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I thought writing it down would make it easier.
That if I poured the words onto the page, scratched them into paper until the ink bled through, I’d finally quiet the storm in my head. That the journal would take the weight, and I’d walk away lighter.
But all it did was make the weight permanent. Fixed. Etched into existence where I can’t lie to myself and pretend I never thought it, never wanted it. The second I closed the cover and shoved it under my mattress, it was too late. My words sat there, alive, waiting for me every time I walked into my room.
Sometimes I swear I can hear them whispering from under the bed. It’s her. It’s always been her.
I lie awake at night thinking about those lines. Not even the last one, the one that sounded like it belonged in a bad poem. No — it’s the middle part, the truth no one’s supposed to know. The truth I never even said out loud, not once, not even drunk. And it’s worse now, because there’s a record of it. A crime scene, tucked beneath my bed.
If anyone ever found that journal… if she ever found out—
I don’t even let myself finish the thought.
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At practice, the sun is brutal, sticky. The grass smells like wet earth and sweat, and everything feels a little too loud, the whistle piercing through the buzz of voices. I’m running drills, but my focus is shot. It keeps snagging, again and again, on her.
Lottie.
She’s laughing with Van near the goal line, tossing her hair back in that way that shouldn’t look like anything, but does. There’s nothing special about it. Just a girl laughing at something a friend said. And yet I can’t tear my eyes away.
It hits me sharp, a mix of jealousy and something else I don’t have a word for. I want to know what Van said to make her laugh like that. I want it to be me. But I know it never will be, not in that effortless way. My jokes are sharp, meant to wound. Hers come out soft, easy. People lean toward her, not away.
The whistle blows again. I realize I’ve been standing still, staring, and hustle back into the drill, cheeks hot in a way I can’t blame on the sun.
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In the locker room, I keep my head down, pretending to dig in my bag for something I don’t need. Lottie’s voice carries from a few lockers down. It’s warm, lilting, threaded through with laughter.
I tell myself it’s fine. It’ll fade. These things always do. Crushes, obsessions, whatever you want to call them. I’ve had them before, sparks that burn out when you get close enough to see the person underneath.
But this—
This isn’t fading. It’s burrowing in.
The more I try to look away, the deeper it roots itself. Every time I catch myself watching her — in class, in hallways, across the field — I promise it’s the last time. That I’ll cut it off at the root. But the roots just keep spreading.
By the time I’m home, I feel wrung out, like practice didn’t take it out of me, but wanting did.
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I light a cigarette in my room with the window cracked, the air heavy with heat and ash. Smoke curls around me, thin gray ribbons, and I watch it dissolve into the night.
I smoke too much lately. I know it. It’s not just to feel the buzz, or to spite my lungs. It’s to quiet the ache. To give myself something to hold when my hands itch with wanting something I can’t reach.
The cigarettes help. The bottles help more. After practice, I raid my stash — cheap vodka poured into an old water bottle so it doesn’t look suspicious in my bag. One sip, two, three, the burn crawling down my throat. I tell myself it’s to forget, but all it does is blur the edges.
The problem with blurring the edges is that she shines brighter through the haze.
I close my eyes and see her anyway. The curve of her smile. The way her hands flutter when she talks. The quiet crease in her forehead when she thinks no one’s looking.
It’s everywhere. She’s everywhere.
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I write still, just scraps, half-sentences in the margins of my math notes or on the backs of receipts. They’re not about her, not directly. Just lines like: Some things are better when you never touch them. Like fire. Like her.
I tell myself it’s just me being dramatic. That I’ve always been like this, scribbling nonsense when I’m bored. But I know what it is.
I know who it’s about.
I shove the scraps in the same notebook I used that night, the one under my bed. The weight of it grows heavier with every page, every line. Like I’m building my own trap.
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At practice the next day, I watch Lottie tie her hair back, her fingers quick and precise. I notice the little things — how she tucks a strand behind her ear, how her laces are always double-knotted, how her socks never slide down the way mine do.
It’s stupid, the things I latch onto. Stupid, and impossible to stop.
She’s laughing again, this time with Laura Lee, and it cuts sharp, the same jealousy coiling low in my stomach. I know I’ll never sound like that, never make her light up that way.
It should hurt less by now. It doesn’t.
The whistle blows. I run harder than I need to, lungs burning, legs aching, trying to outpace the feeling. But when I stop, bent over with my hands on my knees, the first thing I do is look for her.
Always, always her.
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That night, I drink again. Too much, too fast. The vodka tastes like nothing now, just fuel. I wait for the numbness, the quiet, but it doesn’t come. Instead I end up on the floor, head tilted back against my bed frame, cigarette burning low between my fingers.
