t. Not after that moment in the hallway. Not with the image of her glassy-eyed smile burned into his head like a curse.

He walked aimlessly, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, dragging his feet like they had lead weights strapped to them. The tiled floor amplified every scuff of his Converse, making him feel even more exposed in the sprawling brightness of the mall.

He kept his head down, weaving through clusters of people carrying shopping bags, his brain buzzing too loud for him to actually notice the stores he was passing. Everything smelled like cinnamon pretzels and perfume kiosks, but it didn’t make him hungry—it just made him want to crawl out of his own skin.

He wasn’t even sure where he was going. He was just moving because stopping would mean thinking, and thinking meant replaying.

This girl came up beside him out of nowhere, her steps quick, voice low but urgent.

“See, I’m here with a friend,” she said over her shoulder to some guy a few paces back who immediately slowed, glaring before turning away.

Frank blinked, not even registering at first that she meant him. He just looked up at her, confused as hell. His brows knit, lips pressed in a flat line—not because of her, but because he’d already been stewing in a low boil of anger all afternoon.

She had long blonde hair that caught the light in soft waves, honey-brown eyes that flicked to him with relief, and lips tinted naturally pink. Her outfit was almost painfully put-together—white skirt swaying around her knees, navy cardigan buttoned neatly over a plain shirt.

Frank didn’t say anything, just kept staring at her like she’d walked into the wrong movie.

“Thanks,” she breathed, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The tension in her shoulders dropped, but she lingered in front of him, like she wasn’t ready to let the moment end.

Before Frank could even figure out what to say, she was already talking again.
“Hey, uh—can I get you something? Like… a smoothie? Pretzel? My treat. I just—I feel bad, y’know, using you like that.”

Her voice had this light, airy rhythm, but her eyes searched his face like she was trying to pull a reaction out of him.

Frank shook his head immediately, muttering, “Nah. I’m good.” He shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, his weight shifting back like he was already halfway gone.

She gave a small laugh, awkward and nervous. “Seriously, I don’t mind—”

“Nah,” he cut her off, sharper this time, but not loud. He stepped around her without another glance, his sneakers scuffing against the tile as he walked away.

She stayed standing there for a beat, watching him fade into the crowd, before turning back toward the food court.

Frank didn’t look back. Not once.

He didn’t think much of it. Had no reason to.

At school, the January cold bit at his cheeks as he crossed the quad during lunch, his hands shoved deep in his hoodie pocket. The grass was patchy, the picnic tables half-full, and the air smelled faintly like french fries drifting over from the cafeteria. He moved slow, weaving through groups without making eye contact, keeping his head down.

His phone buzzed in his pocket again, the third time in five minutes. He fished it out just enough to glance at the screen—Mikey.

Where r u?
We’re at the tables by the vending machines.
You gonna eat w us or keep being weird?

Frank locked the screen without replying, shoving the phone back down like it was something hot he didn’t want to hold. He kept walking, taking the long way around the science building to avoid the crowd, telling himself he wasn’t avoiding them—he just… wasn’t in the mood.

Not for lunch.
Not for talking.
And definitely not for the chance of seeing Illi.

The quad was clique territory. Always had been. Kids clung to the groups they’d built reputations with since freshman year—jocks in their letterman jackets tossing a football around, the band kids crowded under the trees, the weirdos by the science wing with their thrift store layers and duct-taped backpacks, and the even weirder weirdos who somehow made the first group of weirdos look normal. The cheerleaders had claimed the sunny side near the gym, a blur of navy blue skirts and white sweaters, their laughter cutting through the cold air.

Frank didn’t usually pay them any attention. They didn’t pay him any either, unless it was to whisper something they thought he couldn’t hear. But today, as he cut across the edge of their territory, he felt it—that prickling awareness of being watched.

Glances. Quick, darting ones. Not all of them, but enough. A few leaned together, whispering behind cupped hands, eyes flicking toward him like they were confirming a rumor.

Maybe he was being paranoid.
Except—he wasn’t.

Because one of them broke off from the group.

She walked with a light bounce in her step, the navy and white of her uniform catching the winter sun. Blonde hair, pulled into a loose ponytail, swayed with each stride. Honey-colored eyes locked on him. And those lips—pale pink and a little chapped from the cold—looked too familiar.

It was her.
Mall girl.

Frank picked up his step, shoulders tensing, the strap of his backpack digging into his palm as he gripped it tighter.

“I never caught your name,” the girl said, voice bright like she hadn’t noticed he was very obviously trying to get away.

He kept walking, but she was quicker, closing the gap in a few easy strides.

“That day at the mall—you walked away so fast,” she laughed, breath puffing in the cold air. “Like, poof, gone.”

Frank glanced sideways at her, just long enough to register that she was still smiling like they were in on some joke together.

“I’m Sally, by the way,” she added, almost like she expected him to stop, turn, and shake her hand.

“I don’t—” Frank started, his voice flat, low. He cut himself off, eyes fixed on the path ahead, not giving her the satisfaction of slowing down. “I don’t… know what you're talking about.”

Her smile faltered just a fraction, but she didn’t stop following.

Sally matched his pace easily, her white sneakers scuffing the pavement as they weaved through the quad.

“Well, sure,” she said, tilting her head at him like it was obvious. “You helped me out at the mall.”

Frank didn’t even slow down, didn’t give her a real look. His voice came out dry, almost bored.
“Oh, that happened? Nice.”

She blinked at him, caught between amused and offended. “That happened? You’re seriously gonna pretend like you don’t remember?”

Frank shrugged, the corner of his mouth twitching—not a smile, more like he was trying not to say something sharper. “I mean, I remember, I just… don’t see why you’re bringing it up.”

