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@celestrii
⋮ zie. she.ᐟthey eighteen everyone’s sweetheart puck & paddock girl invisible string theory ride-or-die willmack grl unofficial fangirl in my ttpd era go sharks ( ⌗ 71 ) tone tag friendly blog — best viewed on light mode ᥫ᭡.
✸ latest work — sunshine of your love ( mc71 )
every mintbrini crumb we got at worlds
↳ for @wshockey
Plot: You’re dating Macklin and you get into a horrible car accident on the way to one of his games
(Love your blog btw 💗)
hi , i apologize but i don’t feel comfortable writing this fic ! i hope you understand . please do request another fic if you’d like !!!
Hiii!
I loved your girl next door fic, and was wondering if you would write a part 2?
Of course, no pressure, but I'd love to see how their relationship progressed
Make sure ti eat and drink take care of yourself!
hi !! if i’m being honest , probably not … i have a tonnnn of other ideas running around in my head so i want to prioritize those instead of making sequels / continuations to already written fics . thank you for your interest , i really appreciate it !!!
so i like was physically moved by your summer camp mack BOOK. i need more. i’m begging. i wish i could read it for the first time again. i’ve never read anything like that. i felt like i was there in the story. PLEASE please please write more mack fiction. i loved how long it was too :)
omggg wait this is sosososo sweet !!! thank you nonnie , i really appreciate it . writing it was really hard because it’s the longest thing ( by far ) i’ve written , but it was super rewarding ! as for more mack fics , i have manymanymany ideas … i can’t wait for you to read them !!! i am also thinking about writing poly and including smitty , but we will see because i’m not as familiar with his lore as i am with mack’s . let me know your thoughts ! love you so much and feel free to come back : )
could you do one where Mack's girlfriend goes tanning with him and she gets sunburnt and so he has to take care of her but she also got sun poisoning on her face? i have that issue currently 😂 also I love your work!!
aww omg , hope you feel better asap !! and thank you for this super cutesy idea , it was soooo fun to write , mack would definitely be like a lost golden retriever trying to make his girlfriend feel better . read it here !
⋆˚ SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE ⋆˚࿔
pairing: macklin celebrini x fem!reader
after getting sun poisoning from a beach trip, macklin celebrini's girlfriend discovers that being babied by her boyfriend is almost worth the embarrassment.
﹙ ⓘ ﹚ warnings: fluff, established relationship, elements of humor. descriptions of sunburns and sun poisoning, mentions of sickness and nausea. 1.5k words
✶ author’s note 𑣲 thank you so much to @misscelly71 for requesting this fic !! it's such a cute concept , i hope you like how i wrote it ! i think , even though mack would panic , he would be really good at taking care of you when you're not feeling well ... and might even call smitty , sid , or someone kinda random like brad marchand for medical advice ( not included in the fic ... maybe i'll add this somewhere else , hmmm ??? ) . anyways , have fun reading !!!! i luvluvluv you all .
THE FIRST SIGN THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG WAS THE HEADACHE.
Not a normal headache, either. This one felt like the kind that sat behind your eyes and pulsed with every heartbeat, making the sunlight sneaking through the curtains feel like a personal attack. You groaned and rolled over, burying your face deeper into your pillow.
The second sign was the nausea.
The third sign was the fact that your face hurt. Not your shoulders, not your back. Of course, your actual face had to bear the weight of your idiotic decision not to wear sunscreen the previous day.
You cracked one eye open and immediately regretted it. Everything felt hot. Your skin felt tight, your cheeks throbbing.
You remembered spending yesterday stretched out beside Mack on a pair of lounge chairs by the water, insisting for approximately six straight hours that you were “totally fine” and “literally incapable of burning.”
In hindsight, that may have been a mistake. A catastrophic one. The kind future generations would talk about and laugh at. You sat up slowly and the room tilted. “Oh.”
That couldn’t be good.
The movement alone made your stomach churn unpleasantly. You squeezed your eyes shut and waited for the dizziness to pass… which it didn’t.
Fantastic. You stumbled toward the bathroom.
The second you flicked on the light, you froze in horror. “Oh my God.” The girl staring back at you from the mirror looked like she’d lost a fistfight with the sun. Your face was bright red, and not cute beach-day red or slightly pink red. You were bright, angry, and extremely in pain. The skin around your cheeks looked swollen. Your nose was practically glowing. You looked like a tomato that had somehow achieved consciousness. “Oh my God!” you repeated, the shout echoing through the apartment.
A few seconds later, hurried footsteps sounded from down the hallway. The bathroom door swung open, Mack appearing with worry lining his face. One look at your face and he stopped.
You pointed at him. “If you laugh, we’re breaking up.” His mouth twitched. “Macklin.”
“I’m trying,” he said defensively.
“Mack.”
“I’m trying really hard.” Despite that, the smile escaped. Then the laugh, and another laugh. Suddenly he was doubled over in the doorway while you stared at him in betrayal. “You said you don’t burn.”
“I hate you.”
“You literally said the sun respects you.”
“Oh, shut up,” you groan in frustration.
“You said —” Mack starts gleefully.
“Get out!” you yell, pushing him away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but you both knew he wasn’t. Not even a little. Unfortunately, his laughter lasted approximately thirty more seconds before something in his expression shifted. The amusement faded, concern replacing it. His smile disappeared entirely. “Wait.”
Uh oh. That was his serious voice. The one that usually meant he was worried. “Mack?”
“You okay?”
“Obviously.” His eyebrows rose. You swayed slightly, immediately proving your own point wrong. “Mostly.” He stepped closer, the ear-to-ear grin completely gone now. One hand reached up, gently turning your face toward the light. You hissed. “Ow.”
“Baby.” That definitely wasn’t a good sign. “Your face is swollen.”
“I noticed.”
“You feel okay?”
“No.” The answer came out before you could stop it. Your head hurt. Your stomach hurt. Your skin felt like it was actively trying to separate itself from your body. The exhaustion sitting in your bones felt almost impossible to explain.
Mack’s frown deepened. “Come sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I’m standing.”
“Barely.”
Rude. Accurate, but nonetheless a rude statement.
Twenty minutes later, you were sprawled dramatically across the couch while Mack sat beside you with his phone in one hand and an increasingly concerned expression on his face. You watched him scroll, scroll some more, and immediately sit upright. “Oh.”
“What?”
“Oh.”
“Mack?” you huffed, annoyed with Mack’s theatrics.
He looked up. “You might have sun poisoning.”
The silence that followed felt extremely disrespectful. “What do you mean sun poisoning?”
“I mean sun poisoning.”
“That’s not a real thing.”
“It is.”
“No, it’s not.” You shook your head.
“It literally is.”
“No.”
He turned the screen around. You read exactly three sentences before regret filled your soul. Headache, nausea, swelling, dizziness, fever. Your eyes slowly lifted. “Mack.”
“Yeah?”
“I think I might have sun poisoning.”
His stare could have killed someone. “I know. I told you to wear sunscreen.”
“There it is.”
“I told you,” he insisted. “You made fun of me.”
“I know,” you sighed.
“You called SPF propaganda.”
“In my defense, that was funny.” You pointed a finger at him, trying to crack a smile, but it was too difficult.
“It wasn’t.”
“It was a little funny.”
Mack pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are unbelievable.”
“And yet you love me.”
His eye roll was instant. You could see it, though. The concern. In how he kept checking your face every few minutes, kept asking if you felt dizzy, watching you like you might suddenly combust.
Honestly? It was kind of adorable.
The day only got worse from there. By noon, the nausea had become impossible to ignore. The headache was relentless. Your face felt like someone had replaced your skin with molten lava. Even the air conditioner hurt. At one point you attempted standing up to prove you were feeling better. You made it approximately seven steps before your stomach revolted.
Several unfortunate minutes later, you emerged from the bathroom looking like death itself.
Mack was already waiting outside. Anguish written all over his face. The second he saw you, his expression softened. “Oh, baby.”
You immediately groaned. “No.”
“What?”
“Don’t use the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The sad voice.” His hand found the small of your back automatically, guiding you toward the couch. “The voice you use when you think I’m dying.”
“I don’t think you’re dying.”
“You look like you think I’m dying,” you retorted.
“I think you got severely sunburned and ignored every warning known to mankind.”
You blew out a tired breath. “That’s fair.”
“Thank you.”
The second you sat down, exhaustion crashed into you again, heavy, overwhelming. Your entire body felt drained. Every ounce of energy had evaporated overnight. Without thinking, you leaned sideways, curling into Mack’s side.
His arm wrapped around your shoulders before you could even ask. Instinctive and comforting, a safe haven for you even though you weren’t sure if you’d survive.
“You know what the worst part is?” you mumbled.
“What?”
“I can’t even be mad.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re right.”
The laugh that escaped him was so surprised you almost smiled. Almost. “You admitting I’m right might actually be the biggest medical miracle here.”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m serious.”
“Leave,” you wheezed.
“No.”
“Leave your own apartment,” you insisted.
“No.”
“Fair.”
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. Mack became increasingly impossible. Every fifteen minutes he appeared with another bottle of water, another cold compress, another snack, another reminder to stay hydrated.
At one point you woke up from a nap to discover he’d somehow constructed an entire recovery station beside the couch. Electrolyte drinks, aloe vera, medicine. Three different fans. An ice pack. Two blankets.
You stared at him blearily. “Mack.”
“What?”
“Did you rob a pharmacy?”
“You need supplies.”
“I have sun poisoning, not the plague.”
He considered that. “Still.”
You couldn’t help laughing. He looked ridiculous, hovering over you and worrying. Following your every movement like an anxious golden retriever. The kind that thought looking away for thirty seconds might result in disaster.
By evening, your fever had started easing slightly. The nausea wasn’t quite as bad, though the swelling in your face still looked terrible. But at least you no longer felt like you were actively dying, which was progress.
You sat curled against Mack’s side while a movie played quietly in the background. Neither of you were paying attention. His fingers traced lazy patterns against your arm. The apartment glowed softly in the light of the television.
Outside, the sky had turned deep blue. “You still look beautiful.”
The words caught you completely off guard. You looked up. “Mack.”
“What?”
“My face is twice its normal size.”
“So?” he questioned.
“I’m red. I look ridiculous.”
He shook his head. Like the answer was obvious. “You look sick. And I need to help you.”
The simplicity of it made your chest ache. Not pity or reassurance, just pure honesty. You looked unwell, and he was taking care of you to make sure you recovered.
Because that’s what people do when they love someone.
The realization settled warmly somewhere beneath your ribs. “Mack?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
His lip lilted in a soft smile. “Anytime.” You stared at him for a moment, groaning dramatically. “What now?”
“If I ever say I don’t need sunscreen again —”
“Oh, I’m recording this.”
“Mack,” you warned.
“I’m making a presentation. There’ll be charts.”
“Mack,” you persisted.
“There’ll be witnesses.”
You buried your face in his shoulder. His laughter echoed through the apartment, warm and bright and familiar.
As embarrassing as it was to lose a fight against the sun, being wrapped up in your boyfriend’s arms while he babied you through every miserable second of recovery was almost enough to make the whole disaster worth it.
Almost.
ohhh dad!mack is elite for sure , i definitely see him as a father who would indulge in his kids . spoiling them with treats , toys , all of that . he’ll spend so much time with them when he’s home that it takes days for you to calm them down once he leaves on roadies . which he hates doing . and he also luvs their mischief too , he’ll give them ideas on how to prank you but say , “ i wasn’t involved ” while laughing his head off at your reaction . he’s also veryveryvery sweet with kids , i just know he’ll be a great dad once he decides to take that next step !!!
hey bestiiiieee 😝 ur mind with dad!macklin is HEAVEN🙂↕️
dad!macklin thoughts ! 💭
read this ⋮ macklin’s playlist
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ ohh my GAWWWWD, dad!mack is EVERYTHING!!!!
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ i can definitely imagine mack’s main spending issues, is because of his kids😭…
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ it’s absolutely HELL when you guys are running errands, you lost the the kids AND MACK.
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ you’re simply trying to buy the daily food shopping of the kid’s meals, snacks and drinks and obviously mack’s demanded snacks too… otherwise you’re gonna be on a sex ban with that man.
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ at least you haven’t got to worry about the kids for once, as you finally have your alone time… in the aisle of pots and pans, even though you wish were at the spa or with your friends instead… 😭
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ but let’s be honest, you’re actually looking after three kids… mack. him, that shitbag.
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ yes, you have him as your emergency contact but is the emergency… what if i said yes… but it’s even worse when he’s with the kids, you’re never catching a break😭.
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ while you’re in a work meeting, he obviously panicking you with spam messages. you’re starting to panic and obviously, have to leave the current work meeting. while you were able to shuffle your way out of the meeting, you’re called mack and mack is relieved on the phone with you… “what’s the matter baby???? are the kids hurt- what’s going on??? i had to leave a meeting!” you’re stressing to him on the phone, until he monotonely asked him, “where’s caleb’s socks??? i’ve been looking everywhereeee” mack groans out of annoyance.
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ it’s just absolutely silent on the phone, “are you fucking kidding me babe…” you gritted through your teeth. “what? caleb likes wearing socks???” mack says confused, and you interrupted him with, “and i love it when people use their critical thinking skills” you says sarcastically, “what” mack says even more confused with abrupted beep, noting that the call ended 😭😭😭.
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ when he’s on the road, it’s hell for the first three day with the kids. they’re all sleeping in his side of your guy’s bed. mack is facetiming them every night, from having a genuinely conversation to read them to bed :((((
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ there’s been a night where it’s the first night of home being on the road and you’ve actually fell asleep on the facetime with him and the kids. mack and the kids started to whisper about how much of a sweet and beautiful woman you are and absolutely praising about you!!!!
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ “hey kids, don’t talk too loud. we don’t want your mum to wake up!!!” mack says in the SWEETEST VOICE EVER😫😫. after mack softly says that, oh my DAYS… mack takes a screenshot of the facetime call of you asleep while your kids are hug and kissing all over your face sweetly!!! mack is obviously sending you the photo in the morning, because you’re currently sleeping and he doesn’t want to wake you up as you haven’t turned on do not disturb!!! <333
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ april 1st is your arch nemesis… mack and the kids replacing the white icing in the oreos to toothpaste, cling film to the doorways when you least expect it, coating the bar soap with clear nail polish, so it doesn’t lather, swapping out family pics with 0.5x photos of you, ect 😭😭.
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ on the other hand, mack and the kids favourite day is april 1st!! they literally have a hidden notebook in the play room with all the mischief and pranks they have on you… it’s pretty surprising that you haven’t found it yet, despite with how many times a day you’re cleaning up what playroom with mack LMFAO. mack is probably moving the book around whenever your back is facing him whenever you ask for his help to tidy up the room!!!
⁷¹ ⊹₊⋆ but overall dad!mack is EVERYTHING, like i said earlier!! when you had your first born, he either fainted from the stress of see you in a different situation like this or tearing up about his first born is finally here. no excuses when it come to be a dad with macklin, if his kids needs him in the middle of a game, interviews or a roadie, they’re absolutely his number one!!!!!
omg just #imagining fraser and academic!rival reader being in the same class by junior year (right when they start warming up to eachother instead of ACTUALLY hating each other) and reader just beats fraser by like 3% on a chem test.. and fraser is like wait no it’s okay, i think?? like that was supposed to be me but.. its HER, so ofc i just want the best for her and im so proud as much as i hate it <333
no you’re 100% correct !!! fraser is extremely competitive , but he’s also naturally smart & good at things which pisses y/n off . so she’ll work really hard to get a higher grade than him , which usually doesn’t work bc fraser is like a sponge with new material . but !!! the few times that it does work , fraser can’t even be mad . he luvs it when she’s happy , despite the fact that she’s gloating in his face lmfao !!!
boyfriend texts with macklin celebrini
( because why not ? )
⋆˚ COOL FOR THE SUMMER ⋆˚࿔
pairing: macklin celebrini x fem!reader
one last summer at the camp that ruined your friendship forces you and macklin celebrini to confront everything you never said.
