"You can't hide out here forever, ya know."

I didn't bother looking up at Kaia, who sat at her desk across the room while I buried myself further under her warm, clean-smelling floral comforter.

The weekend had been one long, delusional fever dream, from my fight and ejection from the Diamond Duel, the epic, embarrassing meltdown that night, and all the way to Sunday morning, where I somehow found myself holed up at Kaia's house. I couldn't bear to stay at my own house, and I quickly realized I had nowhere else to go, having left nothing but scorched earth and burnt bridges connecting me to anyone else in my life. She'd let me and my increasingly deteriorating state lay in her bed without asking too many questions, and knowing she was just across the room, glancing over at me every so often in the stoic but thoughtful way I'd gotten used to broke that fever, even just temporarily.

"Says who?" I grumbled, rolling over to face the large bay window on the other side of her room. The dusky, early evening sunset was still warm and sent streaks of light across her plush carpet, and it was only then I'd realized how long I'd actually been there. I had three missed calls from my mother that I was wildly uninterested in returning, and a text message from Chris.

CHRIS THOMPSON: I need to know you're alright. stop being so stubborn

I couldn't bring myself to answer him. It would mean admitting I wasn't alright, and despite everything between us right now, Chris knew me better than anyone - I was a stubborn little shit sometimes. Kaia kept her head turned down into her calculus workbook. "Says my mother, who will absolutely notice the glaringly unsubtle red BMW convertible in front of our house when her and my sister come home from her soccer tournament. She'll want to know why you're here, and I can't lie to her."

"Just tell her we're studying. We have a calc exam tomorrow, that's not even a lie."

I heard her shift in her chair. "I'm studying. You're sleeping."

"Same thing," I groaned. "Besides, I don't need to study. I'll slam a Red Bull or two tomorrow morning and I'll be fine."

"And you wonder why I've detested you all these years," Kaia muttered, more to herself than me.

I sat myself up, rubbing the little stars out of the corners of my eyes. When I glanced across the room at Kaia she was already looking at me, her eyes warm and full of light, and I wondered if that's how she'd always looked at me.

"What?" I asked with a subtle smirk, not bothering to hide the tiredness in my voice.

As we shared an unusually comfortable silence, I wondered if I looked at her the same way.

Finally, she chuckled and shook her head, swiveling back around in her desk chair to turn her attention back to her work. "You sleep more than any other teenage boy I know."

"Oh please," I scoffed. "I'm not like any other teenage boys you know."

She twirled the pen in her hands with the flick of her wrist. "And there he is."

With a dramatic sigh, I collapsed back into her bed. "Come on," I groaned. "Take a break."

"No." She sounded bored. "We can't all be so naturally mathematically gifted."

A ghost of a smile graced my lips, as if my body dared to express some kind of feeling other than despondency for the first time all day. She had that effect on me without even trying.

I pulled her floral comforter up to my chin and rolled back over to face the window, watching clouds stride across the orange sky. The room was quiet, save for the occasional pen scribbling on paper or buttons clicking on a calculator. It was almost soothing. As I let a heavy tiredness ease my eyes shut, I felt the bed shift as Kaia slid under the covers behind me, slipping her arms around my waist and resting her chin on my shoulder.

"Hey." Her breath danced against the back of my neck.

"Hi," I sighed out, reaching down for her hands and intertwining her fingers in mine. "Why am I little spoon?"

"Seems like you need it. To be the cuddled not the cuddler."

I chuckled. "So wise."

"I've been known to do that."

She pressed a gentle kiss into the crook of my neck, squeezing me a little tighter, and we let a comfortable, warm silence settle between us. If it wasn't for the sudden surge of noise downstairs, we could have fallen asleep.

"Kaia," a voice echoed up the stairs, which I could only assume was Kaia's mother. "Krista and I got pizza on the way home. Is your friend staying for dinner?"

I sputtered out a laugh, which earned me an elbow in the back as Kaia unwound herself from me.

"Yeah, set an extra place," she called back, and when I realized what that implicated, it shot me upright.