Sally laughed, a little too loud for the space between them. “Maybe because most people would say ‘you’re welcome’ or at least act like it mattered?”

He finally glanced at her, just long enough for her to notice his eyes weren’t cold so much as tired.
“Yeah, well,” he muttered, shoving his hands deeper in his pockets, “I’m not most people.”

She opened her mouth like she had a comeback, but he was already veering toward the far end of the quad, leaving her standing there in the noise of everyone else’s conversations.

_

Illi sat cross-legged on the bench, picking at the label on her water bottle while Mikey frowned at his phone.

“He’s ignoring me,” Mikey muttered, thumb tapping the screen again like maybe this time Frank would answer. “I’ve texted him three times. No response.”

Ray leaned back, chewing on a fry, and looked between them. “Maybe he’s just in class?”

“It’s lunch,” Mikey shot back. “He’s not in class, he’s just… avoiding us. Again.”

Illi didn’t say anything right away. Her stomach was already knotted in that familiar, uncomfortable way it had been all break. She kept her eyes down, watching condensation drip down the plastic in her hands.

Ray tossed his fry onto his tray and sat forward. “Okay, then let’s just go find him. He’s not exactly hard to spot—short dude, looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.”

Mikey almost smiled, but the worry was still there. “Yeah, we could. Unless he runs the second he sees us.”

Illi finally looked up, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Then we don’t give him the chance to run.” She tried to make it sound light, like a joke, but her voice came out quieter than she meant.

Ray grabbed his soda. “Cool. Mission track down Frank. Let’s move before lunch ends.”

They all stood, Mikey pocketing his phone, and Illi forced herself to keep pace—pretending she wasn’t dreading however Frank reacts.

They moved through the cafeteria, eyes scanning every table where Frank might have slipped away before—huddled with random kids, laughing at jokes Illi didn’t recognize. But no sign of him.

Outside, the cold air hit them as they stepped into the quad. Illi’s gaze immediately locked on a figure walking, Frank.

She nudged Mikey and Ray, nodding toward him. “There he is.”

Just as they started to move closer, Illi’s breath caught.

Frank wasn’t alone.

He was talking to a girl — blonde hair, dressed in the school’s navy and white — a cheerleader.

Illi’s heart twisted in a way she couldn’t place as she watched them from a distance, frozen for a moment, unsure whether to approach or disappear.

Illi shrugged like it didn’t bother her, but inside, something knotted tight. She didn’t know Frank talked to people like that—people who looked so different from her and their little group. She forced a casual smile.

Mikey glanced at her, then asked, “So, where’s Frank then? You said you saw him, right?”

Illi hesitated, then shook her head, playing it cool. “I thought it was him… but maybe not.”

Her voice was light, like she was brushing it off, but Mikey caught the flicker in her eyes—something she didn’t want to admit yet.

Frank didn’t show up at lunch that day. Instead, he kept to himself, wandering the halls with nowhere to be. The usual buzz of the cafeteria felt like a distant echo—he didn’t want any part of it.

After school, though, he went over to Mikey and Ray like normal. Illi had told Mikey to ask him about who he was hanging out with earlier, but Frank just shrugged it off.

When Mikey pressed, “So, who was it you were with at lunch?” even though Illi was the only one who had seen. Frank said no one, that it was nothing.

Because to him, it really was nothing. Just a stupid conversation. Nothing worth explaining. Nothing worth worrying about. Just something he didn’t want to think about.

Illi was sitting on her bed, sketchbook in hand but not really drawing. The afternoon light filtered through the curtains, casting soft shadows across the room. Suddenly, she heard the front door click open.

She bounced up, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she made her way to the living room. Mikey stepped inside, dropping his backpack by the door.

“So,” Illi said quickly, eyes wide with curiosity, “what did Frank say?”

Mikey shrugged, flopping down onto the couch next to her. “Not much. When I asked him who he was hanging out with at lunch, he just kinda clammed up. Said nothing. Just gave me that tight-lipped look, you know? Like he’s holding something back.”

Illi’s brow furrowed, her lips tightening as she tried to make sense of it. “He’s being too cryptic. Like, seriously, what’s going on with him? He’s never this closed off around us.”

She stared at the door as if hoping Frank might suddenly walk in and explain himself, but the room stayed quiet.

Illi’s questions kept coming, quick and relentless. “What else did he say? Did he seem okay? Did he say who that girl was?” She leaned forward, eyes locked on Mikey’s face, waiting for answers.

Mikey, however, was only half-listening, his mind elsewhere. He nodded absently, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, he was weird about it. Cryptic. Like he didn’t want to talk. Same old Frank, I guess.” His voice trailed off, eyes distant. Continuing to answer his sisters questions that just seemed to keep coming.

Then, suddenly, Mikey blinked and looked directly at Illi, his gaze sharp and serious. “Why do you care so much?” he asked, tilting his head slightly.

Illi froze for a moment, caught off guard. “What do you mean?”

Mikey shrugged, exhaling slowly. “I dunno. You’re usually chill about stuff like this. But with Frank... you’re different. You want to know everything, and you’re not just curious.”

Illi’s heart skipped. She looked away, cheeks heating up.

Illi shrugged, brushing off Mikey’s question. “I’ve heard things,” she said, voice light but just edged with something sharper. “About that girl he was talking to. About all of the cheerleaders, really. You know how it is — they’re always gossiping, always circling someone new. Just stuff people say.”

She glanced away, fiddling with the hem of her shirt like it was nothing.

Mikey gave her a slow, knowing look, one eyebrow arched like he was weighing whether to say more or just let it go. He said nothing, though.