﹙ ⓘ ﹚ warnings: non nhl!au ( macklin and reader are camp counselors ), angst, slow burn romance, elements of humor. right person wrong time, second chance romance, happily ever after. 13.0k words
✶ author’s note 𑣲 okokok walk with me guys , do you see the vision ??? i hope i executed it well but !! i had such a fun time writing this that i seriously never wanna leave this world . the tension , the dynamics , the yearninggg between mack and y/n is just * chef's kiss * ... first mc71 fic bytheway ahhh !!!! totally not freaking tf out rn ... please do let me know your opinions and thoughts on this , i'd luvluvluv any sort of feedback !! thanks so much once again for all your support <3
BY THE TIME MACKLIN CELEBRINI WALKED INTO THE COUNSELOR MEETING WEARING A FADED CAMP HOODIE AND THAT SMUG, FAMILIAR SMILE, YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS SUMMER WAS GOING TO RUIN YOU.
Not because he looked different. That would’ve been easier.
If he’d grown colder somehow, sharper around the edges, maybe you could’ve convinced yourself the ache in your chest was just nostalgia mixed with resentment. Maybe you could’ve blamed the years apart. Maybe you could’ve sat through orientation without feeling like someone had reached into your ribcage and wrapped a fist around your lungs.
But Macklin looked exactly the same.
Same dark caramel curls tucked under a backwards cap, with the same lazy grin like he’d just gotten away with something. He still had those impossible, devastating eyes that always looked brighter when he was about to say something sarcastic.
And worst of all —
He had that same dimple. You hated that stupid dimple.
“Okay, counselors!” Grace clapped loudly from the front of the rec hall. “Settle down, settle down —”
Nobody listened. The room buzzed with reunion energy; old counselors hugging, someone nearly knocking over a stack of craft bins, two lifeguards arguing over who crashed the camp golf cart last August. You sat rigidly in your chair near the back, pretending to reread the orientation packet while your stomach folded itself into knots.
Three years had passed since Camp Hatchmark ruined your friendship, since you swore you’d never come back.
And yet.
Somehow, the first thing you saw when you walked through those ridiculous wrought-iron gates again was him. Macklin scanned the room absentmindedly, talking to another counselor beside him.
Then his eyes landed on you, everything stopping as though he forgot how to breathe for half a second.
You looked away first.
Coward.
“Oh my God,” whispered Elenie beside you, grabbing your arm hard enough to bruise. “That’s him?”
You kept your eyes on the packet. “Please don’t.”
“That’s Camp Boy?”
“Please.”
“The Camp Boy?”
“Elenie.”
She blows out a breath. “He’s, like, offensively attractive.”
You finally looked at her. “You are making this worse.”
“I’m making this accurate.”
Across the room, Macklin was still staring, and not in the weird oh-I-recognize-that-person way. No, this was direct eye contact. Intentional. Confused. Almost disbelieving. One of the guys beside him — Will, Grace’s younger brother — elbowed his shoulder and said something that made Macklin blink out of it.
He looked away. Your chest hurt instantly, which was nothing short of absolutely pathetic. Grace started assigning cabins, and you prayed — actually prayed — that the universe would give you one break this summer.
“One more thing,” Grace said brightly. “Since we’re short on senior staff this year, some counselors will be co-leading activity groups.”
No.
No no no.
You could feel it coming the way animals sense natural disasters. “Archery and waterfront — Macklin Celebrini and…” Grace checked the clipboard, unaware of the death stare you were giving her. “…Y/N L/N.”
The room erupted into a few teasing whistles. You closed your eyes in frustration. Somewhere across the room, someone muttered, “Good luck to them.”
“Oh, we’re cooked,” Macklin said, off-handedly.
The stupid thing was that his voice still affected you. Three years later and it still slid under your skin instantly, familiar enough to ache. You looked up slowly. Wow… Macklin even had the audacity to grin at you.
“You say that like I’m the problem,” you shot back.
His grin widened immediately. “There she is.”
That was the thing that had always ruined you where he was concerned. Because no matter how angry you were at him, no matter how much history sat jagged and unresolved between you, Macklin always talked to you like you were his favorite conversation.
Three summers ago, you and Macklin had been unbearable together. Everybody at camp knew it. You were attached at the hip from the moment you both got hired at seventeen. Late-night dock talks, shared earbuds during cleanup duty, competitive canoe races that usually ended with one of you shoved into the lake, inside jokes nobody else understood.
You fought constantly, too. About music, about directions, about whether cereal counted as soup.
“You’re genuinely the most irritating person I’ve ever met,” you informed him one July afternoon while you both restocked the arts-and-crafts shed.
Macklin tossed a friendship bracelet string at your forehead.
“And yet,” he said smugly, “you’re obsessed with me.”
You snorted. “In your dreams.”
“Sweetheart, you literally followed me in here.”
“You were carrying the inventory sheet!”
“You could’ve asked nicely,” he pointed out.
“I’d rather die.”
He grinned. “See? Obsessed.”
You threw a glue stick at him and he caught it one-handed without looking. Show-off.
The worst part was how easy it all felt, being around him. Like your brain recalibrated itself every time he walked into a room, everything sharpening as if by magic.
You laughed more around Macklin; you talked louder, you stayed up later. You somehow became someone brighter.
That should’ve scared you more than it did. Somewhere between campfire nights and counselor volleyball games and the way he always saved you the blue Gatorade without asking — you fell in love with him.
“Hey.”
Present day.
You looked up from organizing arrows to find Macklin leaning against the archery shed doorway. You hadn’t found yourself alone with him yet, and it was day three. A personal record, honestly. “What?”
“That’s kind of aggressive,” Macklin whistled lowly, green eyes crinkling.
“You opened with hey.”
“It’s a classic.”
“It’s lazy.”
He laughed softly. There it was again — that horrible flutter low in your stomach. You kept sorting arrows furiously. Macklin watched you for a second before speaking again. “You really almost didn’t come back?”
Your hands paused. Elenie had told people that. Of course she had. “Who told you that?”
“So it’s true.”
You shrugged without looking at him. “I had other options.”
“Right.”
Something in his tone made you glance up. He looked weirdly tense.
“You seem shocked,” you said carefully.
“I just…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Didn’t think you’d actually stay away forever.”
You let out a quiet laugh. “Macklin, I literally did.”
Silence. Outside, campers screamed somewhere near the lake. A whistle blew in the distance. Macklin looked at you for a long moment. Then, quieter: “Yeah.”
God. That one word held too much.
You hated when he got soft-voiced like this. Hated when the edges disappeared and suddenly you could see every version of him you used to know.
You looked away first. Again.
“You still play guitar?” he asked suddenly.
Your head snapped back toward him. “What?”
“The guitar.” He shrugged lightly. “You used to bring it down to the dock every night.”
The memory hit instantly, pulling you in like Charybdis. Summer air. Lake water. Macklin sitting beside you with his knees pulled up while you played badly butchered versions of old songs. “You remember that?” you asked before you could stop yourself.
Macklin stared at you like the question itself offended him. “Of course I remember.”
Your chest tightened. God, this was dangerous. Dangerous territory. So naturally, you deflected. “You also used to insist you could sing.”
“I can sing.”
“You absolutely cannot.”
“That’s subjective.”
“You got threatened by a camper once,” you reminded him, smothering a laugh that threatened to bubble out.
Macklin waved a hand. “That kid was dramatic.”
“He cried.”
“He cried because I committed emotionally to the performance.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself. Macklin froze, his expression softening for half a second like hearing you laugh again physically affected him.
Which — no. Absolutely not. You cleared your throat immediately. “Don’t read into that.”
“Into what?”
“That laugh.”
“I wasn’t —” he started.
“You were.”
“I literally was not.”
You tilted your head to the side. “You looked smug.”
“I always look smug.”
“That’s true.”
His mouth twitched, the silence settling over you two. Yet it still wasn’t awkward. That was the problem: it never used to be awkward with him. Even now, after everything, being around Macklin still felt horrifyingly natural.
Like muscle memory. Like your heart had never learned the difference between before and after.
“You know,” he said eventually, “I used to think we’d end up married.”
You dropped an entire container of arrows, the clatter echoing through the shed. “What?”
Macklin looked equally startled, like the sentence had betrayed him before he could stop it. “I —”
“You what?”
“I was kidding.”
“You don’t sound like you’re kidding.”
“Well, now I wish I was.”
You stared at each other. The air shifted with the mention of the old thing between you two. That terrifying almost.
Then voices approached outside and the moment shattered instantly. Two campers burst into the shed arguing about sunscreen, and Macklin stepped back automatically. Distance restored, masks back on.
“Saved by the bell,” he muttered.
You bent to pick up arrows before he could see your hands shaking.
The thing nobody understood about what happened between you and Macklin was that technically, nothing happened. Not officially. That was the tragedy of the whole thing, because there was no dramatic breakup, no screaming fight. Just the agony of wrong timing.
You were eighteen years old and terrified and standing on opposite sides of the camp bonfire during the end-of-summer dance while something enormous sat unfinished between you.
You remembered that night too clearly. Macklin beside you on the dock after curfew. Both of you quiet. “You ever think about what’s going to happen after this?” he’d asked suddenly.
“All the time.”
“What if it changes things?”
You looked over. “What changes things?”
His eyes met yours. And there it was. Finally. After an entire summer of almosts. Your pulse thundered. “Mack…”
He looked nervous, something you’d never seen him be around you before. Then voices echoed from the trail behind you, other counselors coming back from the bonfire. Just like that, the moment disappeared. Macklin looked away first. “You know what,” he said lightly, standing up too fast, “never mind.”
You waited for him to try again, but he never did.
A week later, camp ended. You left for college in Boston. He left for California.
Calls turned into texts. Texts turned into silence. Eventually, losing him became one of those griefs you stopped explaining to people because there was nothing to explain.
You weren’t together. So why did it still feel like heartbreak?
“Okay,” Elenie said that night, dramatically dropping onto your bunk, “I need the lore.”
“There’s no lore.”
“There is devastating lore.”
“There’s medium lore at best.”
“You looked at him today like a Victorian widow staring at the sea.”
You buried your face in your pillow. “Oh my God.”
“I’m serious. It was insane,” she presses eagerly.
“We’re just friends.”
“You haven’t spoken in three years.”
“Exactly!”
“That is not helping your case.”
You groaned. Elenie rolled onto her stomach beside you. “So what actually happened?”
The question lodged somewhere deep under your ribs. What happened? Everything. Nothing. “That’s the problem,” you admitted quietly. “Nothing happened.” Elenie frowned as you stared at the wooden ceiling above your bunk. “We were best friends,” you said softly. “And then one day it got weird.”
“Weird how?”
You laughed once without humor. “The kind of weird where everybody else notices before you do.”
Because they had. Camp had noticed long before either of you admitted anything. The lingering looks, the jealousy, the gravitational pull of it all. You remembered one counselor asking if you and Macklin came as a package deal after you’d both shown up late to breakfast carrying iced coffees for each other. You remembered campfire nights where his knee stayed pressed against yours for hours. You remembered the unbearable tenderness of him. The way he’d automatically hand you the marshmallows before taking any for himself, how he knew your moods by the sound of your footsteps, how he looked at you sometimes like he forgot other people existed.
Maybe the cruelest part of all — you genuinely believed there would be time. Time to become whatever it was you were becoming together. But life kept moving anyway.
Suddenly you were nineteen and hurt and too proud to call him first. “You still love him,” Elenie said quietly.
You immediately sat up. “No, I don’t.”
“Girl.”
“I don’t.”
“You looked ready to pass out because he remembered you play guitar,” Elenie grins widely.
“That is not —”
“You’re cooked.”
You flopped backward dramatically. “I hate this place.”
From outside your cabin window came distant laughter from the counselors’ bonfire by the lake. Underneath it all, somewhere in the dark summer night: Macklin’s voice. Still familiar enough to destroy you.
Camp life at Hatchmark operated on a weird kind of time.
Days stretched forever under the heat — sticky sunscreen hands, lake water drying salty on your skin, whistles blowing every fifteen minutes — but somehow weeks vanished overnight. One second it was counselor orientation and the next there were friendship bracelets hanging from every cabin bedpost and campers crying because someone looked at them wrong during capture the flag.
Everything at camp felt heightened. Embarrassment. Joy. Loneliness. Love.
Especially love.
Probably because there was nowhere to hide here. No doors, no privacy, no distance. Only humid summer nights and shared routines and seeing the same people so often they became stitched into your daily existence before you even realized it.
Which explained why Macklin was suddenly everywhere again.
Everywhere.
You’d turn around and there he was, balancing six cafeteria trays because apparently he’d decided nobody else was capable of carrying juice boxes correctly. You’d hear laughter from across camp and instinctively know it was him before you even looked. The worst part? Your body remembered him before your brain did. The definition of muscle memory.
It was ridiculous how your entire nervous system still recognized Macklin Celebrini as home.
“Absolutely not.”
Macklin looked offended. “What do you mean absolutely not?”
“I mean,” you said slowly, “you are not teaching thirteen-year-olds how to flip off the dock.”
“It builds character.”
“It builds concussions.”
The campers sitting around the waterfront laughed immediately. Traitors. Macklin clutched his chest dramatically. “You wound me.”
“You deserve wounds.”
“See, this is why the campers think you’re scary.”
A girl named Emma gasped. “We do not!”
“You told me she stared someone into crying during canoe sign-ups.”
Emma pointed instantly. “That was Dylan’s fault.”
“He called me sweetheart,” you deadpanned.
Macklin burst out laughing so hard he nearly dropped the clipboard he was holding.
“Oh my God,” he wheezed. “You’re terrifying.”
“You knew this already.”
“I forgot how terrifying.”
You rolled your eyes, but your mouth betrayed you by twitching upward. Macklin noticed immediately, honing in on it like a bloodhound. “You smiled,” he said triumphantly.
“I did not.”
“Witnesses,” he informed the campers. “You all saw it.”
A chorus of agreement erupted instantly.
“Et tu, Emma?” you muttered.
She shrugged apologetically. Macklin grinned at you over the campers’ heads, sunlight catching against the lake behind him.
And for one awful second — you forgot. Forgot the years apart, the hurt. Forgot the way losing him had hollowed something out inside you.
Because this was easy.
The version of you that existed around Macklin slipped back into place so naturally it scared you. He looked at you for just a second too long, that unbearable thing settling underneath every interaction now.
Three summers ago, everyone at camp had a theory about you and Macklin. The lifeguards had a betting pool. Grace once banned the phrase sexual tension from counselor meetings because apparently hearing it every time you and Macklin argued was “creating a hostile work environment.”
Even the campers noticed.
“You guys act married,” one twelve-year-old informed you casually while you and Macklin fought over how to properly stack kayaks.
“We are literally not even dating,” you said.
Macklin, without missing a beat: “Yet.”
You dropped your side of the kayak directly onto his foot. He yelped loud enough for birds to scatter from nearby trees. Worth it.
The problem was that Macklin flirted like breathing came naturally to him. Effortlessly, constantly. Sometimes without even realizing it.
He’d sling an arm over your shoulders while talking. Steal bites of your food. Look at you during group conversations like your reactions mattered most. And every single time you started thinking maybe maybe maybe…
He’d act completely normal afterward, as though he didn’t realize what he was doing to you. Like it meant nothing.