"What?" I hissed out. "No, no way. I'm not in any position to sit and have dinner with your mom."

Kaia hopped off her bed and smoothed out imaginary wrinkles in her little white t-shirt. "Consider this your asshole tax."

"Asshole tax?" I mouthed to myself as Kaia motioned for me to follow her out of her room.

I had never actually been anywhere else in Kaia's house other than her bedroom and the front hallway, but the rest of it felt just as comfortable and lived in as I had come to expect it to. A mud-speckled Nike bag and a pair of cleats were dropped by the front door, and a warm glow came from the stained-glass light fixtures hanging above the kitchen island that overlooked the den. Kaia's sister still donned a white and blue, grass-stained soccer jersey as she sat at a round, wooden table on the other side of the island, digging through a pizza box.

I trailed Kaia into the kitchen, where her mother had just finished laying a placemat down and setting a fourth place at their table. Her gaze snapped up to me and instantly studied me in my slept-in sweatpants and hoodie, undoubtedly expecting anyone other than me.

"This is Dallas," Kaia droned as she gestured lazily towards me. "That's mom, and that's my sister Krista."

I wiped my palms on my sweats and extended my hand out to her. "Nice to meet you Mrs. Greene."

"Oh please, Lorena is fine," she said as she shook my hand warmly.

There was no missing the glint of recognition in Kaia's mother's eyes when she introduced me. She let a little smirk work its way onto her face as I sat down across from her and shot a pointed look at Kaia.

"So this is the famous Dallas, huh?" she arched an eyebrow, and Kaia intercepted any reaction I could have mustered, reaching under the table and pinching my thigh. "Kaia talks about you all the time."

"Nothing endearing," Kaia added with an eye roll.

"Okay, he's way cuter than you said he was," Krista chirped, taking a chomp out of her cheese slice.

"Can you not?" she snapped at her sister, sending a venomous glare across the table.

That got a full-blown laugh out of me, and it made me realize how long it had been since I'd had a laugh like that - even if it was slightly at my own expense. It felt pretty damn good.

"I'm a little hurt," I shot Kaia a coy smirk. "You said I wasn't cute?"

Redness flared in Kaia's cheeks. "Well, not exactly-"

"Oh no, she did," Krista chimed in again. "I'm just starting to think cute isn't the right description. I'd say stone cold hottie is more appropriate."

I leaned forward on my elbows. "You're a real heartbreaker, huh?"

"Takes one to know one, I guess." She shrugged and took another bite of pizza.

This time it was Kaia who barked out a laugh, shooting her younger sister a slightly shocked but satisfied glance.

"Alright Krista, lay off," her mother chuckled and waved her hand like she was shooing away a fly. "He doesn't need two Greene girls giving him grief."

We all shared another laugh, and I was far too aware of how much more comfortable I was at practically a stranger's dinner table than my own. Mrs. Greene asked me about my college plans, but when I told her I'd decided to play football at a Power 5 ACC school instead of going Ivy, she seemed pretty unsurprised, like someone had already told her all of this. Krista chimed in again and rattled off all kinds of statistics about how good ACC schools were at women's soccer, and how even though she was only in middle school, she was already determined to go to Wake Forest. I imagined it was exactly how Kaia was when she was 13, all confident and headstrong. At one point, Kaia reached under the table and laced her fingers in mine, filling my entire body with warmth.

I helped Kaia clear the table and do dishes after we'd all finished, and every so often I'd catch her glancing over at me, like every time she'd look up she was still surprised to see me in her kitchen.

"What?" I finally asked.

"Nothing," she shook her head as she finished putting away clean plates. "I'm just...I'm glad you stayed, that's all."

"Yeah about that. Why did you ask me to stay?" I clutched a dishrag in my fist and gestured into the den, where her mother and sister were talking loudly about something. "You had to have known that was going to happen, all the teasing and the interrogation, but you didn't seem to care."

Kaia leaned against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. "Can it just be as simple as because I wanted you to stay?"

"Yeah, it can be," I sighed. "I'm glad I stayed too."

