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exactly when you started liking Aubrey.
If someone asked, you wouldn't have an answer for them. There wasn't some dramatic moment where the world stopped spinning and suddenly everything made sense. There wasn't a confession under a sunset or an accidental hand touch that sent sparks flying through your veins. If anything, it happened slowly. So slowly that you didn't notice until it was already far too late to do anything about it.
Maybe it started with the way she laughed.
Not the fake laugh she used when she was making fun of Kel. Not the sharp, sarcastic laugh she threw around whenever someone said something stupid. Her real laugh. The one that escaped before she could stop it. The one that made her throw her head back slightly and grin so hard her cheeks hurt afterward.
Or maybe it was the way she always pretended not to care.
Because Aubrey was stubborn. Everyone knew that. She would complain the entire time she was helping someone, roll her eyes every five seconds, and act like she'd rather be literally anywhere else. Yet somehow she'd always stay. She'd always help. She'd always show up.
You noticed things like that.
You noticed far too many things about her.
The tiny scar on her knee from when she fell off her bike years ago. The way she absentmindedly played with a strand of pink hair when she was thinking. The fact that she always walked slightly ahead of everyone else, only to slow down a few seconds later so nobody got left behind.
They were stupid details.
Tiny details.
The kind of details people weren't supposed to notice unless they were paying way too much attention.
Unfortunately, you were paying way too much attention.
That was the problem.
You could sit across from Aubrey for five minutes and walk away remembering every word she'd said. Meanwhile, she could ask you a question and you'd spend the next thirty seconds trying to remember how human speech worked.
It was pathetic.
Absolutely pathetic.
The worst part was that she had no idea.
Aubrey would bump her shoulder against yours while walking home and think nothing of it. She'd throw an arm around you for a group photo and move on with her day while you spent the next week trying not to think about it. She'd smile at you and you'd carry that smile around like a treasured possession.
And she didn't know.
She didn't know that every time your phone lit up with her name, your stomach immediately flipped.
She didn't know that you'd memorized the sound of her laugh.
She didn't know that she occupied an embarrassing amount of your thoughts.
She didn't know that somewhere along the way, without permission and without warning, she'd become your favorite person.
Which was exactly why seeing her standing outside your front gate after school nearly caused your heart to stop.
Your throat went completely dry.
She was leaning against the rusted metal bars, her pink hair catching the late afternoon sun like a halo of neon static. She was staring down at her boots, kicking a loose pebble back and forth with a rhythmic, impatient click. Her spiked bat wasn't with her, but she still wore that oversized letterman jacket—the one that made her look twice as tough and half as big as she actually was.
You froze at the edge of the sidewalk, your backpack suddenly feeling like it was filled with lead.
Walk, you told yourself. Just move your feet.
As if she heard your internal panic, Aubrey snapped her head up. Her eyes locked onto yours, and the impatient scowl on her face instantly melted into something softer. Something relieved.
"Took you long enough," she called out, pushing herself off the gate. She crossed her arms, tilting her head as you finally managed to stumble closer. "Did you take the scenic route or did Kel drag you into another stupid argument?"
"Scenic route," you managed to squeak out. Your voice sounded hollow, even to your own ears. You cleared your throat quickly, trying to sound like a normal human being. "What are you doing here?"
"What, I can't just hang out?" she asked, eyebrows raised.
She scoffed, rolling her eyes in that classic Aubrey way, but you didn't miss the faint tint of pink creeping up her neck that had absolutely nothing to do with her hair color. She reached up, her fingers immediately finding a strand of pink hair and twisting it around her index finger.
The thinking habit. Your chest tightened.
"I mean, yeah, obviously you can," you stammered, frantically trying to look anywhere but at her face. "I just... I thought you were hanging out with the Hooligans today."
"They were being loud. And annoying," she muttered, looking away toward the end of the street. She let go of her hair and shoved her hands deep into her jacket pockets. "Besides... I wanted to talk to you. Alone. Without everyone else screaming over each other."
She looked back at you, her dark eyes suddenly piercing right through whatever flimsy defenses you had left.
"Are you gonna let me in, or are we just gonna freeze out here?"
