Welcome to my little corner of the internet where I satisfy my need to write within whatever fandom I’m currently obsessed with. I started this blog in middle school and am still writing on it in my 20s. It’s definitely my best kept secret and I’m happy to share it with you! My masterlist is pinned and was last updated 07.20.26
Could Never Happen to Me - part I (Garrett x Logan!Reader)
Could Never Happen to Me - part II (Garrett x Logan!Reader)
Stalker - part I (Garrett x Reader (Coach’s Daughter))
Stalker - part II (Garrett x Reader (Coach’s Daughter))
Stalker - part III (Garrett x Reader (Coach’s Daughter))
Sick - part I (Garrett x Reader)
Sick - part II (Garrett x Reader)
Not What It Seems - part I (Dean x Reader)
Not What It Seems - part II (Dean x Reader)
Not What It Seems - part III (Dean x Reader)
The Fall (Dean x Reader)
After - part I (Dean x Reader)
After - part II (Dean x Reader)
After - epilogue (Dean x Reader)
Dean di Laurentis: Private Eye (Logan x Reader)
Migraine (Beau Maxwell x Reader)
Cheated (Dean x Reader)
To Have and to Lose (Beau x Reader)
Mugged (Logan x Reader)
Moving On (Dean x Reader)
Lockdown - part I (Dean x Reader)
Lockdown - part II (Dean x Reader)
Lockdown - part III (Dean x Reader)
The Empyrean Series
Captive - Xaden x Reader
The Letter - Ridoc x Riorson Reader
Something To Lose - Ridoc x Reader
My Fault :London
The Ending - part I (Nick x Reader)
The Ending - part II (Nick x Reader)
The Ending - part III (Nick x Reader)
The Ending - part IV ( Nick x Reader)
A Day to Remember - part I (Nick x Reader)
Racing (Nick x Reader)
Hate (Nick x Reader)
Never Again (Nick x Reader)
The Summer I Turned Pretty
Nothing Like Greys Anatomy (Jeremiah x Conklin!Reader)
Love Can Hurt (Jeremiah x Conklin!Reader)
First Kiss (Jeremiah x Reader)
You’re Here Now (Jeremiah x Reader)
You’re Never Late - part I (Jeremiah x Conklin!Reader)
Stay Out of the Water (Jeremiah x Reader)
No More Waiting (Jeremiah x Reader)
Volleyball (Jeremiah x Reader)
Stranger Things
Semi-flayed (Steve Harrington x Reader)
Just a Fall (Steve x Reader)
Outerbanks
A Long Day - part I (JJ x Reader)
A Long Day - part II (JJ x Reader)
A Long Day - part III (JJ x Reader)
Worried (JJ x Reader)
Foul Party (JJ x Reader)
Marvel
The Becoming of Captain America (Steve Rogers x Reader)
Longterm Mission (Steve Rogers x Reader)
Too Late (Peter Parker x Reader)
After (part II of Too Late) (Peter Parker x Reader)
What Happened - part I (Peter Parker x Reader)
What Happened - part II (Peter Parker x Reader)
Not Today (Peter Parker x Reader)
DC
Choices (Barry Allen x Reader)
1 vs 100 (Barry Allen x Reader)
Awake (part II of 1 vs 100)
Killer Caitlin (SnowBarry)
Kidnapped (Mon-el x Reader)
Star Wars
The End (Kylo x Reader)
Connection (Kylo x Reader)
Destiny (Kylo x Reader)
Doctor Who
The Sacrifice - part I (Eleven x Reader)
The Sacrifice - part II (Eleven x Reader)
The Sacrifice - part III (Eleven x Reader)
Alone (Any x Reader)
Tooth and Claw (Ten x Reader)
The Girl Who Waited - part I (Eleven x Reader)
The Girl Who Waited - part II (Eleven x Reader)
The Girl Who Waited - part III (Eleven x Reader)
The Girl Who Waited - part IV (Eleven x Reader)
The Girl Who Waited - part V (Eleven x Reader)
The Choice (Eleven x Reader)
Impending Doom - part I (Ten x Reader)
Impending Doom - part II (Ten x Reader)
Impending Doom - part III (Ten x Reader)