The journal under the bed feels like it’s humming, alive. I want to pull it out, to read the words I wrote, to remind myself it’s real. But I’m too scared. Scared that seeing, in black ink, will make me realize just how deep I’m in.
So I sit there, drunk and buzzing and aching, and whisper to the ceiling again. "It’s fine. It’ll fade."
But even as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re a lie.
Because the truth is lodged too deep. It’s her. It’s always been her. And no amount of smoke or vodka or running drills until my lungs split will change that.
Not now.
Not ever.
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Parties all blur together after a while. Same music vibrating out of shitty speakers, same sticky floors and red Solo cups, same kids trying too hard to forget themselves for a few hours.
I don’t even know whose house it is tonight. Someone from the soccer team, maybe. Doesn’t matter. What matters is the bottle in my hand and the smoke already sticking to my clothes. I weave through the crowd, half-buzzed, feeling the walls close in.
It’s too hot inside. Too loud. Everyone pressed too close together, voices rising over the music. I need air before I choke.
So I slip out the back door.
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Outside, the night is heavy with summer humidity, but at least it’s breathable. Crickets pulse in the grass, a rhythm steadier than the bass inside. I light a cigarette, the flame brief and sharp, and take a drag until my lungs sting.
The quiet is almost enough. Almost.
Then the door creaks behind me. For a second I brace, ready to tell whoever it is to fuck off — I came out here to be alone. But when I turn, it’s her.
Lottie.
Of course it is.
She hesitates in the doorway like she’s not sure she belongs out here. The porch light frames her, soft gold on her hair. She looks like she stepped out of some dream I didn’t ask to have.
“Hey,” she says finally, voice low.
“Hey,” I answer, too casual, flicking ash off the end of my cigarette. Like my pulse isn’t hammering in my throat.
She comes closer, slow, like I might spook if she moves too fast. And maybe she’s right.
“You always sneak off at these things,” she says, leaning against the porch railing. She doesn’t look at me right away, just out into the yard where the grass glitters faintly under the moon.
“Yeah, well.” I take another drag, exhale. “Not really my scene, despite what everyone thinks.”
She smiles at that. Not a big one, just the corner of her mouth twitching upward. But I feel it like sunlight breaking through.
“Can I—?” She gestures at the cigarette.
I hold it out before she finishes the question. Her fingers brush mine when she takes it, light as static, and it shouldn’t mean anything. But it does. It burns hotter than the ember at the tip.
She inhales, slow, then coughs a little, laughing softly. “Still not used to it.”
“You’ll get there,” I say, pretending I’m not staring at the curve of her mouth as she exhales smoke.
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We trade it back and forth, the silence between drags stretched taut. Every time our fingers touch, my chest tightens. I try to act casual, leaning back against the railing, but I can feel the heat rising in my face.
She breaks the quiet first. “You’re different outside the team,” she says.
I snort. “Different how?”
“I don’t know. Quieter. Like… less armor.”
I don’t know what to do with that. Less armor? I’ve spent years building this shell, sharp edges and don’t-fuck-with-me looks. And somehow she sees through it anyway.
“Don’t tell anyone,” I say finally, smirking to cover the way my stomach flips.
Her laugh is soft. “Your secret’s safe.”
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The cigarette burns low, and when I light another, she leans closer to share. Our hands meet again, but this time linger just a second longer than they need to. My throat goes dry.
I tell myself it’s nothing. Just the lighter. Just smoke and nerves and imagination.
But I can’t ignore the way she looks at me in that moment — not straight on, but sidelong, like she’s afraid to be caught. Like I’m afraid to be caught.
The song inside shifts, bass rattling the windows, and it feels like the whole world is suspended here on the porch, in the half-light between us.
I want to say something. Anything. A joke, a confession, a scream. But the words catch in my throat.
So I just take another drag and hand it back.
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Eventually someone opens the door, calling for her, and the spell shatters. She straightens, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I should…” she starts.
“Yeah,” I say too quickly. “Go ahead.”
She hesitates, like she might say more, but doesn’t. Just hands me back the cigarette — her fingers brushing mine one last time — and slips inside.
The door clicks shut, and I’m alone again.
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I stay out there long after, chain-smoking, staring at the yard until the night blurs. The air is thick with ghosts of her laugh, her voice, the warmth of her hand.
By the time I stumble home, I’m restless, buzzing, like I swallowed electricity and can’t get it out.
In my room, I toss and turn, replaying every second. The lighter, the smoke, the silence. The way her eyes caught mine and then darted away.
I tell myself I imagined it. That she was just being nice, just curious, just bored. That the spark I felt was one-sided.