It was like he had some unspoken secret — maybe he knew something Illi didn’t, or maybe he just understood the kind of mess Frank was wrapped up in better than anyone. Either way, Mikey kept quiet, his gaze lingering just a moment longer before he shook his head and turned away.

Illi’s eyes narrowed just a bit, her voice low but steady. “Okay, but I’ve heard a lot about the cheerleaders. Maybe Frank just—”

Mikey cut her off sharply, turning to face her fully, his tone serious but calm. “Illi.”

She froze for a second, then raised her hands in surrender, a small, almost amused smile tugging at her lips. 

He gave her a pointed look, but there was no anger—just that quiet glance.

_

Frank’s thoughts snapped shut as a voice cut through the noise around him.

“Frank, right?” The girl was standing there, her blonde hair catching the fluorescent light, that same smile from lunch—the one that seemed way too bright for someone like him.

He blinked, trying to make sense of it, his brows tightening almost instinctively. “Yeah,” he said cautiously.

She stepped closer, tilting her head slightly. “I wanted to say thanks again—for, you know, what you did at the mall.”

Frank snorted, shaking his head. “That was weeks ago.”

She laughed softly, a sound that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Still, I meant it. How about I take you out sometime? You know, as a thank you.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed, skepticism lining his voice. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

She frowned just a little but didn’t press. Instead, she smiled again, softer this time. “Alright… If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

She didn’t walk away. Instead, she took a small step closer, her smile widening with a quiet insistence. “Come on, Frank. Just one time. I promise you’ll have fun.”

Frank’s jaw tightened. His brows furrowed as he weighed it silently. He was broke as hell—maybe twenty bucks in his pocket, tops—and she looked like she could drop a hundred without blinking.

This chick’s rich, he thought. Definitely.

He glanced down at his worn jeans, the scuffed Vans, the skeleton gloves that were fraying at the edges. Then his mind flicked to Illi—her charm, her bracelets—and an idea sparked.

Maybe he could snag another bracelet for her. Not as an apology, not because he owed her anything, but just because he wanted to.

He met the girl’s expectant eyes and, after a pause, said, “Yeah. Okay.”

Her smile grew even wider, like she’d just won something. “Great! I’ll text you the details.”

Frank nodded, trying to keep it casual, but inside, a small flicker of something—maybe hope—stirred.

She held out her hand, fingers tapping the screen of her phone as Frank hesitated for a moment. Slowly, he dropped his phone into her palm.

Without missing a beat, she started typing, saving her contact with a quick flick of her thumb.

“There,” she said, looking up with a grin. “Now you’ve got me on speed dial.”

Frank’s eyebrows twitched, caught between annoyance and something else—curiosity maybe—as he snatched his phone back.

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered, pocketing it like it was both a lifeline and a trap.

After school, they ended up in her car instead of walking like usual. Frank rolled his eyes as she insisted on driving her shiny, overpriced Jeep. “It’s just a four-minute walk, you know,” he muttered, sliding into the passenger seat.

She shot him a smirk. “Yeah, but my ass doesn’t wanna freeze.”

The engine rumbled to life, music buzzing softly from the radio—some poppy, bubblegum track that screamed ‘cheerleader playlist.’ Frank stared out the window, feeling the usual prickling of discomfort with the whole situation.

The silence stretched long between them, thick and awkward. She glanced over, biting her lip as if to say something but holding back.

Frank finally broke it, voice low and a little rough. “So... what exactly are we doing here?”

She shrugged, eyes fixed on the road. “Shopping. Maybe grab something to eat.”

He scoffed, running a hand through his hair. “Figures.”

The car hummed along, the music playing on, and the quiet between them lingered like a weight neither wanted to lift just yet.

They stepped into the same dimly lit shop Frank had visited just a month ago—the one with all the gothic jewelry and weird little charms. The bell tinkled softly overhead as they entered. The silence between them wasn’t as heavy this time; she started chatting casually about the holidays, the weird weather, something small and mundane that made Frank feel oddly at ease.

He drifted toward the front display, eyes scanning the bracelets like he was searching for something familiar. The same goth-chic girl was behind the counter—the one with the heavy eyeliner, sick hair, and that uninterested expression.

Her eyes locked onto Frank instantly, a slow, knowing look like she was silently asking, “So this is the weird girl who likes vampires you bought that bracelet for last time?”

Frank’s stomach twisted. He wanted to scream, “No, that’s not—” but no words came out. The girl didn’t say a thing, her gaze alone was enough to make him wish he could disappear.

After a moment, he spotted it, a black cord bracelet with a tiny silver brain charm dangling from it. His fingers closed around it without hesitation.

He turned to Sally—the cheerleader—and held it up. “This could be my ‘thank you.’"

Sally raised a perfectly sculpted brow but said nothing. She just rang it up, swiping the card without a word.

"It’s got a brain charm—Illi’s smart. It’s... her.” though he didn't say that part out loud.

Frank stuffed the small bag into his pocket, feeling the weight of the charm there. Maybe this could fix some things. Maybe.

As they stepped out of the shop, the cold air hit Frank’s face. Sally glanced over at him, a playful smirk tugging at her lips.

“Hey, wanna grab some coffee? It’s on me,” she said, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

Frank shook his head quickly, voice flat. “Nah. Coffee tastes like dirt.”

She laughed, a light, genuine sound that seemed to echo off the empty sidewalk. Frank didn’t find it funny at all. He just stared ahead, tight brows furrowed.

“Alright, no coffee,” Sally shrugged, eyes narrowing a little like she wasn’t quite buying it. “You hungry?”

Frank gave a lazy shrug, not really caring.

They climbed back into her car—the interior too clean, too new, and way too expensive for a seventeen-year-old’s ride. The leather seats creaked slightly as she started the engine, the stereo quietly humming in the background.