The Fever (Eleven x Reader)
New Earth (Ten x Reader)
Just Drop It (Eleven x Reader)
Dalek (Nine x Reader)
Bad Wolf (Nine x Reader)
The Parting of Ways (Nine x Reader)
Sherlock
Slowly - part I (Sherlock x Reader)
The Case of the Killer Lightbulbs - part I (Sherlock x Reader)
The Final Problem (Sherlock x Reader)
Words Unsaid (Sherlock x Reader)
The Game - part I (Sherlock x Reader)
Mystery Bullet - part I (Sherlock x Reader)
Mystery Bullet - part II (Sherlock x Reader)
Mystery Bullet - part III (Sherlock x Reader)
The Impossible (Sherlock x Reader)
Merlin
Damsel in Distress - part I (Arthur x Reader)
The Beginning of Something - part I (Merlin x Reader)
The Beginning of Something - part II (Merlin x Reader)
The Beginning of Something - part III (Merlin x Reader)
Surprise. - part I (Arthur x Reader)
Surprise - part II (Arthur x Reader)
Surprise - part III (Arthur x Reader)
Lucifer
Unusual - part I (Lucifer x Reader)
The Fall (Lucifer x Reader)
Drown (Lucifer x Reader)
Crash - part I (Lucifer x Reader)
No Hospital - part I (Lucifer x Reader)
A Devil of His Word (Lucifer x Reader)
Invested (Lucifer x Reader)
Date Interrupted (Lucifer x Reader)
Vampire Diaries
I’m Thinking of You All the While (Damon x Reader)
I Loved You All The While (part II of I’m Thinking of You All the While)
Its Over? (Damon x Reader)
Okay? (Damon x Reader)
Starting series - This is a rewrite of The Vampire Diaries where Elena doesn’t exist. Instead, you have Y/n Gilbert. As in the show, it starts off with Stefan x reader. I started writing it in middle school, and currently have no intention of continuing it.
Starting Over Starting Together Starting Football Starting to Question Starting to Leave Starting to Die Starting to Understand Starting to Scream Starting to Crash Starting to Drive Starting to Dance
Umbrella Academy
Oh No You Don’t -part I
What Mission?
Bones
Target (Sweets x Reader): Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI
Surprise (Wendall x Reader)
13 Reasons Why
Faint (Monty x Reader)
Riverdale
Seeing as I never made it past season a few episodes of season 4, pretty safe to say that this series will me a DNF. It is an Archie x Reader rewrite of season 1.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 9.5 10 11 12 13 14
To All The Boys I Loved Before
Nightmare (Peter Kavinsky x Reader)
Maze Runner
For Minho
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI
With Newt
Part I Part II Part III Part IV
Teen Wolf
Distraction - part 1 (Scott x Reader)
If I Stay - part I (Isaac x Reader)
If I Stay - part II (Isaac x Reader)
If I Stay - part III (Isaac x Reader)
Slow Dance (Stiles x Reader)
Fainted (Derek x Reader)
Not Your Fault (Isaac x Reader)
Not Again (Scott x Reader)
You’re Dead - part I (Scott x Reader)
You’re Dead - part II (Scott x Reader)
No, Not Stiles - part I (Stiles x Reader)
Over - part I (Scott x Reader)
Over - part II (Scott x Reader)
Last Day at Camp (Stiles x Reader)
Malia’s Anchor (Malia x Reader)
Awkward on Ice (Stiles x Reader)
Stiles, Nerf Guns, and Fluff (Stiles x Reader)
The Bad and the Good (Stiles x Reader)
True Alpha (Scott x Stilinski!Reader)
Almost (Stilinski!Reader)
The Crash (Stiles x Lahey!Reader)
Already There (Scott x Reader)
Stiles Sister Fic Series:
This can be a bit hard to follow. I started going through episodes in order, but would also write any episodes that were requested.