I'd accepted the fact that I'd have to go home eventually, but that didn't stop me from lingering in the front hallway and studying all the photos hanging on the wall. Action shots of Kaia playing field hockey for some elite travel team. A handful of photos at Disney in front of the castle, where it seemed like Kaia and Krista grew up in just a few compartmentalized snapshots. Ski trips. Elementary and middle school graduations. It was so normal.

"Your sister is a trip," I said with a grin as Kaia walked up beside me. "You all seem really close."

"Don't let the tough girl act fool you," she returned my grin. "She's secretly a cinnamon roll, and I'm pretty sure she has a crush on you."

I bumped Kaia's hip with mine. "Sounds familiar."

Kaia scoffed and gave my arm a shove, but as her gaze trailed back up to the wall of photos, she smiled. "We've all had to lean on each other a lot. It sort of forces you to have open communication. All that teasing is just our kind of love language."

I didn't dare say it, but the more I studied the pictures, the more one thing stood out - the absence of her father. As if she could read my gaze, she let out a sigh and said, "He's still around, if that's what you're wondering. I just don't speak to him anymore. You see, my mom was always the breadwinner of the family, and I think that really bothered him. So one day he found a younger, needier woman and just...left. I was nine. Barely old enough to understand what was really going on, but...I did."

"I'm sorry," I said softly. "You shouldn't have had to go through that."

"It's fine," she waved me off. "I don't mind talking about it. I trust you."

She said it all so casually, but it was anything but that. I used to think I knew Kaia, in the know thine enemy sort of way, like knights that had met on the battlefield one too many times. I could counter her movements, and she could counter mine. But all this time we'd been going at it, every fight and every disagreement chipping off little bits of each other's armor until there was nothing left but us, bare and exposed. The way we were meant to see each other all along.

"But..." she reached down for my hands and took them in hers. "That's also why I think you should talk to your dad. While you still have the opportunity to. ​​I'm better off without my father and I know that. But I'm not sure you're so much better off without yours."

I scoffed. "You don't know him."

"I know you."

I let my hand trail up her neck and to the side of her face, tilting her chin up my thumb. We held each other's gaze for a moment, like neither one of us wanted to be the first to give in.

"Are you sure about that?" I whispered against her lips.

She leaned her head into my hand and nodded. "Dallas, I-"

"Oh my god, get a room!" Krista yelled from the kitchen, where she'd been eying us over the kitchen island.

We jumped apart quickly, and I backed into a small table, almost knocking over a lamp.

"I should uh..." I pointed to the door. "I should go."

"Yeah, okay." Kaia wrapped her arms around her torso and nodded. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."

I slipped my sneakers on and had one hand on the doorknob when Kaia took another step towards me.

"Text me when you get home, and...think about what I said, okay?"

I let out a heavy sigh. "Okay."

She quickly rocked forward on her toes to press a quick kiss to my cheek before ushering me out the front door, shutting it behind me. I checked my phone when I made it back to my car, where I had two unread texts waiting for me. The first was from my dad asking me where I was and if I planned on coming home any time soon, and even though it was just a text, I could feel the sting of his sarcasm. After letting the conversation with Kaia sink in a little more, I knew I'd have to face him eventually. Might as well rip the band-aid off.

I responded to my dad that I was leaving and I'd be home soon. The second text was from Danny, and my heart ricocheted in my chest.

DANNY: got the goods. Come by my place, we're all just hanging out. 185 Maypop Lane in Hammonton

I didn't know what he meant by we're all, but Hammonton was only the next town over, and I figured I'd already been gone long enough, a detour wouldn't make anything worse. Not going would undoubtedly make everything worse.

When I got to the address he gave me 20 minutes later, most of the lights were off in the two-story brick house, and only one car sat in the driveway. I looked around thinking maybe he'd given me the wrong address and there would be signs of life somewhere else on the street. It was dark everywhere.

I pulled out my phone to text him when the front door of the house opened, and Danny waved me inside.

"What's up, man?" He went in for an awkward, half hug when I trudged up the stone steps to the door. "I was starting to think you weren't gonna come."