Sally pulled smoothly onto the street, turning toward a nearby diner with neon lights flickering in the early evening gloom.

“Diner’s good,” she said, breaking the silence. “You can’t mess up a burger there.”

Frank glanced over briefly but didn’t say anything. The city passed by outside the window, snowflakes dusting the glass like little frozen secrets.

They slid into a booth near the window, the vinyl seats cracked with age but oddly comforting. A waitress came over, clipboard in hand, and took their orders.

Frank went simple but classic—“Strawberry milkshake,” he said, voice low. “Burger with fries, everything on it except onion.”

The waitress nodded, scribbled it down. Frank glanced at Sally, who gave a small shrug.

“I’ll have a plain burger,” she said, “just cheese and lettuce. No special diner sauce. And a water.”

Frank raised an eyebrow at her choice, but said nothing.

As they waited, Frank took slow, careful sips of his thick, pink milkshake, the cold sweetness calming some of the tension in his chest. The burger arrived, stacked high—juicy patty, melted cheese, crisp lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, and mustard. He bit in, savoring the familiar mess of flavors, then looked at his plate and muttered under his breath, “Maybe I should go vegetarian or something.”

Sally smirked, taking a small bite of her plain burger. “It’s all about the basics sometimes,” she said. “No need to complicate things.”

Frank gave a half-smile, eyes briefly meeting hers before drifting away again.

Frank took another slow sip of the strawberry milkshake, the thick sweetness almost overwhelming his taste buds. It was super sweet—cloying, like biting into a ripe berry soaked in sugar. He grimaced just a little but kept drinking, partly because he was thirsty and partly because it felt like something to do.

Sally glanced over at him, an amused smirk playing on her lips. “You don’t really look like the strawberry milkshake type,” she teased. “I’d take you more as a vanilla guy.”

Frank blinked, then half-laughed. “Vanilla, huh?” He thought for a second, then a flash of memory hit him—Illi had said almost the same thing once, but with a different tone. Sally’s guess felt off, like it didn’t quite fit, while Illi’s had sounded... right.

He didn’t say anything, just looked down at the glass, swirling the pink milkshake around with the straw. “Guess one of you’s closer, then,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

Sally caught the pause in Frank’s silence and, without waiting for an answer, reached over to slide the milkshake across the table toward her. “Mind if I try?” she asked, her voice soft, no trace of teasing this time.

Frank blinked, caught off guard by her genuine sweetness. He hesitated, then shrugged. Before he could say anything, she lifted the glass and took a careful sip through the straw — his straw.

Her eyes widened slightly, and she smiled. “Hey, that’s actually pretty good.” She tried to slide the milkshake back to him, but Frank held his hand up. “No, it’s okay,” he said, a little unsure.

She laughed lightly and reached into her bag, pulling out another straw. “Here,” she said, opening it and popping it into the glass. “You can keep this one.”

Frank shook his head. “Yeah, no, it’s fine—you can keep it.” The second straw stayed in the glass, unused, as Sally took another sip, and Frank quietly watched.

_

Ray had been roped into a food run by Illi and Mikey—“You’re the fastest, just grab it and bring it back,” Mikey had said, shoving a wad of cash into his hand. Ray hadn’t argued, they were paying, so why not?

He pushed open the diner's door, the familiar ding echoing through the cozy room scented with fried food and coffee. Grabbing the bags of food from the counter, Ray glanced around, waiting for the usual chaos of lunchtime rush to die down.

That’s when he spotted them. Frank, sitting in a booth near the window, relaxed in a way Ray rarely saw. There was a girl with him—blonde, dressed like one of those cheerleaders, chatting with Frank. The sight hit Ray unexpectedly. His chest swelled with a quiet pride, like a mother watching her kid take his first big step. He saw the two straws in the milkshake and couldn't help but think. Hell yeah, that’s my boy Frank, the corners of his mouth curling into a soft smile.

Ray didn’t linger, didn’t want to make it awkward. Holding the food steady in his hands, he turned on his heel and headed back outside, already imagining the look on Mikey and Illi’s faces when he walked in.

Maybe things were starting to change. Maybe Frank was starting to let some new things in.

_

In Mikey’s small, cluttered room, Ray and Mikey sat cross-legged on the worn carpet, burgers and fries spread out between them. The greasy scent mixed with the faint hum of Christmas lights wrapped around the bedposts. Ray was halfway through an onion ring while Mikey nibbled on a fry.

Illi lounged on her bottom bunk, casually eating her burger and scrolling through her phone, the soft glow illuminating her face.

Mikey wiped his hands on his jeans, sighing. “You know, Frank hasn’t really been hanging out with us lately. I mean, I wish he was here today. It’s not the same without him.”

Ray chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that too"

"But I think I might actually know why Frank’s been keeping his distance.”

Mikey’s eyes narrowed, curious. “Oh yeah? What’s up with him?”

Ray smirked, folding his arms. 

Ray took a bite of his burger, then leaned back on his hands, eyes flicking toward Illi like he was about to drop something juicy.

“Maybe Frank’s got a girlfriend,” he said casually.

Mikey blinked, surprised, but before he could say anything, Ray continued, “I actually saw him at that diner… with some cheerleader chick.”

Illi, who had been half-tuned out—her attention drifting to her phone and the hum of their usual chatter—snapped alert. Her heart skipped a beat, and she straightened up, pretending not to listen but really hanging on every word.

Ray grinned, warming to his story. “And honestly, if you hadn’t noticed, that was the happiest I’ve seen Frank in a while.”

Illi’s lips pressed into a thin line. She said nothing, not wanting to give away how much it affected her, but inside, everything was shifting. She kept quiet, letting the conversation roll over her like a wave she wasn’t ready to surf yet.