That explained why things eventually fell apart.
You couldn’t survive in “almost” forever.
Present day, two weeks into camp, the rain started. Summer storms at Hatchmark were violent, sudden things. One second sunshine. The next, absolute chaos.
Campers shrieked as counselors herded everyone inside activity cabins while thunder cracked overhead. You sprinted across camp carrying three dodgeballs under one arm and a stack of board games under the other. Halfway to the rec hall, someone yelled your name.
You turned just in time for Macklin to appear beside you, equally soaked. “You run like an injured gazelle,” he informed you.
“You look terrible,” you shot back, a weak retort.
“I look heroic.”
“You look humid.”
Thunder cracked again. Macklin laughed. Then his hand wrapped around your wrist automatically as another group of campers sprinted past you through the mud. It was instinctive. Protective. Thoughtless. Your entire body short-circuited. His hand still fit exactly the same. Macklin seemed to realize what he’d done half a second later. His fingers loosened immediately, but not before both of you felt it.
That awful electric jolt. You swallowed hard. “Thanks,” you said quietly.
His eyes flicked to yours. “No problem.”
The rain hammered against the rooftops as you both stood there for one strange suspended second in the middle of camp.
“You’re still doing that thing,” he said suddenly.
“What thing?”
“That wrinkle between your eyebrows when you’re stressed.”
Your stomach dropped. That was such a Macklin thing to notice. Tiny, minute details. Things no one else would remember.
“You remember that?” you asked before you could stop yourself.
He looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”
God.
God, you hated him.
That night, the power went out. Camp erupted into chaos instantly. Campers screamed excitedly. Flashlights appeared everywhere. Someone started singing horribly from Cabin Six. You sat cross-legged in the dining hall helping kids make shadow puppets with lantern light while rain battered the windows.
Macklin dropped into the seat beside you carrying two mugs of hot chocolate. Your favorite, with extra marshmallows. You stared at the cup. “You remembered.”
Macklin looked down like he hadn’t even realized what he’d done. “Right,” he said softly. He remembered everything about you, which used to be your favorite thing in the world.
Now it just hurt.
The campers eventually got shuffled back to cabins once the storm calmed, leaving the dining hall mostly empty except for a few counselors cleaning up. You and Macklin stayed seated beside each other on top of one cafeteria table, lantern light flickering gold across the room. Comfortable silence settled between you, the kind that only exists between people who once knew each other too well.
“You know what I thought about a lot?” Macklin said suddenly.
A dangerous sentence.
“What?”
“The last night.”
Your grip tightened around the mug instantly. “Mack —”
“No, seriously.” His gaze stayed fixed ahead. “I think about it all the time.” Rain tapped softly against the windows now, dotting the silence between you two. “We were idiots,” he said quietly.
You laughed once under your breath. “True.”
“I kept waiting for you to say something.”
Your head snapped toward him. “What?”
Now he looked at you too. Eyes dark in the dim light. “I thought you didn’t want me like that,” he admitted.
Your stomach dropped so violently it almost hurt. “Macklin —”
“You never said anything.”
“Neither did you!”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“That night on the dock!”
You stared at him in disbelief.
“That was you trying?”
“Yes!” he exclaims.
“You said what if things change and then immediately left!”
“Because you looked terrified!”
“I was terrified!”
“Well, that’s not exactly encouraging!”
“Oh my God.”
Macklin ran a hand through his hair, laughing in genuine disbelief now. “We’re actually stupid.”
“You think?”
Three years.
Three entire years wasted because both of you were apparently emotionally constipated teenagers. You should’ve been angry. Instead, something sadder settled inside you. This revelation changed nothing.
You still left. He still let you.
Macklin said quietly: “I wrote you a letter once.”
Your breath caught. “What?”
“In college.” His gaze dropped to the mug in his hands. “Sophomore year.”
The room suddenly felt too small. “What did it say?”
He smiled faintly. “Not telling you.”
“Macklin,” you chastised him.
“Nope.”
“You brought it up!”
“I know.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Why would you say that and not elaborate?”
“Because watching you get annoyed is one of my favorite hobbies.”
You stared at him. He stared back. And there it was again, that unbearable gravity between you.
“You really broke my heart, you know,” he said quietly.
Every part of you went still. You opened your mouth. Closed it again. Because what could you even say to that?
Sorry?
You too?
I never figured out how to stop loving you either?
The lantern flickered between you. Outside, rainwater dripped steadily from the cabin roofs. Macklin looked at you for one long, impossible second. Then someone burst into the dining hall yelling about a flooded cabin bathroom, and the moment shattered before either of you could move.
Macklin stood immediately, rubbing a hand over his face. “Duty calls.”
You nodded numbly. He took two steps away, then stopped, turned back. And with that stupid soft look in his eyes that had ruined your life since you were seventeen, he said: “You know what the worst part is?”
Your throat tightened. “Hmm?”
Macklin smiled sadly. “Every girl I dated after you felt temporary.”
The next morning, camp woke up smelling like wet pine and mud.
Rainwater still clung to the rooftops of the cabins, dripping steadily into puddles that reflected the pale gold of sunrise, and the entire grounds felt softer somehow, quieter after the storm. Campers dragged themselves sleepily toward breakfast wrapped in oversized hoodies, counselors carried industrial coffee thermoses like lifelines, and somewhere near the arts-and-crafts shed someone was already arguing about whose turn it was to clean the llama pen.
You stood outside the dining hall tying your damp hair into a braid, trying very hard not to think about the conversation from the night before. Which, naturally, meant you thought about nothing else.
Every sentence replayed on a loop in your head. The last night. I thought you didn’t want me like that. You really broke my heart, you know.
And worst of all:
Every girl I dated after you felt temporary.
You had barely slept. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw the way Macklin had looked sitting across from you in lantern light — softer than you remembered, older somehow, but still painfully familiar. Like no matter how much time had passed, some part of him had stayed suspended back here at camp, waiting for a conversation the two of you never finished.
“You look petrified,” Elenie informed you, appearing beside you with a plate stacked aggressively high with pancakes.
“I am petrified.”
“That bad?”
You gave her a flat look.
She gasped dramatically. “Oh my God. Did you kiss?”
“No.”
“Did you almost kiss?”
“No,” you repeated.
“Did he confess his undying love?”
You hesitated just long enough for Elenie to lose her mind. “No way.”
“He did not,” you hissed. “Jesus Christ.”
“You hesitated!”
“That’s because I’m sleep deprived!”
Elenie narrowed her eyes knowingly. “That man said something devastating to you, didn’t he?”
Before you could answer, a familiar voice cut in behind you. “She always looks this miserable before coffee.”
You froze.
Macklin stepped around you casually, reaching for a stack of trays by the dining hall entrance like he hadn’t just detonated your emotional stability twelve hours earlier. His hair was still damp from a shower, the sleeves of his camp hoodie shoved up to his elbows, and there was something deeply unfair about the fact that he looked that good at eight in the morning while you felt like you’d been psychologically mauled by a bear. Elenie’s eyes widened with undisguised fascination. “Oh,” she said slowly. “Now I get it.”
You wanted the earth to open beneath you.
Macklin glanced between the two of you. “Should I be concerned?”
“Yes,” you said immediately.
“No,” Elenie said at the same time.
He grinned. That stupid grin had not gotten any easier to survive with age.
“You coming?” he asked you, nodding toward the dining hall. “Grace said we need to finalize waterfront teams before lunch.”
You stared at him for a second, suspicious of how normal he sounded. How easy. Like he hadn’t looked at you the night before and admitted you’d broken his heart. Then again, maybe this was how he coped with things. By smoothing them over into something manageable before they could become too real.
You remembered that about him too. Macklin hated vulnerability once it sat exposed for too long. He’d give you one honest moment and then immediately bury it under jokes before it could fully cut him open. The problem was that you understood him too well to let it fool you. “Sure,” you said quietly.
For half a second, something unreadable flickered across his face. Relief, maybe. Then it disappeared beneath his usual teasing expression. “Awesome. Try not to terrify any children before noon.”
“No promises.”
“That’s my girl —” He stopped instantly. The words hung in the air between you, your stomach dropping. Macklin’s expression changed almost imperceptibly, like he hadn’t even realized he’d said it until it was already too late to take back.
Elenie made a choking noise beside you. With the composure of someone actively being hunted for sport, Macklin cleared his throat and walked directly into the dining hall without another word.
Elenie slowly turned toward you. “Oh, you are both unbelievably down bad.”
You grabbed a pancake off her plate and walked away before she could say anything else.
Camp in late June was organized chaos. Every hour brought some new emergency: homesick campers, overturned canoes, mystery rashes, missing flashlights, a deeply concerning amount of glitter in places glitter should never exist. The days blurred together in sunburnt fragments, and before long, you slipped back into the rhythm of camp life so naturally it almost frightened you.
Wake up at seven. Breakfast duty. Waterfront rotation. Archery after lunch. Evening activities. Campfire. Lights out. Repeat.
Threaded through every second of it was Macklin. Always Macklin. He’d automatically handed you the blue Powerade during counselor breaks because he remembered it was your favorite. He’d saved you a seat during movie night without asking. His eyes found you instinctively in crowded spaces, like checking you were still there had become unconscious.
It would’ve been easier if he’d changed completely. Easier if the years apart had made him feel like someone you used to know instead of someone your heart still recognized instantly.
Instead, every day around him became its own kind of torture. You kept catching glimpses of the boy you fell in love with buried inside the man standing in front of you now. Worse than that — he kept catching glimpses of the girl he loved too.
You noticed it most at night. Camp nights had always belonged to the counselors. Once the campers were asleep, the entire grounds transformed. Flashlights bobbed through dark trails, music drifted softly from cabin porches, and everyone gathered by the lake like gravity pulled them there.
That had been your favorite part of camp once. Back when things with Macklin were still easy, before every glance between you carried years of unfinished history underneath it.
Tonight, the counselors sat scattered across the dock wrapped in hoodies and blankets while someone strummed badly on a guitar near the firepit. Elenie was in the middle of dramatically recounting how a camper tried to convince her that raccoons could understand English when laughter suddenly erupted beside you.
You looked over instinctively. Macklin sat at the edge of the dock with his feet dangling over the water, head tipped back as he laughed at something one of the lifeguards said. The firelight caught warm against his face, softening the sharpness of his features, and for one dangerous moment you forgot to breathe.
You knew that laugh. You knew the shape of his smile before it happened. You knew the exact way his shoulders shook when he laughed hard enough to lose composure.
You knew him. Even now. Your heart had preserved every version of him carefully over the years, terrified of losing the details.
“You’re staring,” Elenie whispered, cutting off the end of her story.
You nearly jumped. “I am literally not.”
“You look one second away from writing poetry.”
“I hate you.”
She snorted and nudged your shoulder. “Just talk to him.”
“We do talk.”
“No, you banter. There’s a difference.”
You looked back toward the lake. Macklin had gone quieter now, gaze drifting absentmindedly across the water. Then, almost like he felt you looking, his eyes lifted and landed directly on yours.
The world narrowed instantly. Neither of you looked away this time. The noise around the dock faded into background static. Campfire smoke curled through the summer air between you. Somewhere behind you, counselors were still laughing, someone was singing off-key, but all you could focus on was the expression slowly changing on Macklin’s face.
Not teasing, but soft. Achingly soft.
He looked like he was remembering something too.
One of the younger counselors flopped dramatically into his side, breaking the moment apart. Macklin blinked, looked away, and whatever had existed between you dissolved back into the night air before either of you could touch it.
You hated how often that happened. How every important moment between you seemed destined to remain unfinished.
Three summers ago, you and Macklin used to disappear during campfires. It just sort of happened. One minute you’d both be sitting with everyone else around the firepit, and the next you’d drift toward the docks together without discussing it, drawn away by the quiet and the lake water and the comfort of being alone with each other.
Those nights had ruined you more than anything else.
You remembered one night especially clearly. Late July. The air still warm enough that your legs dangled bare off the edge of the dock while Macklin lay beside you staring at the stars overhead. “You know what scares me?” he asked suddenly.
You turned your head toward him. “Besides spiders and emotional vulnerability?”
“I’m serious.”
“That was serious,” you said through a smothered laugh.
“Leaving here.”
Something in his tone made your chest tighten. “Why?”
“Because this doesn’t feel real.”
The lake rippled quietly beneath the dock. “What doesn’t?”
“This.” He gestured vaguely between the two of you. “Camp. You. Everything.”
Your pulse stumbled. “Mack…”
“I mean it.” He finally looked over at you then, eyes dark in the moonlight. “I think eventually we’re gonna leave this place and pretend none of this mattered as much as it did.”
You couldn’t breathe properly. He sounded sad, and also because some terrifying part of you knew he was right. “You think that’s what’ll happen?” you asked quietly.
Macklin stared at you for a long moment before answering. “No,” he admitted softly. “I think you’re gonna matter to me for a really long time.”
You had almost kissed him that night.
You remembered leaning toward each other slowly, nervously, like neither of you quite knew how to survive the tenderness of it. You remembered his eyes flicking down to your mouth. Remembered your heart beating so hard it physically hurt.
Then someone yelled your names from across camp and the moment shattered before it could become real.
Story of your lives.
Even now, years later, you still thought about how close he’d been. How warm his hand had looked resting beside yours on the dock wood. How badly you wanted him to kiss you first because you were terrified of what it would mean if he didn’t.
By July, summer had settled over Camp Hatchmark like a living thing.
The days turned syrupy, stretching lazily beneath cloudless skies while cicadas screamed from the trees loud enough to drown out conversation. Sunscreen and bug spray became permanent parts of your bloodstream. Every surface carried a thin layer of lake water or dirt or melted popsicle stickiness, and the campers moved through the grounds sunburnt and feral in packs, shrieking across fields with friendship bracelets tangled up their wrists.
Everything smelled like pine sap and smoke and chlorine. The perfect reflection of your childhood. This was the kind of summer people spent the rest of their lives trying to recreate.
Maybe that was the problem.
Camp made everything feel bigger than it was. Every feeling intensified here until it became impossible to ignore. Crushes became obsessions. Friendships became soul-deep attachments. Two months felt long enough to fall hopelessly in love.
You used to think that was because camp existed outside real life somehow, tucked away from the world in its own strange little universe where emotions didn’t know how to behave normally. Now you thought maybe camp just stripped people down to the versions of themselves they usually kept hidden.
And unfortunately for you, the version of yourself that existed at Camp Hatchmark had always belonged a little too much to Macklin Celebrini.
The realization settled slowly over the course of the summer, in tiny devastating details that accumulated until they became impossible to ignore.
One such example was the fact that every morning, no matter where you sat during breakfast, Macklin eventually ended up across from you somehow. Or, how he unconsciously matched your pace whenever you walked together between activities, his shoulder brushing yours every few steps like he physically couldn’t help drifting closer.
And the most suffocating part? It was still so easy, like sinking into warm lake water after a long day in the heat — familiar and dangerous and impossible not to crave.
It scared you sometimes, how little time seemed to matter where he was concerned. Three years apart should’ve changed more than this.
Instead, it felt like your friendship had simply been paused somewhere in the middle of a sentence.
“You’re cheating.”
Macklin looked up from the friendship bracelet currently looped around his fingers. “I’m literally not.”
“You absolutely are.”
The arts-and-crafts cabin buzzed with chaos around you as campers aggressively traded embroidery floss colors and argued over bead letters. Outside, the evening sun cast long golden streaks through the windows, painting everything amber and soft.