Your heart gave another violent thud against your ribs. You fumbled blindly in your pocket for your house keys, your fingers suddenly feeling completely numb. This was fine. This was completely fine. It was just Aubrey. The same Aubrey who used to cry over scraped knees and share her comic books with you.
Except she wasn't just that Aubrey anymore. She was the girl who occupied every spare thought you had, and she was currently waiting on your doorstep.
"Yeah," you breathed, finally catching the key ring. "Yeah, come on in."
The key scraped loudly against the lock, a sharp metallic sound that felt entirely too loud in the quiet afternoon air. Your hands were shaking just enough to make the door stubborn, but with a firm twist, it clicked open. You pushed it wide, stepping aside to let her pass.
Aubrey didn't hesitate. She brushed past you, bringing with her the faint scent of cheap hair dye, sweet bubblegum, and the crisp winter wind. It was a combination that had absolutely no right to make your chest ache the way it did.
She kicked her boots off by the door with familiar ease, leaving them scattered next to your neatly placed sneakers. Walking into the living room, she didn't sit on the couch immediately. Instead, she wandered over to the window, staring out at the backyard as if she were inspecting the grass.
"Your house is always so quiet," she said softly. Her voice didn't have its usual sharp edge. It sounded smaller.
"Yeah," you muttered, dropping your backpack by the kitchen counter. "It's just me for a couple of days."
"Good." She turned around, leaning her back against the windowsill. She crossed her arms tightly over the chest of her letterman jacket. "Good. I don't think I could handle Kel bursting through the door right now."
You swallowed hard, remaining standing by the kitchen threshold. The distance between you felt like miles, yet simultaneously like nowhere near enough room to breathe. "Is something wrong, Aubrey?"
She looked down at her socks, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. For someone who usually took up so much space with her loud attitude and intimidating posture, she looked incredibly vulnerable standing there. The silence stretched between you, heavy and thick, until she finally let out a long, ragged sigh.
"No. Nothing is wrong," she started, her eyes darting up to meet yours before rapidly dropping back to the floor. "I just... I'm tired of pretending, I guess."
Your breath hitched. "Pretending what?"
"Pretending that I don't notice," she whispered.
She took two slow steps forward, closing the distance between you until she was standing just a foot away. The tough-girl act was entirely gone now. Her shoulders were dropped, and her dark eyes were wide, shining with a strange mixture of fear and determination.
"I'm not stupid," Aubrey said, her voice cracking slightly on the last word. She reached up, her fingers instantly tangling into that familiar strand of pink hair, twisting it tightly. "I see the way you look at me when you think I'm looking at someone else. I notice how you always freeze up whenever I sit next to you. And... and I know you remember every little thing I say, even when I'm just rambling about nothing."
Your heart didn't just thud; it felt like it stopped entirely. The room tilted. You opened your mouth to deny it, to scramble for some pathetic excuse to save face, but the words died in your throat.
"I used to think I was imagining it," she continued, taking one more step closer. Now, you could see the slight tremor in her own hands. "But then I realized... I was only noticing it because I was paying way too much attention to you, too."
She let go of her hair and looked right at you, her face flushing a deep, brilliant crimson.
"So stop looking like your world is ending," she muttered, a tiny, nervous version of her real smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "And say something. Please."
The silence in the room was deafening, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of the kitchen clock. Your brain felt like a corrupted hard drive, completely unable to process the data it had just received.
Aubrey was looking at you. She was looking at you and waiting.
"I..." You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. Your throat felt like it was coated in sand.
Her smile faltered just a fraction, the confidence draining from her posture as your silence stretched past the five-second mark. She dropped her arms to her sides, her fingers curling into tight fists. "Come on," she whispered, her voice dropping an octave, sounding suddenly terrified. "Don't do this to me. Say literally anything. Tell me I'm crazy. Tell me I completely misread everything. Just don't just stand there."
That broke the spell. The sheer panic in her eyes—the vulnerability from a girl who usually built walls so high nobody could even see over them—shoved your own anxiety aside.
"You're not crazy," you blurted out.