Mikey glanced over at Illi, searching her face for any sign of a reaction. His voice was casual but curious.

“You don’t mean the happiest ever, right? I mean, I’m always happy when I’m eating.” He shrugged, trying to downplay it. “Maybe he’s just happy because he’s probably not the one paying for it. You know Frank.”

Illi shot them both a sharp side-eye, tired of the constant chatter about Frank’s “happiness” when she hadn’t even been part of the conversation. Her mind was spinning with a thousand thoughts she didn’t want to voice out loud.

Without missing a beat, she shifted the topic, her voice light but firm. “So, are we still... on for the movies?”

Ray and Mikey exchanged a quick look but nodded, letting the subject slide. Illi’s head was still buzzing with what she’d just heard, but she pushed it down — for now.

-

Illi leaned her head back against the cool, painted wall beside her bed, the faint scuff marks from years of restless nights visible in the dim light. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them like a shield against the swirl of thoughts spinning in her mind.

Why did it feel like everything was changing? she wondered. Frank acting distant, hanging out with that cheerleader girl — it wasn’t like him, or maybe it was, and she just didn’t want to admit it. 

Did he even care about any of us anymore? The question twisted deep inside her chest, tighter than she wanted to admit. Or was she just imagining things?

Her fingers absently traced the worn fabric of her shirt as she thought about the bracelet he’d given her — that little black cord with the bat charm, so simple, so perfectly her. It felt like a secret between them, but now everything felt tangled and messy.

She closed her eyes, trying to steady the ache she wasn’t ready to face. Maybe it’s just a phase. Maybe it’ll all go back to the way it was. But even saying that out loud sounded hollow.

Illi stayed like that a moment longer, the quiet of the room wrapping around her as the world outside kept moving, whether she was ready for it or not.

She let the silence settle heavy around her, the weight of everything she wasn’t saying pressing down like an unshakable shadow. It felt like the pieces were slipping through her fingers — the easy laughter, the way Frank’s smile used to reach his eyes, the closeness they’d shared without needing words. Now, those moments seemed distant, like a fading photograph curling at the edges.

Her chest tightened, a dull ache that wasn’t quite sadness but something colder — disappointment, maybe. The kind that seeps in when hope lingers too long, waiting for something that might never come. Watching him with that girl, laughing like it was effortless, made her feel invisible, like a ghost tucked just outside the frame of his life.

There was a part of her that wanted to scream, to demand answers, but fear held her tongue. Fear that pushing too hard would shatter whatever fragile thread still connected them. And yet, the silence between them screamed louder than any words could.

She thought about how easy it was to hide behind jokes and distractions, to pretend none of it mattered. But deep down, a quiet desperation pulsed — the need to be seen, to be understood, to matter. To not be the one left standing alone in the cold when the rest moved on without her.

Her eyes fluttered open, staring at the ceiling as if answers might be written there, somewhere between the cracks. But all she found was the echo of a question that wouldn’t fade.

How much longer could she hold on to something that was already slipping away?

Maybe it was her. Maybe the problem wasn’t him, but something inside her that pushed him away without meaning to. The thought clung to her like a bitter cold she couldn’t shake. Why was Frank avoiding her? It wasn’t the rejection itself that stung—she tried hard not to care, buried it deep beneath layers of stubborn pride and distracted laughter. But every time she let her guard down, the questions bubbled up, relentless and raw.

What made him so afraid? What was it in her that made him look at her with wide eyes, not with warmth or understanding, but with genuine terror? Not like she had meant to scare him, not like it was a joke or a game—something real, something dark enough to make him pull away like she was a threat.

That scared her. More than she let on. The way he flinched from her felt like a fracture, a crack running through something fragile they once had. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to fix it or if it was better to let it break.

Her chest tightened again, a hollow ache twisting sharper than before. Maybe it wasn’t just him being scared. Maybe it was that she was too much, or maybe not enough. Maybe she was the reason the space between them grew colder every day. And that thought settled over her like the fading light, quiet and unforgiving.

The tears she was so good at holding back finally slipped free, tracing warm, quiet down her cheek. She pressed her face into her knees, trying to muffle the soft sounds, knowing Mikey was asleep just above her. The weight in her chest felt unbearable, like an anchor dragging her deeper into a cold, dark place she didn’t know how to escape.

She didn’t want to cry—not really. She hated the vulnerability, the way it made her feel exposed and small. But the ache was too loud, too persistent, and the silence around her only made it louder. Each tear was a silent confession that maybe, beneath all the jokes and bravado, she was scared too.

Scared that the distance wasn’t just his choice but something neither of them knew how to fix.

Her heart felt heavy, breaking softly in the quiet of the night, carrying all the things she couldn’t say out loud. And in that stillness, the tears kept falling, uninvited and unstoppable.

Illi’s sobs trembled in the darkness, hiccuping between each breath as she desperately wiped at the tears streaking down her face. Her hands shook, never quite managing to erase the pain etched into her skin. The quiet room held her brokenness, wrapping around her like a cold, unyielding shadow. And even as the tears blurred her vision, she stayed there—alone with the ache, hoping somehow the hurt would fade, even if only for a little while.

Illi’s tears traced strange, silent paths down her cheeks, hiccupping like broken little ghosts she couldn’t quite catch. Her chest felt like a cracked music box, playing a tune nobody wanted to hear—off-key and trembling. Frank’s scared eyes haunted her, a mirror of something she didn’t understand but felt deep in her bones.

Maybe he was a monster running from himself, and maybe she was just another shadow he couldn’t face.