Macklin held up the bracelet defensively. “This knot is regulation.”
“There are no regulations.”
“Exactly. Which means I can innovate.”
“You’re making that up.”
He grinned lazily. “You have no proof.”
You rolled your eyes and reached across the table to fix the knot before he could ruin the entire bracelet pattern. The second your fingers brushed his, both of you stilled instinctively. Macklin’s expression shifted for half a heartbeat before smoothing itself back into something teasing.
“You still do that,” he said quietly.
You frowned. “Do what?”
“Fix things for me before I ask.”
You looked down quickly, focusing too hard on the bracelet string between your fingers. “Well,” you muttered, “you’re incapable of basic survival skills.”
“True.”
Your shoulders bumped lightly as he leaned closer to see what you were doing, and God, that shouldn’t have affected you as much as it did. It was barely anything. Just warmth against your arm. Just his voice low beside your ear while campers yelled around you. But camp had always made you hyperaware of him physically.
Long days together had a way of dissolving personal space until every accidental touch started meaning too much.
Especially because Macklin touched you constantly back then.
Always casually, naturally. A hand on your back guiding you through crowded dining halls. Fingers hooking briefly around your wrist to get your attention. Knees pressed together during campfire nights because neither of you bothered moving apart.
You could’ve survived it if he touched everyone that way, but he didn’t. You noticed that even at seventeen.
Macklin was warm with everybody, yes. Easygoing. Friendly. With you, though, there was always this extra layer underneath everything. Something softer, more attentive.
His attention settled differently on you than it did everyone else. At the time, you convinced yourself you imagined it. Now, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the arts-and-crafts cabin while sunset light spilled across the floorboards, you weren’t so sure anymore.
“Okay,” one of the campers interrupted dramatically, pointing between you both. “I have a question.”
You immediately narrowed your eyes. “That expression concerns me.”
“Were you guys dating before this?”
The entire table went silent instantly. You choked on absolutely nothing. Macklin nearly dropped the bracelet. “No,” you both said at the exact same time.
The camper blinked. “Really?”
“Yes,” you said.
“No,” Macklin said simultaneously.
You turned toward him slowly.
He looked equally betrayed. “You just said no!”
“You said yes!” you groaned loudly.
“I meant yes really!”
“Oh.”
The campers erupted into laughter. You buried your face in your hands. Macklin looked delighted now, which was deeply irritating considering he’d caused this. “You know,” he informed the campers smugly, “she used to threaten me with bodily harm at least twice a day.”
“Used to?” you shot back.
“Aw,” one of the girls sighed dramatically. “You guys are so cute.”
The entire cabin lost their minds. Macklin laughed so hard he folded forward against the table, and against your own will, you started laughing too. Real laughing.
The kind that made your stomach hurt.
For one terrifying second, it felt exactly like before.
That night was movie night for the younger campers, which meant every counselor got trapped in the rec hall watching an aggressively low-budget animated film while children hurled popcorn at each other like wild animals. You sat cross-legged on the floor near the back wall helping a homesick camper braid friendship bracelets while the movie played loudly overhead. Around you, sleeping bags and blankets covered the rec hall floor in messy rows, lantern light flickering softly against the wooden beams overhead.
Outside the windows, summer dusk deepened slowly over camp. You always forgot how beautiful Hatchmark looked at night. The lake turned silver beneath the moonlight. Fireflies blinked lazily through the trees. Music drifted faintly from older campers gathered around distant firepits while counselors carried flashlights between cabins like moving stars.
It felt suspended from reality somehow. The rest of the world ceased existing beyond the camp gates.
That must have been why losing Macklin had hurt so badly in the first place. Camp had never belonged entirely to you after him. Too much of this place carried his fingerprints.
“Hey.” You looked up. Macklin stood over you holding two juice pouches. You stared at them suspiciously. “Where did you get those?”
“I have connections.”
“You robbed a child.”
“That child was weak.” You accepted the juice pouch anyway.
Macklin sat beside you carefully, shoulder pressing against yours as he stretched his legs out across the floor. Neither of you moved apart. Onscreen, cartoon characters screamed through some sort of musical number while campers giggled around the room.
“You remember color war?” Macklin asked suddenly.
You groaned instantly. “Don’t.”
His grin widened. “You cried.”
“I did not cry.”
He nudged your shoulder. “You absolutely cried.”
“Because you cheated!”
“I strategized.”
“You bribed twelve-year-olds!”
“They were highly motivated.”
You laughed despite yourself, shaking your head. Color war had been infamous your second summer at camp. Counselors got divided into teams with campers for an entire week of competitions, and somehow you and Macklin ended up rival captains. It escalated immediately.
By day three, you’d both stopped speaking to each other entirely except through increasingly hostile sabotage attempts.
Macklin stole your team banner. You replaced all his cabin decorations with cutouts of Nicolas Cage. He retaliated by convincing your campers to perform an original diss track about you during talent night. You nearly drowned him in the lake afterward.
“You were unbearable,” you informed him now.
“You were obsessed with beating me.”
“You started it,” you said as you rolled your eyes.
“You loved it.”
You opened your mouth to argue. Then stopped. Damn, he was right.
You had loved it.
You had loved every second around him back then, even the fighting. Especially the fighting. Everything felt brighter around Macklin somehow, louder and sharper and more alive. He looked at you then like he was remembering the same thing.
The air between you shifted again. It happened so easily now. One second joking. The next — that. That impossible tension stretching quietly between you like a pulled thread.
Macklin’s gaze flicked briefly down toward your mouth before catching himself. Your pulse stumbled hard against your ribs. Around you, campers continued watching the movie completely oblivious while your entire nervous system betrayed you spectacularly. The homesick camper beside you fell asleep against your shoulder, breaking the moment before it could become something else. Macklin blinked first and leaned back against the wall with a quiet exhale. “Close one,” he muttered.
You stared at him. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“That absolutely sounded like something.”
He looked suspiciously amused now. “You’re blushing.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
The awful thing was, he said it so confidently. Like he already knew, some part of him had always known how magnetic he was.
Color war started the next morning. Not gently, either.
You woke up at six-thirty to airhorns blaring outside your cabin and someone screaming, “WAKE UP LOSERS, IT’S WAR,” at a volume that should’ve violated several federal laws. Campers exploded out of cabins in mismatched pajamas and face paint while counselors sprinted through the grounds carrying team flags like medieval soldiers charging into battle.
Camp Hatchmark took color war disgustingly seriously.
It lasted four days every July and turned the entire camp into absolute chaos. Teams were divided by color — red, blue, green, yellow — and every activity became competitive. Canoe races, relay games, scavenger hunts, talent shows, water balloon ambushes. There were no rules anymore. Only violence and seventeen-year-olds on power trips. And somehow, despite the fact that the universe clearly hated you personally, Grace assigned you and Macklin Celebrini as co-captains for Team Blue.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you said flatly.
Grace smiled serenely over her clipboard. “I think this is a wonderful opportunity for growth.”
Macklin snorted beside you. “Translation: she thinks we’re entertaining.”
“She’s not wrong,” Elenie whispered.
The campers, unfortunately, were thrilled. “We’re gonna dominate!” one of the boys yelled.
“That’s because I’m here,” Macklin informed them confidently.
You crossed your arms. “Interesting. I don’t remember asking for input from the weak link.”
The campers gasped dramatically. Macklin looked genuinely offended. “Weak link?”
“You once lost capture the flag to a twelve-year-old named Ethan.”
“He cheated.”
“He was nine.”
“He lacked honor.” The campers erupted into laughter again while Macklin pointed accusingly at you like this was somehow your fault.
God.
This was terrible. Not the fighting itself. The ease of it. The way you and Macklin slipped into old rhythms so naturally that sometimes you forgot there were years between then and now. Around him, you became seventeen again without meaning to. Sharper. Lighter. More alive somehow.
He seemed to feel it too. You recognized it in the way his eyes lingered on you now. Every day, this summer was peeling back another layer of restraint he’d spent years building.
Color war transformed camp into something feverish.
Everything became louder. Brighter. Messier.
The campers ran around with painted faces and glitter in their hair, screaming team chants across the lake while counselors staged elaborate sabotage attempts under the cover of darkness. Every cabin dripped with handmade banners and streamers. Music blasted from portable speakers all day long. The dining hall became a battlefield of flying mashed potatoes and aggressive spirit.
The days baked hot enough that the docks burned bare feet by noon, and every afternoon ended with counselors shoving laughing campers fully clothed into the lake just to cool off. Evenings smelled like citronella candles and bonfire smoke while fireflies blinked lazily through the trees. It should’ve been impossible to feel sad in a place like this.
Somehow, the happier the camp became around you, the more fragile something inside you started to feel. Every good moment with Macklin carried grief underneath it: grief for what you almost had, for the terrifying possibility that maybe you’d found the right person at the exact wrong stage of your lives.
You tried not to think about it.
The talent show rehearsal devolved into disaster almost immediately. “Absolutely not,” you said, staring at Macklin in horror.
He clutched the microphone dramatically. “The campers love my musical performances.”
“The campers also eat glue.”
“That feels unrelated.”
“You cannot perform Pony by Ginuwine with Will again.”
“First of all,” he said defensively, “it’s a classic.”
“You got booed offstage.”
“They lacked artistic vision.”
“You forgot the lyrics halfway through.”
“I was improvising emotionally.”
You rubbed your temples while campers dissolved into hysterics around you. The rec hall buzzed with pre-show chaos: counselors hanging decorations from the rafters, kids practicing dance routines in corners, someone aggressively hot-gluing sequins onto a team banner while Taylor Swift blasted through the speakers. Macklin hopped onto the edge of the stage beside you, bumping your shoulder with his. “You wound me,” he informed you solemnly.
“I’m trying to protect innocent civilians.”
“You used to support my dreams.”
You rubbed a spot on your temples. “I used to be naive.”
He laughed softly under his breath, looking down at you with that stupid warm expression again. The noise in the rec hall blurred around the edges suddenly.
You became hyperaware of how close he was sitting. The heat radiating from his arm against yours. The way his knee brushed yours every few seconds because neither of you moved away.
“Mack!”
A camper sprinted toward the stage breathlessly. “The green team stole our mascot!”
Macklin jumped up immediately. “Those little cowards.”
“You’re thirty percent responsible for escalating this,” you called after him.
He pointed at you while backing toward the door. “That’s a slanderous accusation.” Then, before you could argue with him, he vanished into the chaos outside with half the campers following him like loyal soldiers.
You watched him go longer than necessary. Elenie appeared beside you carrying poster paint. “You know,” she said casually, “I genuinely think that man would survive being shot as long as you looked impressed afterward.”
You nearly inhaled your own saliva. “What does that even mean?”
“It means he’s in love with you.”
You choked out a laugh. “No, he’s not.”
Elenie gave you a look. “Girl.”
You turned away before she could see your expression.
That night, the camp hosted its annual Fourth of July celebration. By sunset, the entire grounds glowed. String lights hung between trees around the lake, flickering against the darkening sky while campers ran barefoot through the grass waving sparklers dangerously close to each other’s faces. Music drifted from the dining hall patio. Someone burned hot dogs. The younger campers sat cross-legged on picnic blankets with red-white-and-blue face paint smeared across their cheeks. Everything looked soft and cinematic in the warm summer dusk.
A memory while it was still happening.
You stood near the waterfront helping set up lanterns along the dock when footsteps creaked against the wood behind you. “You missed one.”
You turned. Macklin held up an unlit lantern with a smug expression. “Oh no,” you deadpanned. “My greatest shame.”
“I knew you’d take it hard.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he crowed, stepping beside you at the edge of the dock, shoulders brushing lightly together while both of you stared out across the lake. The water reflected the string lights in shimmering streaks. Somewhere behind you, campers screamed excitedly as fireworks started getting set up near the far field.
For a while, neither of you spoke. It wasn’t awkward. That was the problem with Macklin: silence with him had always felt full instead of empty. He said quietly, “You remember our last Fourth of July here?”
Just like that, your stomach dropped. Of course you remembered.
God, you remembered everything.
Three summers ago, the fireworks show had ended with you and Macklin alone on the dock after everyone else wandered back toward the cabins. The air smelled like smoke afterward, thick with burned fireworks and lake water and summer heat. You remembered sitting shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the stars while distant laughter echoed across camp. Macklin had looked unusually quiet that night.
“What?” you’d asked eventually.
He shrugged without looking at you. “Nothing.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The emotionally constipated thing where you pretend you’re fine while visibly having a crisis.”
He laughed softly at that.
Then he looked over at you. Terrifyingly open. “You ever think about how temporary this is?” he asked.
Your heart skipped a beat immediately. “All the time.”
He nodded slowly, gaze drifting back toward the lake. “I think that’s why I like being around you so much.”
Your pulse stumbled. “Mack…”
“Because when I’m with you,” he admitted quietly, “it doesn’t feel temporary anymore.”
You could still remember exactly how you felt in that moment. You’d wanted to kiss him so badly it physically hurt. Instead, you sat there frozen beside him because you were seventeen and terrified and convinced one wrong move would ruin everything between you forever.
The irony of that still made you sick sometimes, since you ruined each other anyway.
Present day. Fireworks exploding overhead in violent bursts of gold and blue, illuminating the lake beneath flashes of color. Campers screamed excitedly around the shoreline. You stood frozen beside Macklin on the dock, the memory still lodged painfully in your throat. “You remember that night?” you asked quietly.
Macklin looked at you instead of the fireworks. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I remember all of it.”
The fireworks reflected in his eyes. Your heartbeat felt uneven suddenly. Around you, camp erupted into cheers as another burst lit up the sky, but the world had narrowed again somehow, shrinking down to just this dock and the unbearable way Macklin was looking at you now.
There were still words sitting unsaid between you after all these years, and he was tired of swallowing them. “Mack —”
A firework exploded suddenly overhead so loud it startled you both. Instinctively, your hand grabbed his arm. Everything stopped: not the fireworks, just you two. His arm flexed automatically beneath your fingers and Macklin looked down at your hand gripping him like it meant something.
Slowly, he dragged his gaze back to yours. The fireworks painted shifting colors across his face. Gold. Red. Blue.
Your pulse thundered violently.
Neither of you moved. Neither of you let go.
For one terrifying suspended second, you thought he might finally kiss you.
Apparently the universe had decided long ago that the two of you were only allowed moments right up until the point they became real. The second stretched painfully between you on the dock, your hand still wrapped around his arm while fireworks burst overhead in blinding flashes of color. His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth again — unmistakably this time — and your entire body went warm with anticipation so sharp it almost hurt. Then… a camper somewhere behind you screamed, “THE SPARKLERS ARE ON FIRE,” and the moment shattered instantly into chaos.
Macklin blinked hard, stepping back automatically while three counselors sprinted across the field yelling conflicting instructions. You dropped your hand like you’d touched something dangerous. Reality rushed back all at once. The noise, the fireworks, the screaming campers.
“False alarm!” someone yelled eventually. “False alarm! They were supposed to be on fire!”
The camp erupted into relieved laughter. Beside you, Macklin rubbed a hand over his face slowly like he was trying to collect himself. You looked out across the lake instead because if you met his green eyes again right now, you thought you might actually combust.
The fireworks continued overhead in brilliant violent bursts, illuminating the water silver-blue beneath the summer sky. Campers sprawled across blankets near the shore while music drifted faintly from the dining hall patio. The entire night felt cinematic in that particular way camp nights always did — like something fleeting and magical happening too fast for you to hold onto properly.
Maybe that was why this hurt so much. Camp had always been a place of almosts for you and Macklin. Almost kissing, almost confessing, almost becoming something real. Somehow those unfinished moments haunted you worse than actual heartbreak ever could.