But no matter how many times I repeat it, it doesn’t stick.
Because the truth is, I can still feel her hand brushing mine. And it burns hotter than the smoke still clinging to my lungs.
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I didn’t mean for it to happen. Not really.
It was supposed to be another mindless group assignment in history class — maps, markers, the kind of thing you can coast through half-asleep. I got paired with Van, Travis, and her. Lottie. Which should’ve been fine. Safe. All I had to do was keep my head down, scrawl some bullshit about trade routes, and get through the period.
But then she smiled at me.
Just a quick one, across the table. The kind that was supposed to be harmless, polite, forgettable. Only it wasn’t. It landed like a stone in my chest, pulling everything under.
“You think we should start with Spain?” she asked, her voice soft but sure.
I shrugged, a little too sharp. “Whatever.”
Her brows furrowed, just slightly. The look of someone who isn’t used to people snapping at her.
Van jumped in to smooth it over. “Yeah, Spain works. Nat, can you grab the markers?”
I shoved them across the table, harder than I meant to. They clattered, one rolling off the edge.
“Jesus, Natalie,” Travis muttered, leaning down to grab it.
Something in me flared, hot and reckless. Like I’d been waiting all week for an excuse to burn. “What? Sorry I don’t give a shit about coloring maps like we’re in kindergarten.”
Lottie blinked, her hand still hovering over the paper. She didn’t say anything. Just looked at me, wide-eyed, like she couldn’t decide if I’d just slapped her or if she’d imagined it.
The silence stretched. Too long. Too loud.
I looked away first.
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The rest of class was unbearable. Every second, I could feel her not looking at me. Not asking me questions. Not laughing at Van’s dumb jokes the way she usually did.
And I hated myself for it.
By the time the bell rang, my chest felt like it was splitting open. I wanted to chase after her, to say something — anything — to undo the moment. But I didn’t. I let her walk out, her hair brushing her shoulders as she disappeared into the hallway crowd.
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I don’t sleep that night. Not really. Just drift in and out, chasing a dream that keeps dissolving every time I reach for it. A dream where she doesn’t go back inside. Where she stays. Where the silence breaks.
But when the alarm clock blares, it’s just me, the stale taste of ash in my mouth, and the journal under my bed humming like a secret I can’t stop feeding.
And I know it now, with a clarity that makes my chest ache:
It’s not fading.
It’s never going to fade.
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It started at practice. We’d been running drills, Coach barking at us like we were a pack of dogs. My head pounded from last night’s hangover, and the gym lights were too bright, burning holes straight through my skull. And then Lottie laughed at something Van said. Just a quick, bright laugh. And it cracked me in half.
I don’t know why that sound hurt worse than anything. Maybe because it wasn’t mine. Maybe because she looked at everyone but me.
When she tossed me a bottle of water at break, her smile soft as if nothing in the world could touch her, I snapped.
“What?” I’d barked, harsher than I meant. “You think I need babysitting or something?”
Her face flickered—confusion, hurt—and then she smoothed it away like she always did. That perfect Lottie composure. “I just thought you might be thirsty.”
I wanted to take it back. Wanted to crush the words and shove them down my throat. But pride welded my jaw shut. So I just turned away, heart thundering, stomach curdled.
The guilt didn’t leave. Not when our games ended, not on the bus rides home, not when I lit my first cigarette on the porch. It sat in me like poison.
And that’s how I ended up dialing her number later, drunk and shaking.
The phone rang once. Twice. Then her voice—soft, warm, unmistakable.
“Hello?”
I froze. My pulse sprinted. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Just breath, shaky and too loud.
“Hello?” she said again, quieter this time, like maybe she could sense it was me.
I hung up. Slammed the phone down like it had burned me. Then I sat on the kitchen floor and cried until my chest hurt.
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The next team sleepover was Jackie’s idea, obviously. She pitched it like “bonding” and “morale,” but really it was an excuse to play truth or dare and eat too much sugar in someone’s basement.
I didn’t want to go. Every cell in my body screamed not to. But showing up felt safer than making excuses and letting my absence say too much.
So I went.
The house smelled like popcorn and nail polish remover. Blankets and pillows littered the floor. Music hummed low from the stereo. Everyone was laughing, chattering, draped across each other in easy ways I didn’t know how to mimic.
And then there was her.
Lottie, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, hair falling loose around her shoulders. She looked at home here in a way I never did. Like she belonged to this world of softness and girlhood, while I hovered on the edges, all sharp corners and cigarette smoke.
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Hours blurred together — games, pizza, the occasional dare gone too far. I kept to the sidelines, nursing a soda spiked with the flask I’d slipped into my bag.