_

Chapter Text

__

As the month went on, Frank and Sally’s closeness tightened fast—too fast—the kind that made people watching from the outside feel itchy, like the air was bending wrong around them. They were suddenly everywhere together, orbiting like they’d been stitched into each other overnight. Record stores, the movies, long walks through neighborhoods that didn’t matter. And it was weird—unsettling—because Frank wasn’t the guy for that. He hated movies, hated sitting still in the dark surrounded by strangers. He hated walking for no reason, saw it as wasted time.

But record stores—that was different. He could breathe there, sift through the stacks with the smell of cardboard sleeves and dust in the air, find something rare and feel the small victory of holding it first. And somehow, someway, Sally liked the same music. Not just a song here or there, but full albums, deep cuts, stuff he never thought a cheerleader with a Jeep would even know existed. It made it harder to keep her at arm’s length, even when a part of him kept thinking the whole thing was too much, too quick, too strange.

It was lunch, the kind where Frank was too tired to deal with people and too hungry to care about the noise. He was sitting on the far side of the cafeteria, tray untouched, flipping through a battered CD case he always carried in his backpack. Most people didn’t even notice it—too busy scrolling on their phones or pretending to study—but Sally plopped herself down across from him without asking.

“What’s that?” she asked, leaning forward like she already planned on touching it.

Frank raised a brow. “It’s a CD case. You’ve seen one before, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Obviously. I mean, what’s in it?”

“Music,” he said flatly, snapping it shut halfway like he was guarding some sacred artifact.

“Oh my god, you’re so dramatic,” she laughed, reaching for it. He pulled it just out of reach, smirking a little. “You probably have, like… Nickelback or something in there.”

That got him. His face twisted like she’d insulted his entire family. “What the hell? No.” He shoved it toward her now, daring her to open it.

She flipped through, her fingers pausing on an album cover—black background, bold white text, the kind of thing only certain people recognized without reading. Her eyes lit up. “No way. You like The Misfits?”

Frank blinked, almost suspicious. “Yeah. Why?”

“Because… so do I. And not just, like, one song. My dad used to play Astro Zombies in the car when I was a kid.”

He stared for a beat too long, leaning back in his chair. “Alright. That’s… unexpected.”

She grinned, handing it back like she’d just passed some unspoken test. “What else you got in there?”

Frank flipped the case open again, but this time he angled it so she could see. “Alright, but if you say you like every single one of these, I’m calling bullshit.”

Ten minutes later, they were still trading album names, half-eaten food forgotten on the table. Frank didn’t even realize until later that it was the first time he’d talked to her longer than five minutes without trying to come up with an excuse to leave.

They shared more interests than Frank had initially thought—something that bothered him more than he’d ever say out loud. Why would he have anything in common with a preppy cheerleader who wore pastel cardigans and carried a glittery water bottle? He didn’t know, but apparently, he did. They both liked the same bands, they had the same borderline-obsessive love for greasy diner fries, and—worst of all—they both thought strawberry Pop-Tarts were the only Pop-Tarts worth eating.

And then there was the chick flick thing. Frank would never admit it to anyone, not even under threat of death, but he had a soft spot for them. They were his guilty pleasures—movies like Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, even Legally Blonde if no one was around to see him. It wasn’t like he was going to announce that to Ray or Mikey.

So when Sally, all casual and smiling, asked him if he wanted to watch Clueless one night when they were hanging out at her place, he was surprisingly down. He kept his face neutral, acting like it was no big deal, but inside he was secretly relieved he didn’t have to pretend to hate it. They’d sat there on her ridiculously soft couch, sharing a blanket that smelled faintly like her perfume, trading sarcastic commentary about the outfits even though he knew every scene by heart.

To him, she was still an annoying cheerleader—still too bright, too loud, too much. But maybe… maybe somewhere between the shared playlists, the diner booths, and the movie nights, she’d stopped being just that. Maybe she’d started becoming something else. Something harder to dismiss.

Frank’s shoes scuffed against the carpet as Sally led him down the hallway. He wasn’t thrilled—her house was bright, too clean, and smelled faintly of cinnamon air freshener, which made him wrinkle his nose. Sally seemed oblivious, chattering about the movie they were going to watch.

As they reached her door, it swung open and her parents appeared in the hallway. Her mom’s arms were crossed, eyebrows raised. Her dad leaned against the doorframe, giving Frank a long once-over.

“So… are you two… dating?” her mom asked, voice polite but sharp, like she was expecting some kind of confession. Also silently judging Frank's appearance, though judging by her look she'd talk to Sally about it later 

Frank froze mid-step. His natural reaction, a tight brow and a short, sharp shake of the head. “No,” he said flatly, voice low.

Sally groaned, rolling her eyes. “Mom, Dad, stop putting Frank on the spot.” She waved her hand, trying to steer her parents out of the way. “We’re just watching a movie, okay? Come on.”

Her dad raised an eyebrow, clearly not fully convinced, but he stepped back. Her mom huffed softly, giving Frank a look that said she was reserving judgment.

Frank muttered something that might have been a “thanks,” though it sounded more like a grunt. Sally grabbed his hand—or at least nudged his shoulder—and pulled him into her room. The door shut behind them, muffling the quiet whispers of her parents in the hallway.

Inside, the room was dim, posters on the walls, a small bookshelf stacked with DVDs and books. Sally plopped down on her bed, gesturing for him to sit on the floor.

“Relax,” she said, tossing him the DVD case. “It’s just a movie. No parental interrogations here.”

Frank gave a half-smile, plopping down cross-legged, though he still felt stiff. He didn’t like Sally, not really, but maybe the movie was worth putting up with her chatter for a little while.

Frank sank a little lower into the floor, the DVD case balanced on his knees. Sally flopped onto her bed, pulling her knees up, her hair falling over one shoulder.