“You know what’s evil?” Macklin said suddenly beside you.
Your throat felt too tight. “What?”
“The timing of that.”
You let out a startled laugh before you could stop yourself. Macklin looked over at you then, smiling helplessly now, and the expression on his face made your chest ache. He looked wrecked too, like he was barely surviving this summer either. “That might actually be the most camp thing that’s ever happened to us,” you admitted.
“Seriously.” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “If we ever get married, I’m blaming those sparklers during the vows.”
Your stomach dropped so fast it felt like a cannonball had sunk to your feet. Macklin seemed to realize what he’d said at the exact same moment. His expression glitched in panic. “Well,” he said hoarsely, “that slipped out.”
You should say something funny. Deflect. Tease him. Do literally anything except stand there feeling your heart crack wide open. Rather, quietly: “You think about that?”
Macklin went completely still beside you. The fireworks overhead suddenly sounded very far away. When he looked back at you, tearing his eyes away from the lake, there was no teasing left in his expression at all.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I used to.”
Used to.
The word lodged somewhere painful beneath your ribs. Used to implied past tense.
Used to implied he stopped.
Perhaps he saw the hurt flicker across your face, because his own expression shifted instantly afterward — regretful, conflicted, almost frustrated with himself. “That came out wrong,” he said quickly.
You pushed him away before he could continue. “No, it’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
Another firework exploded overhead in shimmering colors. Around you, the camp cheered. Macklin stepped closer again carefully, like approaching something fragile. “You know what I meant.”
Unfortunately, you did. You understood him too well. He meant there was a point in his life where imagining a future with you had felt natural. Easy. Certain, even. What hurt wasn’t that he used to think about it, but it was realizing you never stopped.
You swallowed hard. “We should probably go help before the kids accidentally burn down the entire forest,” you said quietly.
Macklin looked like he wanted to say something else. After a long pause: “Yeah.”
The walk back across camp felt strange, the thing between you two shifting and evolving again and again with no true definition. The grass was cool beneath your sandals as you crossed the field together, fireflies blinking lazily around the cabins while campers darted through the dark carrying glowsticks and melted popsicles. Somewhere near the rec hall, older counselors had started singing loudly and badly to early 2010s songs while Grace pretended not to notice.
“Mack!” one of the campers yelled suddenly from the volleyball court. “We need another player!”
“You’re doomed,” Macklin informed them immediately. “I’m incredibly competitive.”
“You lost to a sixth grader at Gaga ball yesterday,” you reminded him.
“That child was bloodthirsty.”
He pointed at you while backing toward the court. “This isn’t over.”
You crossed your arms. “What isn’t?”
Macklin opened his mouth. For one brief second, something vulnerable flashed across his face before the usual grin slid back into place.
“You know,” he said lightly.
And then he jogged away before you could answer. Coward.
Your heart followed him anyway.
The next few days became unbearable in the way only summer camp could make things unbearable.
Color war escalated into complete anarchy. Campers launched surprise water balloon attacks from cabin rooftops. Team chants echoed constantly across the lake. Someone stole the opposing team’s mascot costume and held it hostage inside a canoe for six hours.
Through all of it, you and Macklin moved around each other with this growing, crackling awareness that made every interaction feel dangerous.
Neither of you had said the actual words yet. But you knew.
You knew because of the way his eyes lingered on you when he thought you weren’t looking. Because of how quiet he got whenever conversations drifted toward relationships or the future. Every joke between you suddenly carried this aching undercurrent of truth beneath it.
You started remembering things differently too.
Moments from years ago rearranged themselves in your mind under this new understanding, becoming almost unbearable in hindsight. Such as the summer Macklin taught you how to drive the camp boat even though junior counselors technically weren’t allowed to use it unsupervised. You remembered sitting beside him at sunset while he explained steering with one hand resting lightly over yours on the wheel.
“You’re overcorrecting,” he laughed.
“You’re distracting me.”
“How?”
“You keep looking at me.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
At the time, you thought it was flirting. Now you realized it was probably worse than flirting.
Or the memory of finding him asleep on the dock one afternoon after activity rotations ended early. You’d sat beside him quietly, watching lake sunlight flicker across his face while his head rested against your shoulder even in sleep, trusting and automatic.
You remembered thinking then, with terrifying clarity:
Oh.
Oh, I’m in love with him.
Some horrible, miserable part of you had always known he felt it too.
You were just both too young and too afraid to survive it properly.
Two nights later, the counselors organized a midnight capture-the-flag game for the older campers. Which was how you ended up sprinting through the woods at eleven-thirty at night with a flashlight in one hand and your team bandana tied around your wrist. The summer air felt thick and electric after sunset, buzzing with cicadas and distant laughter while flashlights darted between trees like fireflies. Campers shrieked somewhere near the soccer field. Someone had already fallen into the creek.
Typical.
You crouched behind one of the cabins trying to strategize with your team when suddenly a hand grabbed your wrist and yanked you backward into the shadows. You nearly screamed. “Macklin,” you hissed as he clamped a hand over your mouth.
“Shh.” His chest was pressed against your back to keep both of you hidden behind the cabin wall, and every functioning thought immediately evacuated your brain.
You could feel his heartbeat. Or maybe it was yours. “Mack,” you whispered once he moved his hand, “what the hell?”
He peeked around the corner dramatically. “Your campers are terrifying.”
“That’s because they learned from me.”
“I know. That’s why I’m afraid.”
You tried to focus on literally anything except the fact that his arm was still around your waist. The woods glowed dimly under flashlight beams and moonlight, shadows shifting through the trees while campers ran past screaming about stolen flags. “This feels unethical,” you muttered.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m considering murder actually.”
Macklin laughed softly right beside your ear, and the sound slid down your spine like warm water.
This was getting bad.
It never just been attraction with you and Macklin. It was intimacy. The horrifying, effortless intimacy of him. He occupied your space like he belonged there, and being close to him still felt natural enough to ruin you.
Voices approached nearby. Instinctively, Macklin pulled you both farther behind the cabin.
Closer. Much closer.
Your back hit the wooden siding lightly as he steadied himself with one hand beside your head. And there it was again, that terrifying suspended almost.
The shouting campers faded into background noise as your eyes lifted to his automatically.
Macklin’s gaze flicked downward slowly. Your pulse became catastrophic. And this time — this time he didn’t look away.
The world narrowed down to fragments.
Moonlight through the trees, the rough wood of the cabin pressing cool against your back. The distant sounds of campers screaming somewhere across the field about a stolen flag.
And Macklin, so close you could feel the warmth radiating off him despite the cool night air, one hand braced beside your head while the other still rested unconsciously against your waist like he hadn’t realized he was touching you there at all.
Neither of you were pretending anymore.
“Mack,” you whispered, though you weren’t even sure what you meant by it. A warning. A plea. His name had always sounded different in your mouth when you were alone with him.
His eyes lifted back to yours slowly.
You watched his throat move as he swallowed. Then, very faintly, he murmured: “You have got to stop looking at me like that.”
Your heart nearly stuttered out. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like…” He exhaled shakily, almost laughing at himself. “Like you’re about to ruin my life.”
You could see it on his face now too — the realization that this thing between you had grown too big to joke around anymore. Too real. Every almost-moment this summer had been stacking on top of each other until neither of you could breathe properly around the weight of it.
“Macklin —”
All of a sudden, a flashlight beam swept across the cabin wall. “There they are!” someone yelled. The pent-up moment shattered instantly.
Macklin swore under his breath and grabbed your hand before you could react, dragging you around the side of the cabin as campers charged toward you through the trees. “Traitor!” you yelled breathlessly while running after him.
“You love me.”
“I literally hope you lose.”
“See? Mixed messages.”
Your hand stayed in his anyway. Warm and tight and familiar. You sprinted through the woods together laughing despite yourselves while flashlights bounced wildly around the trees behind you. The entire camp had dissolved into chaos now — campers diving behind picnic tables, counselors dramatically sacrificing themselves for team victories, someone blowing a whistle way too aggressively near the lake.
Summer camp at midnight always felt a little unreal.
Like freedom. Macklin finally ducked behind the arts-and-crafts cabin, still holding your hand as both of you tried catching your breath. “You are,” you gasped between breaths, “the worst teammate I’ve ever had.”
“That’s crazy,” he said, equally breathless. “Because I’m carrying this team emotionally.”
“You almost got us killed!”
“And yet,” he pointed out smugly, “we survived.”
Your laughter escaped before you could stop it.
Real laughter. The kind that left you dizzy.
Macklin stared at you immediately, something softening in his face so quickly it almost hurt to watch.
You forgot sometimes how much he loved making you laugh. Not in a cocky way. Not performatively. It genuinely mattered to him.
You noticed that even when you were younger — how his expression changed whenever he got you laughing hard enough to lose composure. Like he’d discovered something precious.
The realization hit you suddenly and painfully: you had spent years trying to find pieces of this feeling in other people.
None of them ever came close.
The night air buzzed softly around you, thick with pine and lake water and summer heat that still lingered even after midnight. Somewhere in the distance, counselors shouted directions through megaphones while campers screamed in triumph.
Here, tucked behind the cabin in the shadows, it suddenly felt very quiet. Macklin looked at you for one long moment before speaking again. “You know what sucks?” he asked softly.
Your heartbeat dipped immediately. “What?”
“I think if we kissed right now, I’d never recover.”
The air left your lungs. Raw and terrifying and sitting openly between you now. He looked equally wrecked by his own confession. “That’s not a normal thing to say to someone,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“Then why would you say it?”
Macklin laughed once quietly, but there was no humor in it. “Because I’m tired.”
“Tired of what?”
His gaze held yours. “Pretending this doesn’t still affect me.”
Every emotion you’d spent the summer trying to keep under control cracked open at once. The years apart, the unfinished conversations, the pain of losing him before you ever really had him. You thought about every almost between you. Every moment that got interrupted or swallowed down or mistimed. How many years you both wasted waiting for the other person to say something first.
Standing here now beneath the trees with his hand still wrapped around yours, you realized something devastating: it had never gone away for either of you.
Sure, it faded sometimes with distance blurring the edges, but it never disappeared.
You still saw every version of the boy you loved at seventeen. And, judging by the look on his face — he still saw you too.
“Mack…” Your voice came out quieter this time.
He stepped closer. You could barely think properly now. His hand loosened around yours only to slide carefully up your arm instead, fingertips grazing your elbow like he was trying very hard not to scare you away. The tenderness of it nearly destroyed you.
“Macklin!”
Both of you jumped apart instantly. Elenie appeared around the side of the cabin carrying a flashlight and immediately froze. Her eyes moved between you.
To your faces, then back again.
“Oh,” she said slowly. “Oh, this is catastrophic timing.”
You covered your face with your hands. Macklin looked one second away from walking directly into the lake. Elenie blinked. “Were you guys about to —”
“No,” you both said immediately.
She stared. “Wow,” she said after a beat. “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
Macklin rubbed both hands over his face in visible agony. “We hate this camp,” he muttered.
“You love this camp,” Elenie corrected. “You just hate emotional intimacy.”
“That’s not true,” he argued weakly.
She pointed between you both. “You’ve been in love with each other for, like, half a decade.”
Neither of you spoke. Elenie’s expression slowly shifted from smug to horrified. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “You haven’t actually said it yet.”
“Murder is legal in some states,” you informed her.
“This is insane.” She looked genuinely distressed now. “You guys are insane. This entire situation is psychologically concerning.”
Before either of you could stop her, she pointed dramatically toward the woods. “Anyway, Blue team is losing because both our captains disappeared to have yearning eye contact behind a cabin, so congratulations on that.”
And with that, she walked away shaking her head. Silence.
Macklin looked at you slowly. You looked back. Then simultaneously, helplessly — you both started laughing. Not because anything was funny, but because if you didn’t laugh, the enormity of this would crush you whole. Macklin leaned back against the cabin wall beside you, still laughing under his breath while running a hand through his hair. “We’re pathetic,” he said.
“Deeply.”
“We should probably talk about this.”
Your stomach flipped violently. “Probably.”
Neither of you moved.
Somewhere across camp, a whistle blew signaling the end of the game while campers erupted into exhausted cheers.
Camp was ending soon. You could feel it already in the shifting rhythm of things. The way campers started talking about school again. The way counselors counted remaining weeks under their breath. Summer at Hatchmark always vanished faster near the end, slipping through your fingers no matter how tightly you tried holding on.
And you were terrified. What happened after this?
What happened when the camp lights came down and the cabins emptied and you and Macklin had to return to real life again?
He must have been thinking the same thing, because his expression softened suddenly into something almost unbearably sad. “You know what scares me?” he asked quietly.
You already knew it wouldn’t just be spiders this time. “What?”
Macklin looked at you like the answer mattered too much. “That we finally figured this out at the worst possible time again.”
After that night behind the arts-and-crafts cabin, something between you and Macklin Celebrini finally gave out. Not dramatically, with a screaming fight or a grand confession beneath the stars.
It was the slow collapse of every wall the two of you had spent years pretending still existed, in glances that lasted too long, in conversations that drifted softer and more honest after midnight, in the way neither of you pulled away anymore whenever your hands brushed accidentally.
The rest of camp carried on around you in bright, chaotic summer fragments while something fragile and terrifying unfolded underneath it all. The campers still shrieked during morning lake jumps. The dining hall still smelled like syrup and burnt toast every breakfast. Counselors still stayed up too late singing badly by the docks while fireflies blinked through the trees like tiny falling stars.
Every moment with Macklin felt edged with urgency. Camp was ending, again. This time, neither of you could pretend not to know what was happening between you.
The last week of camp always felt haunted.
Everybody became gentler somehow. Campers clung to each other harder during activities. Friendship bracelets multiplied around wrists. People started taking pictures of things they normally overlooked — cabin doors, canoe docks, blurry sunsets over the lake — like proof the summer had really happened.
You hated the last week.
Always had. There was something unbearable about watching temporary things realize they were temporary.
Tonight, the counselors had dragged mattresses out onto the soccer field for stargazing with the older campers. The grass still held warmth from the day’s heat as everyone sprawled beneath blankets pointing lazily toward constellations they definitely identified wrong.
You lay near the edge of the field listening to campers whisper and laugh around you while summer air curled softly against your skin.
“Move over.”
You looked up. Macklin dropped onto the blanket beside you before you could answer, shoulder pressing instantly against yours. Neither of you commented on it anymore. The sky stretched endless overhead, dark velvet scattered with stars.
For a while, neither of you spoke. Then Macklin said softly, “You know what I realized this summer?”
You turned your head toward him.
“What?”
His gaze stayed fixed upward.
“That I never actually got over you.” He laughed once under his breath like he couldn’t believe he was saying it out loud. “I think I just got older around it.”
Every part of you went still. Around you, campers continued talking quietly, completely oblivious to the fact that your entire heart had just cracked open. “Mack…”
“No, seriously.” He finally looked over at you then, eyes dark beneath the starlight. “I tried. I really did.”
Your throat tightened painfully, making it hard for you to dislodge the words you desperately needed to say. “You don’t have to —”
“Yes, I do.” His voice softened. “Because I don’t think I’ve ever said any of this right. I think part of me has been waiting for you since I was eighteen years old.”
The world misted around the edges, tears pricking your eyes. “You can’t say things like that,” you whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because —” Your voice broke embarrassingly, upper lip wobbling as you forced back the tidal wave of emotions threatening to spill over. “Because I don’t know what to do with them.”
His expression shifted instantly at the sound. “You know what the worst part is?” he asked quietly. “I think if either of us had been a little braver back then, this would’ve been it for me.” You stared at him helplessly. “This,” he repeated, eyes holding yours. “You.”