At one point, I felt dizzy, the room tilting just enough to remind me I hadn’t eaten much all day. I must’ve looked pale, because suddenly Lottie was there beside me, holding out a glass of water.
“You okay?” she asked, her voice low enough that no one else could hear.
Our eyes met. For one suspended moment, it felt like everything in the room fell away — just me, her, and the glass of water between us.
I took it. Our fingers touched. Too brief, too careful. But it lit something in me anyway.
“Thanks,” I muttered, trying to sound bored.
She didn’t push. Just gave me the smallest nod, then drifted back toward the others.
But I couldn’t stop replaying it. The look in her eyes, searching mine. Like maybe she wanted to know more.
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Later, after the noise died down and everyone claimed a spot to sleep, the room fell into the kind of silence that only happens when too many people are pretending not to be awake.
I ended up on a blanket a few feet from her. Close enough to hear her breathing, steady and slow.
I should’ve passed out. I was buzzed enough. Exhausted enough. But my mind wouldn’t stop spinning.
At some point, I whispered. I don’t even know what. Maybe her name. Maybe I’m sorry. Maybe nothing that made sense at all.
But I know she heard.
Because her breathing hitched. Just for a second. Then steadied again, carefully even, like she didn’t want me to know she was awake.
The air between us felt alive, charged. Every inch of my skin buzzed with it. Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke.
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It had been weeks of circling the same edge. Weeks of swallowing words until they turned to ash in my throat. Weeks of watching her—too close, too far, too much. I told myself it would pass. That it had to. That I’d grow out of whatever this thing was gnawing at me. But instead it grew sharper, like glass under skin.
By the time the night came, I was already worn raw.
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The next week was worse. We had a team sleepover at Mari’s place this time, and I almost bailed. But not showing up would’ve been suspicious. And I couldn’t stand the idea of Lottie thinking I was scared of her.
The night blurred—junk food, movies, girls shrieking at dumb jump scares. I downed two beers I’d hidden in my bag, hoping to dull the edge of my nerves.
At some point, I caught her looking at me. Just looking. Like she wanted to say something but didn’t. The weight of it pressed on my ribs.
Later, when the lights were off and the others drifted into sleep, I lay awake. My head buzzed with alcohol, smoke, and her. Always her.
She was just a few feet away, breathing slow and steady. I turned my face into the pillow, whispered into the dark:
“I wish you knew.”
I didn’t mean for anyone to hear. But in the silence after, my stomach dropped.
Her breathing hadn’t changed—but I swore I felt it. That tiny shift. Like she’d heard every word and just didn’t know what to do with it.
I stayed awake the rest of the night, my whole body trembling.
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That should’ve been enough to scare me straight. Instead, it was the last crack in the dam.
The breaking point came a few days later. I found her outside after practice, sitting on the bleachers, tying her shoe. The late sun lit her hair like fire, and something in me just split open.
“Hey,” I said, voice rough.
She looked up, smiled that soft smile. “Hey.”
And suddenly it was too much. All the weeks, all the words I’d swallowed, all the nights I’d told myself to stop—it all came clawing up my throat.
“You don’t get it,” I blurted.
Her brows drew together. “Get what?”
“This.” I gestured wildly, useless. “You. Me. Whatever this is. You’re just—” My voice cracked. “You’re in my head all the damn time, Lottie. And I can’t make it stop.”
Silence. The kind that kills.
Her eyes were wide, shining in the fading light. But she didn’t speak.
I laughed, sharp and broken. “God, listen to me. I sound insane. Forget it.”
I turned to leave, shame burning me alive—
And then her hand caught mine.
It was nothing. Just fingers around fingers. But it jolted me like lightning.
“Natalie,” she said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear. “Don’t go.”
I froze. My throat worked around words I didn’t know how to form.
She stood, still holding my hand. Her face was so close, too close, and I couldn’t look away.
“I thought it was just me,” she whispered. “I thought I was crazy.”
The world tilted. My knees went weak. “You…” I couldn’t even finish.
Her thumb brushed my knuckles. Small, trembling. “It’s not just you.”
I broke then. The sob tore out before I could stop it. Weeks, months, maybe years of wanting knifed through me. I pressed my palms to my forehead, desperate and shaking.
“I can’t keep it in anymore,” I choked. “I can’t, Lottie.”
Her breath hitched against my cheek. And then—finally—her arms wrapped around me, pulling me in like I’d been hers forever.
No perfect words. No fireworks. Just raw, ragged truth, spilling out in the dark.
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That night, I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. I just lay in bed replaying it, the feel of her hand in mine, her breath on my skin.
The weight of want was still there. But for the first time, it didn’t crush me.