“So… this is your favorite?” she asked, grinning, gesturing at the DVD. “You actually like Clueless?”

Frank shrugged, eyes on the screen. “Guilty pleasure. Don’t make a big deal about it.” His voice was flat, but his tight brows betrayed the tiniest twitch of amusement.

Sally laughed, soft and genuine. “I won’t tell anyone. Promise.” She shifted closer to the edge of the bed, peering at him over her knees. “You’re way more… chill than I thought. Not what I expected from, you know… you.”

“Me?” Frank’s tone was dry, but he couldn’t help a tiny smirk. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, eyes wide. “I figured you’d hate every movie I picked. Especially chick flicks. But you’re sitting here, not complaining. That’s… impressive.”

Frank stared at the TV, pretending to focus on the opening credits. “It’s just a movie. Chill.”

She tilted her head, watching him with curiosity. “You’re kinda nice, you know that?”

He scoffed quietly, not meeting her gaze. “Don’t get used to it.”

The first scene rolled, the screen glowing softly, filling the small room with light and color. Sally munched on a bag of popcorn, occasionally glancing at Frank, who kept his arms crossed but felt… lighter, somehow, even if he’d never admit it.

__

Frank leaned awkwardly against the doorway, arms crossed, as Sally’s bright smile lit up the living room. She was talking a mile a minute about how cute their house was and how excited she was to finally meet his parents. She was probably only saying it because it was probably small and humble compared to hers. Probably calling them broke or some shit. 

His dad emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “And who might this be?”

“This is Sally,” Frank said flatly, stepping back a little. “Sally, my parents.”

“Hi!” Sally said, holding out a hand to his dad. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. Frank’s mentioned you a lot!” Which wasn't exactly true. 

His dad shook her hand, raising his eyebrows but smiling warmly. “Well, it’s always nice to meet a friend of Frank’s. You like music?”

“I do! Classic rock, old school stuff, anything with a solid beat,” Sally said enthusiastically. “Frank just got me into even more of it—he’s got great taste.”

Frank shifted his weight, muttering, “Yeah, sure,” while trying to appear nonchalant.

His mom appeared, brushing flour off her hands, probably from baking. “Hello, dear,” she said, giving Sally a warm hug. “Frank’s friends must be interesting if he talks about them so much.”

Sally laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Interesting is a good word. He showed me some bands I hadn’t heard yet—really awesome stuff.”

Frank’s dad chuckled, shaking his head. “We can see why he hangs out with you. You seem… genuinely nice. And you’ve got good taste, obviously.”

Sally grinned, glancing at Frank. “Aw, thanks! He really knows his music, I’m lucky.”

Frank looked away, scowling slightly but secretly pleased. His mom smiled knowingly. “It’s good to see him enjoying someone’s company. He’s been quiet lately, so it’s nice to see him smile.”

Sally nudged him playfully. “See? Told you, they’d love me.”

Frank grunted, pretending annoyance. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

__

Frank leaned back against his locker, shoulders tense as Sally’s laughter echoed down the hall. She was bouncing on her heels, gesturing wildly about some thing in class he hadn’t even been paying attention to. “C’mon, Frank! You have to see this—everyone’s losing it!”

He rolled his eyes but let her tug him along, her hand brushing his as they navigated the crowded hallway. People stared. Some snickered, whispering under their breath. He could feel the usual weight of judgment pressing against him—piercings, loose tie. Freak. Weirdo. Punk. It didn’t matter, he had long since stopped trying to explain.

But Sally? Sally didn’t blink. She moved beside him like he belonged there, and for a strange moment, the stares seemed to fade behind her. She nudged him with her elbow, grinning. “Seriously, I don’t get why everyone thinks you’re scary. You’re… fun.”

Frank scoffed, looking away. “Yeah, right.” He knew the truth—most people probably still thought he was some edgy outsider—but she didn’t seem to care. And it annoyed him, the way that comfort made his chest feel tight in a way he hadn’t expected.

They slipped past Mikey and Ray at the lockers, his friends trying to flag him down. Frank caught their eyes briefly, wanting to wave, to explain… but Sally’s grip on his arm was firm, insisting without words that he stay with her. He couldn’t protest. Not really.

He knew he should talk to them, catch up with Illi, make things less awkward… but every time he thought about breaking free, Sally pulled him toward the cafeteria or down the next hallway, laughing at something dumb and infectious. And he followed, because for the first time in a long while, letting himself get pulled along didn’t feel like giving up—it felt like being alive.

Yet, in the back of his mind, there was the quiet gnawing though. Illi. He should see her. He wanted to. But it kept slipping further out of reach. And maybe that was the part that hurt the most.

Sally leaned against her jeep, the sun dipping low over the parking lot, casting long shadows across the asphalt. Her cheerleader friends had formed a tight circle around her, arms crossed, voices low but sharp with judgment.

“He’s so… weird, Sally. Seriously,” one of them said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Why would you even hang out with him? A guy on the football team would actually be a good match for you.”

Sally rolled her eyes, shifting her weight so that one shoulder pressed into the hood of her car. “I like him.”

Another girl snorted. “Come on, Valentine’s Day is coming up. You really want to spend it with Frank Iero?”

Sally bristled, standing a little straighter. “Yeah. I do. He’s… different, okay? And maybe that’s why I like him.”

They exchanged skeptical glances. “Different is one thing. But he’s—ugh—he’s scary-looking, weird, goth or whatever. How is that even a good thing?”

Sally crossed her arms, stubborn as a brick wall. “He’s not scary. And he’s not ‘weird’ in a bad way. You don’t even know him like I do.”