All summer long, you’d been carrying this fear that maybe you imagined the intensity of what existed between you once. That time had romanticized it somehow. That maybe you were the only one still haunted by those summers.
But looking at Macklin now, hearing his voice crack around the edges beneath the stars, you realized something devastating. You had never been alone in this. Not once, or ever.
“I was in love with you too,” you admitted quietly.
Macklin closed his eyes briefly like the words actually wounded him. “Jesus,” he whispered.
“I just…” You laughed shakily, wiping quickly at your face before tears could fully embarrass you. “I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“You have to understand how impossible you were to read.”
He looked genuinely offended. “Impossible to read? I literally followed you around like a lost dog.”
“You flirted with everyone!”
“I flirted with you differently.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Because I looked at you like you hung the moon!”
Your breath caught. The campers nearby dissolved into laughter over something unrelated, and the sound felt strangely far away now. Like you and Macklin existed in some separate orbit from the rest of the world.
He looked at you then with this awful heartbreaking fondness that made your chest cave inward. “You really didn’t know?” he asked softly.
“No,” you admitted.
Macklin laughed quietly to himself, almost disbelieving. “I think everyone else at camp knew before we did.”
“That’s humiliating.”
“Deeply.”
You both fell quiet again. The wind moved softly through the trees surrounding the field, carrying the smell of pine and lake water and distant bonfire smoke. Somewhere near the cabins, counselors were still singing off-key.
Summer sounds, camp sounds. Macklin rolled onto his side suddenly so he was facing you fully now, one arm tucked beneath his head. And God. You could survive almost anything except him looking at you like this. “You wanna know something pathetic?” he asked.
“Always.”
“That letter I told you about?”
Your pulse stumbled immediately. “What about it?”
“I never sent it because I thought hearing from me would make your life harder.”
Your eyes burned suddenly. “Mack…”
“I wrote the whole thing,” he continued quietly. “Like six pages. Absolute psychological warfare.”
Despite everything, you laughed weakly. “What did it say?”
He watched you for a long moment. “It said, amongst a lot of other really ridiculous things, that I thought I’d spend the rest of my life missing you.”
That did it. The tears came instantly after that, hot and humiliating and impossible to stop. “Oh no,” Macklin said immediately, sitting up. “No, no, sweetheart, don’t cry.”
Sweetheart.
The word nearly killed you.
You covered your face with both hands. “I hate you.”
“I know.” His voice gentled impossibly. “C’mere.” Before you could overthink it, Macklin pulled you against him. And the second his arms wrapped around you, something inside you broke completely.
There was an old story, about how humans used to have four arms and four legs, but were split in half after attempting to defy the gods. They were cursed to spend the rest of their lives wandering around, looking for the other missing part of themselves.
And that was the tragedy of it. After years apart and missed chances and growing older without each other, you still fit in the curves and slopes of his arms like your body remembered him before your mind could catch up.
You cried harder against his shoulder, half laughing through it because this was so absurdly overdue. Macklin held you carefully beneath the stars while campers whispered around you and summer wrapped warm around the field. “I think,” you managed eventually against his hoodie, “we might actually be idiots.”
Macklin laughed softly into your hair. “Oh, unquestionably.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him. His hands stayed warm against your arms. Neither of you looked away this time, no interruptions.
Just him, just you. Finally.
“You know what really sucks?” you whispered.
“What?”
“We’re still doing this at the wrong time.”
Macklin’s expression faltered slightly, because you were right. Camp ended in four days. You’d go back to Boston. He’d go back to California. And the old fear returned all at once — that this summer would become another unfinished thing between you. Another memory you carried around for years afterward wondering what would’ve happened if timing had loved you better.
Macklin must’ve seen the panic flicker across your face, because his hands tightened gently around your arms. “Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.” You obeyed. “I don’t care about timing anymore.” Your heart cracked wide open. “I spent three years trying to convince myself losing you was the mature thing,” he admitted quietly. “And it was miserable. So I’m done being reasonable about this.”
A tear slipped down your cheek. Macklin brushed it away with his thumb carefully enough to undo you completely. “I think,” he said softly, “if we walk away from each other again after this, it’ll actually break me.”
The honesty of it stole every remaining breath from your lungs. You understood exactly what he meant.
Some loves leave quietly. This one never had. It stayed, through years and distance and other people and growing up separately. It stayed anyway.
That was the answer: the terrifying, undeniable fact that every road in your life somehow kept leading back to him.
Macklin looked at you one last time like he was done being afraid. And he kissed you, soft at first, disbelieving and reverent.
Both of you were still waiting for the universe to interrupt.
But when nothing did, his hand slid gently into your hair and the kiss deepened with years of unsaid things behind it — every almost, every missed chance, every summer night spent wanting each other too much and saying nothing at all.
And somewhere beyond the soccer field, hidden beneath the trees and the stars and the fading sounds of camp, the lake kept moving quietly against the docks the same way it always had, as if it had known long before either of you that some people were simply destined to find their way back to each other, no matter how many summers it took.
currently working on a summer camp!au with macklin … youchhh … it’s taking a lot of energy considering i planned it out to be the longest fic i’ve written ever ! but we will persist , i can’t wait for you all to read it ( whenever that happens … )
i just read your fm93 fic and let me tell you i am enchanted by your writing 🥹🥹 i think i shed a little tear while reading
aweeee thank you !!! i luvluvluv writing academic rivals , best trope in existence by far . especially when it’s paired with fraser , our fave bruins nerd ? 10 / 10 , absolute peak !!! i’m glad you also agree : )
Hiii! I love your girl next door fic! Would it be alright if I wrote a fic inspired by it? Similar premise, different plot haha. Totally fine if not, just wanted to ask!
Once again, love your fic!
hi, i’m really sorry but i would prefer if you did not . thanks so much for asking !!! i appreciate it <3
OUUUUUU GIRL I LOVED UR MOST RECENT FIC WITH FRASER SO MUCH.
they’re so cute oh my LORDDD (please update us on what happens nexts..)
first ever inbox message 📥 … who’s cutting onions in here … anywayssss beforeigetaheadofmyself , thank you so much for the feedback !!!
honestly , i headcanon them ( wait is it a headcanon if i’m the author ??? someone help ) as going to alternate colleges that are rivals . so think , bu and bc , harvard and yale , etc !!! that way the healthy competition between them can continue , at least until fraser is drafted to the nhl . but i do think despite the distance between them , they are still super close and fraser luvs hearing y/n talk about her day & compare her exam scores with his ! he also offers to help her study bc she “ always does better ” with him around … * said with a smirk bytheway *
i luv the high school rivals!au sosososo much , i’m glad you also enjoyed it !! please feel free to pop in again , if you want : ) i’m always here to yap , even if it’s not about my fics and it’s just nhl stuff in general !!!
⋆˚ YOU'RE GONNA GO FAR ⋆˚࿔
pairing: fraser minten x fem!reader
it's graduation night and fraser minten finally decides confessing to his academic rival and longtime crush is somehow less terrifying than losing valedictorian to her.
﹙ ⓘ ﹚ warnings: non nhl!au ( high school au ), angst, slow burn romance, elements of humor. nerd x nerd, mutual pining, idiots to lovers / rivals to lovers, usa education system instead of canadian ( purely because i don't know how it works and i want this to be as accurate as possible !!! ) . 7.4k words
✶ author’s note 𑣲 it's graduation season ... what can i say ??? i really loved writing this fic , not only because i'm graduating myself , but because the dynamic between fraser and y/n was just so cutesy . anyways , thank you once again for all the support you've shown me ... i hope you luv this fic !!!
BY MAY, THE STUDENT COUNCIL BETTING POOL IS NO LONGER ABOUT VALEDICTORIAN — IT’S ABOUT WHEN FRASER MINTEN IS FINALLY GOING TO ADMIT HE’S OBSESSED WITH YOU.
The betting pool starts in AP Government during fourth period.
Which is honestly fitting, because nothing destroys democracy faster than seventeen-year-olds with too much free time and access to Google Sheets.
“Okay,” Connor Bedard says, standing at the front of the classroom like a deeply unserious game show host, “current options are: before prom, after prom, graduation night, tragic airport confession, or they never confess and we all perish from unresolved sexual tension.”
Mr. Sturm doesn’t even look up from grading papers. “No gambling during instructional hours.”
“We’re not gambling,” Connor returns immediately. “We’re crowdsourcing.”
“Mm.”
From the back row, somebody asks, “Can I put twenty on Fraser combusting before he says anything?”
“You can and should,” Connor replies solemnly.
You don’t even bother looking up from your notes. Mostly because if you acknowledge this behavior, it gets worse. Unfortunately for you, Fraser Minten chooses that exact moment to walk into class carrying an iced coffee and three textbooks balanced against one arm. The room falls silent in the way crowds do before a natural disaster.
Connor lights up immediately. “Ah,” he says. “The man of the hour.”
Fraser narrows his eyes. “Why are you standing like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to publicly humiliate me.”
“I would never,” Connor responds in mock affront, hand on chest as though Fraser has mortally wounded him with his words.
“You literally live for it.”
“That’s not true,” Connor says thoughtfully. “I also live for mozzarella sticks.”
Fraser drops into the desk beside yours with a suspicious look that only deepens when your best friend Emma physically turns around in her seat to stare at him. “What?”
Emma smiles too brightly. “Nothing.”
“You’re all acting weird.”
“You’re acting like you’re trying to deny the fact that you’re in love with Y/N,” Connor shoots back.
The class erupts instantly. You choke on your water. Fraser goes completely still beside you.
Mr. Sturm sighs the sigh of a man who absolutely does not get paid enough. “Mr. Bedard,” he says without looking up, “sit down before I call your mother.”
Connor sits immediately.
Fraser stares straight ahead at the whiteboard with the expression of a man moments away from walking directly into traffic. You glance sideways at him despite yourself. His ears are pink, which would be funny if it didn’t make your stomach do deeply humiliating things. Because the worst part of all of this — the truly catastrophic part — is that the student council isn’t wrong.
Fraser Minten is obsessed with you.
You know because you are equally, pathetically obsessed with him. Neither of you knows this, but everybody else does. And it’s messing up your life.
You met Fraser Minten in ninth grade because your biology teacher makes the catastrophic mistake of putting the two smartest people in class at the same lab table.
“Absolutely not,” Fraser says immediately when he realizes.
You blink. “Excuse me?”
“You got the highest mark on the diagnostic.”
“…And?”
He stares at you, unsure if you’re being serious. “And now I have to compete with you directly.”
You stare at him for a long second. Then: “That is maybe the most annoying thing anybody’s ever said to me.”
Fraser considers this. “Probably not a good sign for our teamwork.”
He’s tall already, even at fourteen, all awkward limbs and sharp shoulders and dark hair that keeps falling into his eyes no matter how often he pushes it back. He looks perpetually mildly inconvenienced by the existence of other people. You decide instantly that you dislike him, a decision that lasts about three weeks.
Fraser Minten is irritating in the specific way gifted boys usually are — too observant, too stubborn, too convinced he’s right — but he’s also unexpectedly funny. Not on purpose, though, which makes it worse.
“You labeled the beaker wrong,” you tell him one afternoon.
“No, I didn’t,” he shoots back frustratedly.
“You did.”
“I definitely didn’t.”
You rotate the beaker slowly so the label faces him. There’s a pause as Fraser squints. “OK, in my defense, that’s objectively embarrassing.”
You laugh before you can stop yourself. Fraser looks up immediately. And something strange happens: his entire expression changes. It softens. Not enough for anyone else to notice, yet just enough that you do.
It becomes a pattern after that. You laugh, and Fraser looks at you like he’s hearing the sound for the first time.
By sophomore year, your rivalry has become school lore. Teachers weaponize it constantly. “Actually,” your chemistry teacher says one morning, “Fraser got the highest grade on the quiz.”
You look up from your notebook immediately. “By how much?”
“Two percent.”
Fraser doesn’t even try to hide the smugness. “Tragic,” he says softly.
“Oh, you’re evil.”
“Academically gifted,” he corrects.
“Emotionally insufferable,” you counter, flipping through your planner to schedule another study session for chemistry to ensure that Fraser does not succeed in getting the best score again.
“You wound me.”
Before the next test, you spend the next week studying like your life depends on it out of pure spite. Fraser notices immediately. That’s the first thing he learns accidentally.
The second thing he learns accidentally is that you notice everything about him too. Like the fact that Fraser taps his pencil exactly three times before every test. Or that he hates presenting in front of classes despite being good at it. Or that he always gives away the good highlighters during group projects and keeps the dried-out ones for himself.
It unsettles him, at first, because he likes your attention a little too much.
“You’re staring again,” Connor tells him one day in the cafeteria.
Fraser nearly drops his fork.
“I’m literally not.”
Connor jostles Fraser’s shoulder, chuckling good-naturedly. “You looked at her six times during lunch.”
“That’s not true.”
“You just looked at her while denying it.”
Fraser rubs a hand over his face. “Can you be quiet for like ten seconds? Please.”
Connor leans back dramatically. “Oh my God. It’s terminal.”
“It’s not anything.”
“Mhm.”
Across the cafeteria, you laugh at something Emma says. Fraser’s eyes flick over automatically. Connor catches it instantly and starts cackling loud enough that people turn around.
Fraser considers murder briefly.
The problem with being academic rivals is that eventually it becomes impossible to untangle competition from affection. You don’t remember exactly when Fraser becomes important to you. You just remember moments. Tiny ones.
He stays after debate practice helping you reorganize cue cards because you’re stressed and snappier than usual. You get sick during finals week and find your missed notes color-coded in your locker the next morning. He remembers your coffee order after hearing it once. You remember his birthday despite him never telling you directly.
“You guys are basically dating already,” Emma says one afternoon.
You nearly inhale your iced coffee. “We literally argue every day.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Like an old married couple.”
“That’s horrifying.”
Emma watches Fraser across the library. He’s sitting three tables away pretending not to glance over every thirty seconds. “He likes you so much it’s embarrassing.”
You laugh nervously. “No, he doesn’t.”
Emma gives you a look usually reserved for small children and concussed athletes. “You made him smile during a math test once.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” you huff, trying to refocus on the textbook in front of you.
“He failed a question because he got distracted.”
Your stomach flips. “That did not happen.”
“It literally did.”
You try very hard not to think about it after that, and obviously, you fail catastrophically.
Junior year is when things get dangerous. Junior year is when Fraser stops feeling like your rival and starts feeling like something terrifyingly close to home.
It happens during exam season. You’re both in the public library at eight-thirty at night because neither of you understands moderation. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, rain tapping softly against the windows. You’re hunched over your laptop muttering angrily at a calculus problem when Fraser slides into the seat across from you. “You’re glaring at the screen like it insulted your family.”
“It practically did.”
He glances at the equation once. Then reaches over for your pencil. “Move.”
“Oh, absolutely not.”
“You want help or not?” he asks, blue eyes shining.
You narrow your eyes but shove the worksheet toward him anyway. Fraser leans closer, scribbling across the page while explaining the formula. Maybe it’s exhaustion, or insurmountable stress… or maybe it’s the fact that he smells faintly like cedar and coffee and winter air.
But suddenly you become painfully aware of how close he is. His sleeve brushes yours, his knee knocking against the table. His voice goes softer when he talks directly to you. Your heart starts acting like a complete idiot.
“And then you isolate the variable here,” Fraser says.
You stare blankly. “Right.”
He pauses. “You didn’t hear a single word I just said.”
“Hm?”