"I uh...I just came for my stuff." I pulled out my wallet from the pocket of my sweats. "How much do I owe you?"

"Oh come on, you're not gonna hang for a bit?" he chuckled and waved me off as I pulled a few 20 dollar bills from my wallet. "It's real lowkey, probably not the ragers you're used to my cousin throwing. Just come in for a little."

"Man, I can't," I said, hoping I sounded more firm. "I've got school tomorrow, a calc exam, baseball practice..."

"One night isn't gonna kill you, MVP," he grinned wickedly, the way a monster does when he knows he's got you and he's about to swallow you whole.

"I don't know," I shrugged. It had been one night the first time Danny ever approached me, back at the state championship party. One night was a flicker in the distant past, just barely illuminating my path forward to this moment. It wasn't one night anymore.

"Fine," he shrugged, turning away and back towards the house. "But I've gotta get your stuff anyway. You can come inside if you want, or just stand out there and look hella sus."

I swallowed hard before following him through the threshold of the doorway, letting the heavy front door swing shut behind me with a thud. Idle conversation floated over hipster alt-rock, and the moment I took a step forward into the foyer, I felt eyes on me. It was like a scene from a horror movie, where some poor idiot gazes out into the forbidden dark forest, and suddenly a dozen pairs of bright eyes blink back against the darkness. I was the idiot, and through the haze of smoke coming from the sitting area in the next room over, they stared at me. Beckoning me forward.

Danny reappeared beside me and pressed a ziplock bag full of little white bars into my hand. He followed my gaze towards the den.

"Hey uh...at least take a hit for the road," he said, putting a hand down on my shoulder. "You look like you could loosen up a little."

I took a breath and squirmed out of his grip. The thought that he could so easily see how wound up I was made me more uncomfortable than anything else about being there. He was right, and I hated it. "Yeah, okay."

I raked a hand through my hair as I was led into the den, and Danny sat me down on a plush leather couch, all eyes still on me.

"This is Dallas." He patted my shoulder. "He's buddies with my cousin Anthony, and he's chill so..." he gestured to one of the guys sitting in an armchair on the other side of the coffee table. "Give him the good shit."

✗✗✗

I had a dream that I was drowning. Water filled my lungs and stung my eyes, and every time I thought I could break through to the surface, something pulled me back under. It was only until after I'd blinked awake that I realized I wasn't much of a dream at all. My shirt and pants were soaked through. Morning sunlight warmed my damp bones, but it felt like a storm had taken up residence directly above my head as water poured down on me. Then suddenly it stopped.

"Get up, Dallas," my father's voice boomed over me, and before I could even attempt to collect myself, he sprayed me with the hose again.

"I'm up, I'm up," I pleaded, sitting myself up on my knees and holding my hands up in hopes he'd take it as a sign to cease fire.

"I've had it with you, Dallas," he snapped, tossing the hose to the grass. "I've had it with your lying, your acting out, your complete lack of respect for your mother and for me. Lack of respect for yourself."

I groaned. "Dad, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No," he cut me off. "I don't even know what to do with you anymore, but a change of scenery is a start. I don't care if you miss whatever practices or parties or god knows what you're doing anymore. You're coming to Nantucket this weekend with me, and that's my final decision."

Before I could muster up the will to combat him, he trudged up the driveway and walked into the house, slamming the front door behind him.

It was somehow Monday morning, and I had no idea how I'd even gotten home. My head ached and my mouth was heavy and dry, like I had peanut butter permanently stuck to the roof of my mouth. I patted my pockets for my phone and breathed a sigh of relief that my essentials hadn't gotten lost in my blackout. I had a text message from Kaia from last night that I'd left unread.

KAIA GREENE: I guess you got home okay...or you're in a ditch somewhere. Please don't be in a ditch.

And one from a half hour ago. School had already started.

KAIA GREENE: where are you?? This isn't funny Dallas

I laid back on the damp grass, and I closed my eyes, hoping I was still just trapped in my lucid fever dream.