The words came out too fast, too loud, cracking slightly at the end. Aubrey blinked, her whole body going rigid as she stared at you.
"You're not crazy," you repeated, your voice dropping to a softer, steadier volume. You took a half-step forward, closing the tiny gap left between you until you could feel the faint warmth radiating from her letterman jacket. "I... I do. I pay attention to everything. I can't help it."
Aubrey’s chest rose and fell in a sharp, shallow breath. "Everything?"
"The way you play with your hair," you admitted, the truth finally tumbling out of you like water breaking through a dam. "The tiny scar on your knee. The fact that you always slow down so nobody gets left behind. I notice all of it. Every day. It's... it's honestly exhausting."
A tiny, breathless laugh escaped her lips—her real laugh, the one that made her eyes crinkle at the corners. The deep crimson blush on her cheeks spread all the way to the tips of her ears. "You're a total idiot, you know that?"
"Yeah," you breathed, a faint, genuine smile finally breaking across your own face. "Yeah, I know."
She looked down at her hands, which were still trembling slightly, before looking back up at you through her eyelashes. "So... what now?"
Before you could even think of an answer, a sharp, upbeat melody suddenly shattered the quiet of the house. Your phone was vibrating violently against the wooden kitchen counter, the screen flashing brightly.
Aubrey groaned loudly, throwing her head back. "If that is Kel, I am going to murder him."
You didn't move toward the counter. You didn't even look at the flashing screen. Right now, Kel and the rest of the world didn’t exist. There was only the quiet hum of the refrigerator, the fading afternoon light, and Aubrey standing close enough that you could count the individual silver rings of the zipper on her jacket.
The phone kept buzzing, its upbeat ringtone sounding horribly out of place against the thick, suffocating gravity of the room.
Aubrey’s eyes flicked toward the kitchen counter and then right back to you. The irritation on her face softened, replaced by a quiet, questioning look. "You're not going to get that?"
"No," you said. Your voice was barely a whisper, but it carried a certainty you didn't know you possessed.
A small, genuine shift occurred in the air between you. The defensive stance she always held—the raised shoulders, the crossed arms, the guarded tilt of her chin—completely vanished. She let out a breath she seemed to have been holding since she first knocked on your gate, her shoulders dropping as she let herself just be there with you.
"Okay," she murmured.
Slowly, almost hesitantly, she reached out. For all her bravado and the way she could swing a nail-bat without flinching, her hand was incredibly gentle as her fingers brushed against yours. Her skin was cool from the outside air, contrasting sharply with the sudden, burning heat radiating from your own pulse.
You didn't pull away. Instead, you opened your palm, letting her fingers slide into the gaps between yours. Her grip was tight, almost desperate, like she was anchoring herself to the spot so she wouldn't float away.
"My heart is beating so loud I think you can hear it," she admitted, her voice dropping to a raw, quiet register. She looked down at your joined hands, her thumb tracing a slow, soothing circle over the back of your knuckles. "It’s stupid. I’m supposed to be the tough one."
"You don't have to be tough right now," you replied.
Aubrey took a half-step closer, the heavy material of her letterman jacket brushing against your shirt. She tilted her head up, her dark eyes reflecting the very last rays of the sunset filtering through the window. There was no mockery in her expression, no sarcastic retort waiting to be thrown out to save face. It was just Aubrey—completely unguarded, completely yours.
"Good," she whispered, her gaze dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second before meeting your eyes again. "Because I don't think I could fake it anymore even if I tried."
The phone on the counter gave one final, pathetic buzz before the screen went entirely black, leaving the kitchen submerged in a quiet so absolute you could hear the blood rushing in your ears.
Aubrey didn't pull back. If anything, the threat of the outside world breaking in only made her hold on tighter. Her fingers remained buried in the fabric of your shirt, her knuckles white, grounding her right here in the small, narrow space between the counter and your heart.
"You're a total idiot," she muttered again, though the words lacked even a fraction of her usual bite. She hid her face against your shoulder, her pink hair brushing against your neck like soft static. "You're supposed to say something back. That’s how this works."