Fraser’s mouth twitches. Then he smiles, from ear-to-ear. Not the smug little grin he gives during debates, not the sarcastic one.
A real one, warm enough to make your chest hurt.
“You’re hopeless,” he says quietly.
You think, very suddenly and very horribly: I could love him forever.
The realization nearly kills you on impact.
Fraser realizes he’s in love with you because of a hoodie, which is humiliating, honestly.
It’s December. Snow everywhere. You’re wearing his hockey hoodie because you spilled coffee on your uniform earlier and he handed it to you without thinking. “You can keep it for the day,” he says casually.
Your face lights up so brightly it physically stuns him. “Really?”
Fraser immediately forgets how human speech works. “Uh. Yeah.”
You pull the hoodie on over your head right there in the hallway. It’s too big on you. The sleeves cover your hands completely. And Fraser’s brain short-circuits so hard he almost walks directly into a locker.
Macklin Celebrini witnesses the entire thing. “Oh my God,” he whispers afterward. “You looked at her like a Victorian man seeing an ankle.”
“Shut up.”
“She wore your hoodie and you nearly proposed.”
“I hate you,” Fraser groans.
“No, you love her.”
Fraser throws a granola bar at his head.
Unfortunately, Mack is correct. That night, Fraser realizes something deeply inconvenient: every future he imagines automatically includes you in it.
College acceptances. Graduation. Random coffee shops at twenty-three. Apartments. Road trips. You exist in all of them naturally, like you belong there.
The thought terrifies him. Mostly because he has absolutely no idea whether you feel the same.
By senior year, the entire school is exhausted by both of you. “Just kiss already,” your physics partner says one afternoon after you and Fraser spend fifteen minutes arguing over velocity equations.
“We are not —”
“We’re literally just studying,” Fraser says simultaneously.
The poor guy looks between you both. “You finished each other’s sentences twice.”
Silence. Fraser clears his throat. “Coincidence.”
“Right.”
You avoid looking at each other for the rest of class, which lasts approximately six minutes. Because Fraser notices when you start chewing the inside of your cheek during the worksheet. “You’re stressed.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
You blink. “What thing?”
“The —” Fraser gestures vaguely toward his own mouth. “That.”
Heat crawls up your neck in embarrassment. “Oh.”
He reaches over absentmindedly and slides your pencil into your hand. “Stop overthinking,” he says softly. “You already know this stuff.”
And there it is again. That unbearable gentleness he only ever seems to have with you. Your chest aches so badly it’s ridiculous. “Thanks,” you mumble.
Fraser looks at you for a second too long. Quietly, he murmurs: “Anytime.”
By May, graduation hangs over the school like a countdown clock. Everything feels temporary suddenly. Last pep rally, last exams, last cafeteria lunches.
People cry over stupid things. Teachers get sentimental. Even Fraser seems off-balance lately. More distracted. Quieter around you sometimes, which is saying something, because Fraser has never exactly been subtle.
You catch him staring at you constantly now, as though he has something to say and no idea how to say it. It’s becoming a problem.
“You know he’s gone for you, right?” Emma asks one afternoon while you both decorate graduation caps.
You carefully glue a rhinestone into place. “He’s competitive. That’s different.”
Emma stares at you, bursting out laughing so hard the next second that she nearly drops her glue gun. “Oh my God,” she wheezes. “You actually believe that.”
“I’m serious.”
“No, listen to me carefully.” She grabs your wrist dramatically. “That boy looks at you like you invented sunlight.”
Your face warms instantly. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I watched him carry your backpack for twenty minutes last week.”
“He offered.”
“He looked honored to do it.”
You open your mouth. Close it again. Unfortunately, she’s not entirely wrong. That’s the dangerous part.
The tiny moments are getting harder to ignore. The way Fraser automatically saves you a seat in every class, the way he remembers every insignificant detail you mention, the way his eyes always find you first in crowded rooms.
It feels like standing too close to the edge of something enormous. The scariest part about all of this? You think he feels it too.
The problem is that once you start noticing it, you can’t stop. Fraser’s attention becomes impossible to escape after that conversation with Emma. Not because he suddenly changes. That’s what makes it worse — he’s always been like this with you.
You’re just seeing it properly now.
Like somebody adjusted the focus on a camera lens and suddenly everything sharpens all at once.
“You’re staring at him again,” Emma says.
You nearly choke on your smoothie. “I am not.”
“You’ve looked at him four times in the last minute.”
“That’s normal.”
“It’s really not.”
Across the courtyard, Fraser is sitting on the low brick wall outside the science building with Connor and a few other guys from student council. His tie is loosened from the heat, sleeves rolled messily to his elbows, dark hair falling into his eyes while he argues about something with the deeply offended seriousness only Fraser Minten could apply to lunchtime conversation.
You can’t hear him from here, but you know exactly what he looks like when he’s ranting.
One hand moving when he talks. Eyebrows pulling together. Mouth twitching every time he realizes he’s getting too invested in something stupid.
You know the cadence of his laugh. You know the exact shape of his handwriting. You know he pretends not to care about spirit week but still participates every single year. You know he listens when you talk, pays attention to everything you say because it matters.
It’s horrible.
“God,” you mutter, horrified with yourself. “I’m actually doomed.”
Emma beams. “Finally. Character development.”
Then, as if summoned by your humiliation itself, Fraser looks up, straight at you.
Your stomach immediately betrays you. The thing is — Fraser’s gaze doesn’t skim past people. No, it stays, just to torture your already lovesick and confused heart.
Even from across the courtyard, you feel the exact second he notices you looking. His expression changes instantly. Like a reflex that he can’t help.
Connor follows Fraser’s line of sight toward you, slowly lowering the sports drink he’s holding. “Oh my God,” you see him mouth dramatically.
Fraser elbows him hard without looking away from you. You snap your eyes down to your phone so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash. Emma is fully crying laughing beside you. “This is the best day of my life,” she chokes out.
“I hate everybody.”
Emma shakes her head. “No, you love Fraser Minten.”
You bury your face in your hands.
Fraser, unfortunately, is also having the worst day of his life. “Okay,” Connor says calmly, “I need you to know that you looked genuinely enchanted just now.”
Fraser keeps his eyes fixed on the calculus worksheet in front of him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You looked at her like she personally hung the moon.”
“That’s dramatic,” Fraser argues.
“You’re dramatic.”
Fraser exhales through his nose, and Connor leans closer. “You realize this has become a public health issue, right?”
“What has?”
Connor rolls his eyes. “The unresolved yearning. Everything.”
Fraser’s eye twitches. “I’m going to hit you.”
“No, seriously. There are freshmen placing bets now,” Connor tells him.
“That cannot be true.”
“Someone made a pie chart.”
Fraser freezes. “…A what.”
“A pie chart,” Connor repeats. “Categories include: ‘Mutual Pining,’ ‘Academic Foreplay,’ and my personal favorite, ‘Fraser Minten Experiences Emotions and Immediately Panics.’”
Fraser closes his eyes briefly. “I need to transfer schools.”
“Not until you ask her out.”
Fraser’s chest tightens automatically at the idea. Ask her out.
Like it’s easy, as though he hasn’t spent the last three years carefully balancing himself on the edge of something terrifying. What nobody understands — not Connor, not the student council, not even you — is that Fraser’s not scared of rejection.
He’s scared of losing this. The space between you that belongs entirely to the two of you, the banter, the studying together, the way you automatically walk beside him in hallways like it’s instinct.
If he says something and you don’t feel the same, all of that changes. And Fraser doesn’t think he could survive that.
“You’re spiraling again,” Connor says.
“I’m literally sitting here.”
“You have the expression of someone who was just told your childhood dog never actually liked you best.”
Fraser glares at him. Against his better judgment, his eyes drift back across the courtyard.
You’re laughing at something Emma says. Sunlight catches against the necklace at your throat, and Fraser feels it again.
That awful, aching thing in his chest that’s become permanent.
God.
There’s nothing he can do anymore but pray he doesn’t fuck this all up.
There’s a reason people think you and Fraser are dating already. Actually, there are several reasons.
One: you spend almost every afternoon together.
Two: your arguments sound suspiciously like flirting.
Three: Fraser once skipped hockey practice to help you finish a presentation and nearly got into a fistfight with his coach over it.
(“You skipped practice for a slideshow?” Connor had asked in disbelief afterward.
Fraser’s response was immediate. “It was worth thirty percent.”)
But the biggest reason is this: you fit together too naturally, two puzzle pieces that don’t realize they’re already connected.
It shows up in little ways. How Fraser automatically hands you the blue gummy candies because he knows they’re your favorite. The times where you steal his fries without asking and he pretends to complain every single time. And how both of you reach for the same textbook simultaneously during study sessions.
It’s muscle memory now: comfort, routine.
Sometimes it scares you how easy being around him feels. For example, today. You’re in the library after school, surrounded by enough textbooks to legally qualify as psychological warfare. Fraser sits across from you, glasses slipping slightly down his nose while he annotates an article for history class.
Your laptop hums quietly between you. The library is mostly empty except for a few exhausted seniors cramming for finals, and you should be studying just like them.
Instead, you’re watching Fraser push his sleeves up his forearms absentmindedly while reading. Which cannot be classified as productive behavior at all.
“You’ve been on the same paragraph for six minutes,” Fraser says without looking up.
You jolt. “I’m studying.”
“You’re staring at me.”
Heat floods your entire body instantly. “No, I’m not.”
Fraser finally glances up. His mouth lilts to the side. “You literally are.”
“I was thinking,” you protest, red flags blooming on your cheeks.
“About?”
Your brain immediately evacuates your skull. “Oh my God,” you say weakly. “You’re actually so annoying.”
Fraser laughs quietly. It hits you directly in the sternum. “You’re deflecting.”
You cock your head. “You’re distracting.”
“That sounds like an iss-you, not an iss-me.”
You narrow your eyes at him. Fraser grins slightly and returns to highlighting his notes like he didn’t just short-circuit your entire nervous system. God, it should be illegal for someone to look that good while discussing constitutional law.
“This is harassment,” you mutter.
“What is?”
“You existing near me academically.”
Fraser snorts. “You’re cute when you’re losing arguments.”
Your brain fully stops functioning. Fraser freezes too, because he didn’t mean to say that out loud. Your eyes widen and his ears immediately turn pink. The library suddenly feels about twelve thousand degrees warmer.
Fraser clears his throat. “I mean —”
“No, no,” you say quickly, pulse skyrocketing. “Let’s unpack that.”
“There’s nothing to unpack.”
“You just called me cute,” you state matter-of-factly.
“I didn’t.”
“You literally did.”
Fraser looks genuinely cornered now, which would be funny if your heart wasn’t trying to escape through your ribcage. “I said —” He stops. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh my God,” you whisper dramatically. “Fraser Minten has game.”
“I actually don’t.”
“I need a second to process this.”
He groans and drops his forehead briefly against the table. You stare at him helplessly. This is the problem: every time you think maybe you’re imagining things, Fraser goes and says something like that in the softest voice imaginable and completely ruins your ability to think rationally.
“You’re smiling,” Fraser says without lifting his head.
Your hand flies to your mouth immediately.
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“You can’t prove that,” you retort.
Finally he looks up again. There it is, that look. The one that feels unbearably intimate for reasons you still can’t explain. Fraser’s eyes flick over your face slowly before settling on your mouth for half a second too long, returning back to your eyes. Your stomach flips violently. “You’re impossible,” he says quietly.
The words should sound insulting. Instead, they sound dangerously close to fond.
Later that night, you lie in bed staring at your ceiling while replaying the entire interaction like a deeply embarrassing movie montage.
You’re cute when you’re losing arguments.
Normal people do not say things like that to people they’re just rivals with. Right?
Unless Fraser’s naturally flirty. Which he absolutely is not. The boy once got nervous ordering food at a drive-thru. You know because you were there.
Flashback: Junior year.
Regional debate finals. You and Fraser are in the backseat of Macklin’s car at ten-thirty at night after winning first and second place respectively. You’re exhausted. Fraser looks unfairly pretty under passing streetlights. Which feels deeply inconsiderate of him, honestly.
“Can somebody just pick a restaurant?” Macklin complains from the driver’s seat.
“You pick.”
“No, because every time I pick, Fraser starts googling health inspection reports.”
“They matter,” Fraser says defensively.
“Coward behavior.”
Eventually you end up at a twenty-four-hour burger place.
Connor sends Fraser to order for everyone because “you look the least likely to commit tax fraud.”
He moves closer to the speaker, and there’s a crackle of static. “Hi, welcome to —”
And Fraser immediately forgets every word in the English language. You watch in fascinated horror as this brilliant, terrifyingly composed boy completely malfunctions. “…Uh.”
Macklin starts howling instantly. “Dude.”
“I know,” Fraser hisses, swatting Mack’s hand away.
The employee waits patiently. Fraser grits his jaw like he’s fighting for his life. You’re trying not to laugh, and you fail miserably. A tiny snort escapes you.
Fraser looks over immediately, and there it is again. That expression, as though your laughter physically rearranges his internal organs. He stares for one fatal second too long.
The employee goes: “Sir?”
Fraser nearly combusts.
Afterward, you laughed so hard you cried. Fraser spent the rest of the night pretending to hate you for it. But later, when Connor fell asleep in the front seat during the drive home, Fraser glanced over quietly and said: “I like hearing you laugh.”
Just like that.
Casual, soft, honest. You’d stared out the window the entire rest of the drive because you genuinely didn’t know what to do with your face.
Back in the present, you groan into your pillow. Emma’s right.
This thing between you and Fraser stopped being rivalry a long time ago. It became something else slowly, quietly, without either of you noticing.
The scariest part of all is this: You think Fraser’s standing at the edge of the exact same realization.
Fraser Minten realizes he’s completely, irreversibly in love with you on a Thursday at 11:47 p.m. in the cereal aisle of a twenty-four-hour grocery store. It would almost be romantic if the circumstances weren’t so profoundly stupid.
It starts because Connor forgets a poster board. Again.
“You had one job,” Emma says over speakerphone.
“In my defense —”
“There is no defense.”
Senior prank committee had sounded fun in theory. In reality, it’s mostly sleep deprivation and arguing over tape. Now Fraser is standing under aggressively fluorescent grocery store lighting in pajama pants and a school hoodie while Connor pushes the cart like a man fleeing federal charges.
“This,” Fraser says flatly, “is exactly why civilizations collapse.”
Connor huffs out a breath. “You’re being dramatic.”
“It’s nearly midnight.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Against my will.”
Connor tosses three bags of chips into the cart. “You know who would’ve remembered the poster board?”
Fraser doesn’t answer. Connor grins devilishly. “Her.” Fraser keeps walking, which is answer enough. “Okay,” Connor says, catching up beside him. “Serious question.”
“No.”
“You didn’t even hear it.”
“I know where this is going.”
“Do you, now?”
“Yes.”
“Great.” Connor beams. “Then answer it.”
Fraser grabs a box of cereal he doesn’t even like just to have something to do with his hands.
“You’re in love with her, right?” The question lands harder than expected. Fraser has thought about it constantly, in terrifying detail, late at night, during classes. In the middle of hockey practice while accidentally skating directly into the boards because you texted him good luck today :) and his brain stopped functioning for a full thirty seconds.
Yet there’s a difference between thinking something and hearing it out loud.
Love.
The word echoes unpleasantly in his chest. Too big, too exposing, too true. Fraser stares at the nutrition label on the cereal box like it personally betrayed him. “I don’t know,” he says finally.
Connor goes silent for the first time all night. With an all-knowing smile, he confirms, “Oh, you’re gone gone.”
