Filed to story: Penny and Navy Brother Asher
But instead, he’s defending Zoe. The girl with the soft eyes and the now-familiar smirk who gets to fade into the crowd while Rebecca guts me with a smile.
I blink hard and turn away. “You really don’t get it.”
Tyler softens, stepping in close. “Penny, come on. Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“She didn’t mean it-“
“Rebecca or Zoe?”
He hesitates.
Exactly.
I shake my head, trying to shove down the lump rising in my throat.
“You’ve got a lot going on,” he says gently. “The Gala, rehearsals, your classes… this stuff, it doesn’t need to take up space in your head.”
“I don’t get to decide that,” I say. “I don’t get to choose what sticks. She humiliated me in front of everyone. She made me feel like I was-“
I stop. I don’t even know the right word.
Tyler touches my arm. “You don’t have to carry that. I’m here, okay?”
I nod, but it’s stiff. Mechanical.
He leans in and kisses my temple like nothing happened. “Text me after class?”
“Yeah,” I say.
He heads one way.
I walk the other.
The classroom’s already almost full by the time I slip inside.
The buzz of half-awake conversations, the scrape of chairs on tile, the thud of overstuffed backpacks hitting the floor-none of it slows down for me. I tug the strap of my bag higher on my shoulder and scan for an open seat.
There’s only one.
Middle row, second from the end.
Next to a guy who looks familiar in the way most of Tyler’s teammates do-broad shoulders, school sweatshirt, ball cap turned backward like he came straight from some heroic sports montage.
Jonathan, I think.
Maybe.
I slide into the seat, trying not to make a sound. He glances up from his notebook, gives me a quick, easy smile-the kind that says hey, I’m a nice person, you can sit here without regretting it-then turns back to whatever he’s halfheartedly scribbling.
No mockery. No Rebecca-level sneers. No drama.
It’s… weirdly disarming.
I stare at the front of the room, where the professor’s already launching into an explanation about comparative essays like we’re all desperate to know. My notebook stays closed on my desk. My pen stays unused. My brain refuses to click into gear.
I hate this feeling.
I hate when my day starts bad.
I can never quite turn it around. It’s like getting shoved off balance first thing and then tripping over everything else for the next twelve hours. I want to focus. I want to forget Rebecca and Zoe and the weird, prickling disappointment still sticking to my ribs after talking to Tyler.
I shouldn’t be mad at Tyler.
I know that.
He was just trying to help Zoe. He didn’t ask her to stand there and laugh at me. He didn’t know.
Still.
Still.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and focus hard on a spot on the wall, willing the memories to come softer this time.
Tyler.
When we first met, it had been easy.
Stupidly easy.
He moved into the neighborhood just before spring semester last year. His parents bought the old white house three streets over, the one with the broken porch swing and the peeling blue shutters. I remember biking past it and seeing the boxes stacked on the lawn, the way his mom stood on the porch shouting instructions at the movers like a general.
And Tyler.
Leaning against the doorframe, baseball cap pulled low, headphones tangled around his neck, a little sunburnt like he hadn’t figured out the Florida sun wasn’t a joke.
He smiled when he caught me staring.
Not the cocky kind of smile. Not the practiced one I’d learned to avoid in boys.
Something softer.
Almost shy.
It didn’t take long after that. A few “accidental” run-ins at the grocery store, a few bike rides to nowhere, and then it just… happened.
We started hanging out the way people start breathing after being underwater too long.
At first, he didn’t know anyone. It was just him and me and the sleepy sidewalks of our neighborhood stretching out like they were built for us.
But it didn’t stay that way.
Tyler made friends fast. Coaches practically climbed over each other to get him on their teams. Soccer, football, basketball-anything with a ball and a scoreboard, he crushed it without trying.
And the girls noticed, too.
I noticed them noticing.
The way they laughed a little too loud around him. The way they tugged their sleeves down when he passed. The way they touched his arm when they didn’t need to.
I hated it.
Still do.
But Tyler never gave me a reason to doubt him. He always came back to me. Always picked me first.
He was my first kiss.
My first real boyfriend.
My first everything, really.
And I loved him.
I think.
I mean-what else could this be? The way my chest feels lighter when he’s around. The way I still get nervous before I see him, even after all this time. The way I still want him to see me-really see me-when I land a new routine or when I laugh at one of his stupid jokes.
It’s love.
It has to be.
Right?
I tap the end of my pen against the desk, trying to shake it off.
It doesn’t work.
Jonathan-Jo?-scratches something in the margins of his notebook. I catch a glimpse.
A terrible doodle of a dog. Or a horse. Or a deeply cursed llama.
Before I can second-guess myself, I nudge my elbow into his arm and whisper, “Is that supposed to be a dog? Or are you making a statement about evolution?”
He glances at me, startled.
Then he laughs.
Not a fake laugh. Not a polite one.
A real, low, startled laugh that makes a few people turn around in their seats.
He grins and flips the notebook toward me, revealing an even worse drawing underneath-a stick figure riding the mystery animal, holding a coffee cup like a sword.
“Art,” he says seriously. “You wouldn’t understand.”
I snort under my breath. “You’re right. True genius is always misunderstood in its time.”