"I am saying something," you whispered, your voice a little raspy, a little wrecked by how quickly everything was shifting. You shifted your hand from her jaw, letting your fingers slide up into her hair, feeling the contrast of the coarse dye against the warmth of her scalp. "I'm staying."
She went rigid for a second, then let out a slow, trembling breath that fanned hot against your collarbone.
"Yeah," she murmured, her voice sounding incredibly small, stripped of the armor she wore like a shield every single day. "Yeah, you are."
When she finally pulled her face away from your neck, she didn't step back. She stayed entirely within your space, her dark eyes looking up at you through the messy fringe of her bangs. Up close, without the tough-girl scowl or the Hooligans shouting over her, she looked softer than you’d ever seen her. There was a raw, intense vulnerability in the way she stared at your mouth, her lower lip trembling just a fraction.
You didn't wait for her to change her mind. You couldn't.
You leaned down, closing the remaining inch between you, and this time the kiss wasn't a sudden collision. It was slow. Deliberate. The kind of kiss that felt like a quiet confession written in the dark, heavy with months of watching her from across the room, of memorizing the exact pitch of her laugh, of wishing you had the right to hold her like this.
Aubrey let out a soft, broken sound against your mouth, her hands moving from your shirt up to the back of your neck. She pulled you down into it, her lips parting slightly, tasting faintly of sweet artificial watermelon and the crisp, biting chill of the winter air outside. She wasn't holding back anymore. The desperation in the way she clung to you told you everything her pride never would—that she had been just as terrified, just as consumed, and just as exhausted from paying too much attention.
Your heart was hammering so violently against your ribs it felt bruised, but for the first time, the anxiety didn't lock you in place. It dissolved entirely, replaced by the solid, undeniable weight of her body pressed against yours, the heat of her skin, and the quiet, rhythmic sigh she let out when you deepened the kiss.
When she finally drifted backward, just enough to catch her breath, her forehead came to rest against yours. Her cheeks were flushed a brilliant, bruised crimson, her chest heaving under the heavy letterman jacket.
"If anyone finds out about this," she breathed, her eyes still half-closed, her voice rough and dizzy, "I will deny it. I'll tell everyone you cast a spell on me or something."
A genuine, breathless laugh bubbled up from your chest, the vibration passing between your foreheads. "A spell?"
"Shut up," she complained, a tiny, beautiful version of her real smile breaking through her flushed expression. She slid her arms completely around your waist, burying her face right back into the crook of your neck, letting her entire weight lean into you like she had finally run out of energy to fight. "Just... don't let go yet. I mean it."
You wrapped your arms securely around her shoulders, anchoring her against you as the shadows in the kitchen grew longer, the late afternoon sun finally slipping below the horizon. "I won't."
The twilight in the kitchen deepened into a rich, velvety blue, swallowing the sharp edges of the counters and casting long shadows across the linoleum floor. The only light left came from the pale moon rising outside the window, silvering the edges of Aubrey’s pink hair. She didn't let you breathe. She had spent weeks, maybe months, acting like she was completely blind to the way you melted whenever she was near, and now that she knew the truth—now that she knew you were entirely hers—she was revelling in every single second of it.
Her fingers stayed tangled in the hair at the nape of your neck, her grip possessive but agonizingly slow. She leaned her weight entirely into you, trapping you firmly between her body and the hard edge of the kitchen counter. You could feel the soft, heavy material of her letterman jacket pressing against your chest, the rapid, matching flutter of her own heart, and the faint, sweet scent of her lip gloss.
"Well?" Aubrey murmured, her voice a low, teasing hum that vibrated right against your mouth. She didn't close the final millimeter of distance. She just hovered there, her lips brushing yours whenever she spoke, torturing you with the proximity. "Still quiet, MC? I thought you had a whole list of things you noticed about me. You were so brave a second ago."
"You're cheating," you gasped out, your hands instinctively coming up to rest on her waist. Through the fabric of her shirt, her skin was warm, and you felt her take a sharp, satisfied breath the moment your fingers curved against her hips. "You know exactly what you're doing."