Fraser exhales sharply through his nose. He genuinely doesn’t know when it happened. There’s no cinematic moment, with no dramatic lightning strike. It’s just been tiny things stacking on top of each other until suddenly his entire life was built around one person and he didn’t know how to undo it.
Like how he would automatically check if you’ve eaten lunch. Or how he knows your schedule better than his own. Or how he physically cannot enter a bookstore without wondering if there’s something there you’d like.
It’s pathetic. No — worse: it’s involuntary.
“You wanna know how I know it’s bad?” Connor asks.
“No.”
“You look happier when she walks into a room.”
Fraser laughs once under his breath. You affect him instantly, effortlessly. Gravity pulling him in like a magnet. He notices your absence before your presence now. Every classroom feels wrong when you’re not there.
Maybe Fraser could survive all of this if it was just attraction, a simple crush.
But it isn’t. It’s much, much worse.
Fraser knows you in all the small, catastrophic ways that matter. He knows that you reread texts before sending them when you’re anxious, that you always pretend you’re cold when you want someone to offer you their hoodie, that your voice changes when you get genuinely excited about something.
He knows the exact expression you make when you’re trying not to cry, which songs you skip every time they come on, how you twist the rings on your fingers during exams.
Every single thing he learns about you just makes him want to know more.
Fraser suddenly feels exhausted down to his bones. “Oh my God,” he mutters quietly.
Connor pauses, almost colliding with Fraser in the aisle. “What?”
Fraser looks genuinely stricken. “I’m actually in love with her.”
There it is, said aloud, made real.
Connor’s eyes widen immediately like he’s witnessing a historic event. “No way.”
“Don’t react like that.”
“No, sorry, I just — wow. I really thought you’d take another six months.”
Fraser drops his forehead briefly against the shopping cart handle. Now that the realization’s fully landed, everything rearranges itself around it instantly. Every memory becomes unbearable in hindsight. All the times Fraser had to physically stop himself from saying something reckless.
It all clicks together so violently he feels nauseous.
“Oh, this is bad,” he says softly.
Connor blinks. “Most people enjoy being in love.”
“Most people aren’t in love with the person they have a psychological warfare rivalry with.”
“That’s fair.”
Fraser laughs weakly. Then he thinks about you again, about the library earlier.
You’re cute when you’re losing arguments.
Jesus Christ. He said that out loud, and meant it. He means everything around you now without thinking first. That’s what scares him most: you dismantle his self-control accidentally.
“You know what the worst part is?” Fraser says suddenly.
Connor looks delighted. “Absolutely.”
“She doesn’t even realize what she does to me.”
“Oh, buddy.”
“No, seriously.” Fraser runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “She smiles at me and I forget basic motor functions.”
Connor fully starts tearing up laughing.
“I’m being serious.”
“I know,” Connor wheezes. “That’s why it’s incredible.”
Fraser groans. There are moments — horrifying, humiliating moments — where he genuinely thinks you might feel the same. One instance, out of a thousand he could remember, was last month during movie night at Emma’s house.
Everybody else had fallen asleep eventually. Connor was snoring loud enough to trigger concern. The TV glowed dimly across the room while you and Fraser sat shoulder-to-shoulder on opposite ends of the couch pretending to watch the movie.
At some point your head tipped slowly onto his shoulder. Fraser stopped breathing instantly. You made a tiny sleepy sound and shifted closer unconsciously.
And Fraser… Fraser sat there for two straight hours afraid to move because he thought the moment might disappear. He remembers staring at the top of your head thinking, this could ruin me forever.
The best, permanent way. The kind where no matter what happens after this, nobody else will ever compare.
Fraser feels suddenly dizzy just remembering it. Connor notices immediately. “Oh my God,” he says. “You’re crashout realizing.”
“Please never say that again.”
“You are! Dude, your entire worldview just collapsed in the cereal aisle.”
Fraser laughs despite himself. Beneath all the panic and yearning and emotional devastation sits one terrifying truth, that graduation is three weeks away.
Three weeks.
After that, everything changes. He’ll be heading to the National Hockey League, hopefully alongside Connor and Mack, and the two of you will be living drastically different lives in different cities. The thought hits Fraser so hard his chest physically aches.
What if this is it? What if somebody else gets to know you next? What if somebody else gets your laugh, your late-night rambles, your stupid little doodles in notebook margins?
The jealousy that flares through him is immediate and ugly and visceral.
Fraser stops walking entirely.
“You OK?” Connor asks worriedly.
“No,” Fraser says honestly. Suddenly the future feels terrifying, because he’s scared of growing up without you in it.
And that horrible, crashing realization forces Fraser to confront the truth he’s been avoiding for years. This was never a crush, never just a rivalry. Somewhere between biology labs and debate tournaments and late-night study sessions, you became the most important person in his life.
Fraser has absolutely no idea what to do about it.
Graduation night arrives hot and gold around the edges, caps and gowns blurring together in navy and white.
Outside, Fraser can see parents crowding the bleachers with flowers and cameras and tissues already in hand like they’re preparing for emotional warfare.
And Fraser Minten feels like he’s going to throw up.
Not because of the speech he’s about to give, or the fact that he lost valedictorian to you. Not even because graduation means the terrifying, inevitable end of everything familiar.
No.
Fraser feels sick because you’re standing twenty feet away laughing with Emma, and every single thing inside him has finally reached a breaking point.
Three weeks have passed since the grocery store realization. It’s been three terrible weeks of trying — and failing — to act normal around you afterward. Three weeks of a thousand almosts: almost saying something, almost reaching for your hand, almost blurting out I’m in love with you every time you smiled at him too softly.
But now it’s graduation, all about the last things he will do with you.
That previous day had been his last hallway walk, filled with the last inside jokes he’d shared with you in class. Two days ago, he’d given you his last shoddy excuse to stand beside you without it meaning something bigger.
Fraser suddenly understands why people in old romance novels dramatically perish, because this genuinely feels fatal.
“Dude.” Connor appears beside him, adjusting his cords above his baggy navy gown. “You look haunted.”
Fraser runs a hand through his hair in exasperation. “I am haunted.”
“By love?”
“By you,” he reprimands.
Connor ignores that immediately. “Tonight’s the night.”
Fraser looks physically ill.
“Oh my God, it actually is.” Connor grabs his shoulders. “Wait. Wait, are you finally doing it?”
He glances toward you again automatically, as if by instinct. You’re smiling at something Emma says, graduation cords shining under the gymnasium lights. You’re radiant, and perfect, and everything that Fraser loves all in one person.
You’re the girl of his dreams.
No.
Not yet, you aren’t. That’s the problem. Fraser exhales shakily as he speaks out the truth to Connor. “I can’t graduate and not tell her.”
Connor goes completely silent. “Jesus Christ.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“You just said the most romantic thing anybody’s ever said at this school.”
“That’s deeply depressing.”
“No, seriously.” Connor looks near tears. “You’re down catastrophically.”
Fraser laughs weakly. The principal starts calling everybody into line. Chaos erupts immediately, with students yelling, somebody already weeping openly behind him, trying to find their alphabetical placement.
In the midst of the mayhem, Fraser falls into step beside you automatically like he always does. You glance over and smile. “You nervous, valedictorian?”
Fraser looks at you and thinks: There will never be another person like you. The realization nearly knocks the breath from him.
You frown slightly. “Fraser?”
He blinks. Right. Human interaction. You hadn’t asked a rhetorical question, which meant that you were expecting an answer, which he was completely and utterly failing at. “Uh,” he says intelligently. “A little.”
“You’ll be fine.” Your shoulder bumps his lightly. “You’re annoyingly good at speeches.”
“You’ve never heard the speech.”
“You color-coded your cue cards.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he says, raising one eyebrow.
“It means you’ve been preparing since birth.”
Fraser laughs under his breath. It’s so fucking obvious how much he loves you. He loves you so much it’s become unbearable to carry around alone.
“You okay?” you ask softly.
That question almost destroys him. Even now — tonight, of all nights — you’re still paying attention to him first, always him.
Fraser swallows hard. “Yeah,” he lies.
You look at him for one extra second like maybe you know he’s lying. Then your fingers brush briefly against the sleeve of his gown as everybody starts moving forward.
It’s a tiny, miniscule touch. Accidental, and yet Fraser feels it everywhere.
Fraser barely registers any of the beginning segments of the ceremony. Every few minutes, his eyes find you again, and every single time, you’re already looking at him too. It’s unbearable.
The principal steps back toward the microphone. “And finally,” she says, smiling out at the sea of caps and gowns, “this year’s valedictorian.”
Fraser turns instinctively toward you. You turn toward him too. “Go,” he laughs softly, nudging your shoulder when you still haven’t moved. “C’mon, valedictorian.”
You groan. “Don’t call me that.”
“You literally are.”
You roll your eyes at him, but you’re smiling so hard it barely works, and Fraser suddenly has the insane thought that he could live inside this moment forever.
He watches you walk across the stage, watches you shake hands with the principal, watches you step up to the podium afterward, sunlight catching on the bright gold cord around your shoulders.
And then you start speaking. The stadium quiets almost immediately. You’ve always been like this — effortlessly magnetic without trying to be. Your speech is funny at first; you tease teachers. You roast Connor by name for somehow getting gum stuck in his hair during finals week. The crowd laughs so hard Fraser can barely hear your next sentence.
Then your voice softens, and you’re talking about growing up. Discussing fear and change and becoming people none of you recognize yet. About how terrifying it is that this version of everyone only exists for one more hour.
Fraser can’t look away from you. Especially when you glance toward him.
“Some people,” you say carefully, “become part of your life so gradually you don’t even notice it happening. And then one day you realize every important memory you have somehow includes them.” Fraser’s breath catches. “And maybe growing up,” you continue, quieter now, “is realizing success means a little less if there’s no one beside you to turn to afterward.”
The crowd goes silent. Fraser thinks his heart physically stops, because you’re looking right at him when you say it. You smile suddenly, lighter again. “Anyway. Congratulations, Class of 2026. We survived.”
The stadium erupts to its feet. People cheering, whistling, yelling. Fraser claps hard enough his palms sting. After your speech, the rest of the ceremony passes in polychrome, dizzying fragments. Applause blurs into applause into applause, names melting together beneath the heat of the stadium lights. Macklin nearly wipes out crossing the stage and throws in an exaggerated bow afterward like he planned it, which earns a roar of laughter from the crowd.
Then comes the final announcement. “Tassels to the left!”
Thousands of hands move at once, the air electric. Fraser turns his tassel over slowly, and when he looks up again, you’re laughing breathlessly beside him like you can’t believe this is real either.
“On the count of three!” the principal shouts. Everyone grips their caps. “One!” You look at Fraser. “Two!” Fraser looks back at you, eyes shining with unshed tears.
Suddenly neither of you are smiling normally anymore. It’s something bigger than that now. Something cracked wide open and terrifying and hopeful all at once.
“THREE!”
Caps explode into the sky.
The stadium dissolves into absolute pandemonium — screaming and laughter and people grabbing each other in crushing hugs as black graduation caps scatter against the blue evening sky like thrown stars. Standing there in the middle of all of it, Fraser realizes with devastating certainty that no matter where life takes him after tonight — every version of his future has you in it.
You find him in the middle of the crowd. “Hey,” you say quietly when he doesn’t answer, hand squeezing his sleeve gently. “You okay?”
Fraser turns his gaze on you, at the person who turned his entire life inside out without even trying. At the girl he accidentally built a future around in his head years ago, whom he loves so much it scares him.
For the first time in his life, Fraser stops overthinking. “No,” he says honestly.
You blink, surprised. “What?”
“I’m not okay.”
Concern flashes across your face instantly. “Fraser —”
“If I don’t tell you this right now,” he says quietly, voice shaking slightly, “I think I’m gonna regret it for the rest of my life.”
Everything around you fades. The noise, the applause. Even the crowd blurs away.
There’s only Fraser. Only the way he’s looking at you like this matters more than breathing.
Your heart starts pounding violently. “Tell me what?” you whisper.
Fraser laughs once nervously, dragging a hand through his dark black hair. “You know what the worst part is?” he says softly. “Everybody else figured it out before I did.”
Your breath snags in your chest, hope rising like a balloon. Fraser’s eyes don’t leave yours as he confesses, “I kept thinking this was just rivalry.” He laughs shakily again. “Or a crush. Or whatever. I thought maybe I was just competitive.” His voice goes quieter, more intimate. “But then you’d smile at me and suddenly I couldn’t think straight for the rest of the day.”
Your eyes widen slowly.
“Oh,” you breathe.
“Yeah.”
Fraser looks terrified now, completely defenseless in a way you’ve never seen before. “You became…” He stops briefly like the words physically hurt. “You became the first person I wanted to tell things to. The first person I looked for in every room.”
He takes another, vulnerable step closer. “Every future I imagined had you in it before I even realized what was happening. I’m so in love with you,” he says finally, voice rough around the edges. “It’s actually embarrassing.”
There’s a sharp rushing sound in your ears as every single moment rearranges itself all at once. The hoodie, the library glances, the late-night drives.
How Fraser always stayed and looked at you like you mattered more than anyone else.
“You’re lying,” you whisper. Fraser immediately looks stricken. “That sounded worse out loud.” You laugh helplessly through sudden tears. “No, Fraser, I meant to say —” Your voice breaks.
His entire face changes instantly. “Hey,” he says softly, fingers resting on the crook of your jaw.
You shake your head, smiling so hard it hurts. “You absolute idiot.”
Fraser blinks. “What?”
“I’ve been in love with you for years.”
Fraser stares at you like his brain physically short-circuited. “What do you mean?”
You laugh wetly. “See? This is why you didn’t get valedictorian, Minten.”
His mouth falls open slightly. “You —”
“I’m in love with you too,” you repeat.
“You’re serious?”
“Unfortunately.”
Fraser makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a near-death experience, like happiness physically cracked him open. And you think distantly: there he is.
The boy you’ve loved since you were fourteen, who memorized your coffee order and your bad habits and your favorite songs, who looked at you like the answer to a question he’d been trying to solve for years.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks gently, like he’s afraid to say it.
You laugh through your tears. “You took four years to ask me that?”
“I was going through something.”
“That something being stupidity?”
“Severe stupidity.”
You grin helplessly, tugging him lightly on the front of his graduation gown to pull him closer to you. “Kiss me before I change my mind, Mister Salutatorian.”
He kisses you even before you finish your sentence; a boy starved, who’s been holding himself back for years and finally snapped. One hand slides carefully against your waist, the other cupping your jaw like something precious.
You melt instantly. Because oh. Oh, this is what all those almost-moments were leading to.
This.
Him.
You kiss him harder without thinking.
Fraser makes a startled sound against your mouth like he genuinely didn’t expect you to kiss him back with equal desperation… which is honestly offensive.
You pull away just enough to whisper, “You’re an idiot.”
Fraser rests his forehead against yours, smiling so hard it looks painful. “Yeah,” he says softly. “But I’m your idiot now.”
Your heart nearly gives out on the spot. Around you, graduation continues chaotically. But it all feels distant somehow, muted.
Fraser’s looking at you like he just found home after years of being lost, and maybe, just maybe you’re looking at him the exact same way.
Connor spots you both from across the field, immediately reacting like he’s just witnessed a live celebrity proposal. Neither of you even glance over, and Fraser laughs quietly, thumb brushing your cheek.
“You know,” he murmurs, “this whole time I thought I was losing to you.”
You smile softly. “And?”
His eyes flick down to your mouth before returning to your eyes.
For the first time in four years, Fraser Minten finally stops treating love like something he has to win.
“I think,” he answers you gently, “you were the only part I ever wanted.”
Same person different font?