A pause settled over the group. One of the girls whispered, almost too low for Sally to hear, “But… do you even actually like him?”

Sally’s jaw tightened. Her eyes softened, though, just slightly, as she met their incredulous stares. “Yeah. I like him. He’s… smart, funny, and he gets me. And if you don’t understand that, that’s your problem, not mine.”

The group huffed, shaking their heads, but Sally stayed leaning against the car, arms folded, a small, determined smile tugging at her lips. Even in the midst of the criticism, she refused to let them sway her. She had made her choice.

Frank’s footsteps echoed softly against the asphalt as he approached Sally and her friends in the parking lot. They were leaning on her Jeep, laughing and tossing hair, talking in low, sharp voices.

The second he got close, the tone shifted. One of them nudged another and smirked. “Well, Frank hasn’t been hanging out with Illi McMillin anymore, right?”

Another giggled, spinning her hair around her finger. “Yeah… probably smart. She’s kind of a freak. And, honestly… fat too.”

“She used to be a boy,” a third said, smirking like it was the ultimate insult. “Frank’s totally ignoring her now. He’s probably relieved.”

They all looked at Frank and Sally, expecting them to laugh, expecting Frank to join in somehow.

Frank tightened his brows, his jaw clenched. His lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t say a word. Not a single word. He just listened, shoulders rigid, heart thudding in his chest. The girls thought they were clever, cruel, and untouchable—but Frank was there, and he wasn’t going to let them drag him into their mockery.

The girls didn’t pause. They leaned in closer, smirking like predators. “She seriously needs to stop eating so much,” one said, poking fun at Illi’s plate from lunch. “I mean, have you seen her arms?” another chimed, rolling her eyes. “And that face… bleh. Frank must be glad he doesn’t have to hang around her anymore.”

Frank’s chest tightened. He opened his mouth, ready to cut in, to tell them to shut the hell up. But before he could, Sally stepped forward, sharp and unwavering.

“She’s a nice girl,” she said firmly, voice steady, almost daring them to argue. “You don’t get to talk about her like that.”

Frank froze for a second, caught off guard. He looked at Sally, really looked at her—at the fire in her honey-colored eyes, at how she wasn’t backing down, at how she just… defended someone else without hesitation.

And for some reason, something in him twisted. He felt it deep in his chest, that strange, unfamiliar warmth, a small affirmation that maybe—just maybe—he liked being around her more than he’d realized. The tightness in his shoulders eased just a fraction as he silently nodded, letting her words settle between them.

Frank’s mind was a fog, clouded with Sally—the way she laughed at nothing, the way she leaned into him when they walked, how she knew music he loved before he even mentioned it. Even with most of his hours consumed by her, he still carved out moments for Mikey and Ray, grabbing lunch or wandering the halls, trying to keep some normalcy. Chemistry, though, felt different. The empty seat beside him, the one Illi had always claimed, went unnoticed at first, swallowed by his distraction. Then the realization hit—she hadn’t been showing up. Maybe she was sick. Maybe something worse. He thought of asking Mikey, but the moment passed, and somehow, the thought slipped away, dissolving into the blur of Sally’s presence that seemed to occupy every corner of his attention.

Frank felt the unease in the air the moment he stepped into Illi and Mikey’s shared room. The familiar sprawl of blankets, books, and half-eaten snacks should have been comforting, but his stomach twisted with the thought of her. She hadn’t been at school, hadn’t shown up like she always did. Logic told him she wouldn’t be here, that maybe she was out somewhere, avoiding the monotony of school in her own way—but part of him had a sliver of hope that she wasn’t, that she would be absent, that he could breathe.

Ray and Mikey were sprawled on the floor like usual, unpacking snacks and laughing over some dumb inside joke. Frank sank onto the carpet beside them, trying to imitate normalcy, trying to lose himself in the comfort of routine. Yet the room felt empty in a different way. Her absence was a physical weight, pressing into the corners of the space, making the walls seem closer, the laughter duller. Even with Ray and Mikey beside him, Frank’s thoughts kept straying, circling the idea of her somewhere else, and the memory of that Christmas, that almost-kiss, that unspoken tension. It lingered, heavier than any of the blankets scattered around him.

Mikey tossed a chip into his mouth, glancing at Frank. “So… Sally, huh? That’s your girlfriend or what? You’re always with her at school.”

Frank leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, eyes rolling. “Nah. Not my girlfriend.”

Ray smirked, nudging him. “So what, you two just hanging out? Valentine’s Day coming up, you got plans or what?”

Frank shrugged, a little defiant in his posture, eyebrows tight. “Do you think she’s gonna see it that way? We’ve been hanging out a lot, yeah… but that doesn’t mean shit.”

Mikey frowned. “Yeah, but… don’t you think she’s expecting something? You know how chicks get about Valentine’s Day.”

Frank leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, tone rough but honest. “Look, I’m not some heart-on-my-sleeve dude. I don’t play those games. If she’s expecting some sappy shit, she’s gonna get disappointed."

The floorboards creaked as the door swung open, and Illi stepped into the room. The moment she appeared, the energy shifted—heads turned, the casual chatter fading into quiet observation. Frank froze mid-lean, eyes widening slightly. His gaze locked on her, lingering longer than he intended, drawn instinctively to her wrist. The absence of the black cord bracelet, the one he had given her, hit him harder than he expected. His mind raced, puzzled. Why was she here? Even if it was her own house, her presence here caught him off guard.

Mikey, unbothered, simply turned his head toward her, a small smile playing on his face, the motion automatic. Ray followed suit, his posture relaxed, as if acknowledging the entrance required nothing more. Frank, however, remained caught in a quiet spiral of confusion and observation, the room around him blurring slightly as he tried to make sense of it.