"Yeah, I do," she whispered, a wicked, beautiful little smirk pulling at the corner of her lips. She tilted her head sideways, her mouth sliding away from yours to trace a slow, burning path down the sensitive column of your neck. "I'm making up for lost time. You have no idea how annoying it was watching you bite your lip and look away every time I sat next to you on the couch."
Your breath caught in your throat, a quiet gasp escaping you as her lips pressed a soft, lingering kiss just beneath your jawline. Her fingers tightened in your hair, pulling you just a fraction closer, anchoring you to her.
"I thought you were going to ignore me forever," Aubrey confessed softly against your skin, her tone dropping for a split second into something genuinely raw before she brought the playful edge right back. She nipped lightly at your skin—just enough to make your knees go weak—before sliding her mouth back up to your ear. "So yeah, I’m going to make you suffer a little bit. It’s only fair."
She pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes, her dark gaze heavy, dark, and completely dilated in the dim room. Her face was still flushed a brilliant crimson, but there wasn't a single trace of hesitation left in her posture. She looked at you like you were the only thing in the entire world that mattered, her thumbs gently stroking the sides of your neck.
"Look at you," Aubrey teased, her voice dropping to a rough, quiet register that made your stomach do a violent flip. "You're completely red. If the lights were on, I bet you’d look like a tomato."
"Shut up," you muttered, trying to find your footing, trying to regain even a shred of control. You gripped her waist a little tighter, pulling her flush against you so she could feel exactly how much she was affecting you. "If you're going to keep talking, maybe I will answer Kel's call."
Aubrey let out a sharp, delighted laugh—that real, unforced laugh that crinkled her eyes and made your chest ache with pure affection. She leaned forward, burying her face into your shoulder for a brief second to hide her grin before looking back up at you, her eyes glittering with mischief.
"You wouldn't dare," she purred, her hands sliding down from your neck to rest over yours on her waist, her fingers intertwining with yours. "You've been wanting this for months. I know you have. You're stuck here with me now."
She reached up with her free hand, her index finger gently tracing the shape of your lower lip, her touch feather-light and agonizing.
"So," she whispered, her voice dropping into a breathless, demanding purr as she leaned up on her tiptoes again, her dark eyes locking onto yours. "Are you going to keep whining about it, or are you going to let me kiss you properly this time?" Eventually, Aubrey pulled away just enough to look at you.
The smug confidence she'd somehow regained over the last few minutes was beginning to crack around the edges. Underneath it, you could still see the same nervous girl who had been standing outside your gate earlier, twisting a strand of pink hair around her finger and trying to figure out how to confess her feelings without spontaneously combusting.
"You know," you said quietly, "for someone who acts tough all the time, you're really dramatic."
Aubrey gasped.
The most offended expression imaginable immediately crossed her face.
"Me? Dramatic?" she demanded. "Excuse you."
You laughed.
Actually laughed.
Not the awkward, nervous kind that usually escaped whenever she was around. A real laugh.
For a second, Aubrey just stared.
Then her expression softened.
"There it is," she murmured.
You blinked. "What?"
"That."
She pointed at your face.
"You always smile like that when you forget to be nervous."
Heat immediately rushed to your cheeks.
Aubrey looked unbearably pleased with herself.
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything," she said innocently.
She absolutely was.
The familiar feeling settled over both of you then. Comfortable. Warm. Easy. The fear was gone.
The endless wondering was gone.For the first time in months, neither of you had to guess.
Aubrey liked you.
You liked Aubrey.
And somehow the world hadn't exploded.Outside, the evening sky had faded into deep blue. Streetlights flickered to life one by one across the neighborhood.Aubrey glanced toward the window before looking back at you.
"We should probably tell everyone eventually."
You groaned immediately.
"No."
"Kel is going to figure it out in like five minutes."
"Please let me live in denial a little longer."
Aubrey laughed.
Her real laugh.The one that had started this entire mess in the first place.Without thinking, she rested her head against your shoulder.You rested yours against hers.Neither of you spoke for a while.There wasn't really anything left to say. The house remained quiet.The kitchen clock continued ticking.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, everything was okay. Somewhere in Aubrey's room, many blocks away, Mr. Plantegg sat peacefully on a shelf.His work here was finally done.