S1E1 Wolf Moon -part I Wolf Moon - part II Wolf Moon - part III
S1E2 Second Chance - part I Second Chance - part II
S1E3/4 Magic Bullet
S1E5 The Tell
S1E6 Another Day in Beacon Hills
S1E7 Night in the School
S1E8 Lunatic
S1E9 Wolfs Bane
S1E10 Wins and Losses
S1E10.5 A Night Alone
S1E11 Formality
S1E12 Code Breaker
S2E1: Omega
S2E2: Shape Shifted - part 1 Shape Shifted - part 2
Lockdown - part II - Dean di Laurentis x Maxwell!Reader
Author's note: Part II/III. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger warnings: Lockdown, school shooting, blood, police, ambulance, death.
Y/n's POV:
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not the kind of silence you wanted.
Not peaceful.
Not calm.
The kind of silence that came after something broke.
The kind where everyone was holding their breath because nobody knew what would happen next.
My ears were still ringing.
I couldn't tell if it was from the gunshots.
Or the fire alarms.
Or my own heartbeat pounding so hard it felt like it was shaking my entire body.
For a long time, I couldn't move.
I stayed exactly where I'd fallen.
Back pressed against the wall.
Knees pulled tightly against my chest.
One hand clamped over my mouth because someone had whispered, Be quiet, and even though the hallway outside had gone still, even though I couldn't hear footsteps anymore, I couldn't make myself risk making a sound.
Not after what I'd seen.
Not after what happened when someone else did.
I closed my eyes.
Immediately, it came back.
The first shot.
Someone screaming.
Students running in every direction.
People shoving each other without meaning to.
The sound of books hitting the floor.
Another shot.
Another scream.
The world ending in less than ten seconds.
My stomach rolled.
I forced my eyes open.
Don't think about it.
Not yet.
I looked down instead.
At my hands.
My sleeves.
The front of my sweatshirt.
Blood.
So much blood.
The thought repeated over and over.
It's not mine.
It wasn't mine.
But it covered me anyway.
I could still feel their weight.
Someone I'd never met.
Someone who had been standing beside me only moments earlier.
Someone who had looked just as confused as I was.
Someone who never got back up.
My breathing hitched.
No.
I couldn't think about them.
If I let myself understand what had happened...
If I let myself realize they were gone...
I wasn't sure I'd ever move again.
So I focused on breathing.
In.
Out.
Again.
The adrenaline had carried me here.
I hadn't made decisions.
My body had.
Run.
Hide.
Stay quiet.
Survive.
Now the adrenaline was fading.
And everything hurt.
My hands shook so violently I had to grip my knees just to keep them still.
I couldn't tell if I was freezing or burning.
Maybe both.
My phone was still clenched in my hand.
I'd tried calling Beau.
I’d tried calling Dean.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The first call rang once.
The second never connected.
After that...
Nothing.
No service.
No messages.
No calls.
Just a spinning loading circle until the screen went black.
I wanted to throw it across the room.
Because somewhere outside this building, they were probably doing exactly what I was doing.
Trying.
Failing.
Trying again.
They wouldn't stop calling.
They'd blame themselves, differently, but still guilt.
I wondered if Dean knew where I was. If he remembered me mentioning studying in the library while he was at practice.
He’d convince himself that he should have done something.
My chest tightened.
"No..."
The word barely escaped.
I covered my mouth immediately.
He couldn't think that.
Not if I had anything to say about it.
I unlocked my phone again.
Still nothing.
My thumb hovered over his name.
Dean.
The last person I wanted to leave wondering.
The person who had texted me good morning before sunrise.
The one who'd laughed when I complained about needing coffee.
The one who'd kissed my forehead before leaving for practice.
The one who promised he'd call afterward.
God...
He had no idea this morning might have been the last time we'd ever see each other.
The thought settled quietly.
Not dramatic.
Not loud.
Just...
There.
I might not get out of here.
I looked around the room.
The library might be the worst possible place to be during a lockdown. It was full of open spaces easily accessible in case of fire.
I was hiding in one of the study rooms with two other girls.
Nobody cried anymore.
Nobody whispered.
Nobody even looked at one another.
We just listened.
Waiting for footsteps.
Waiting for voices.
Waiting for another shot.
Time stopped meaning anything.
Five minutes.
Thirty.
An hour.
I had no idea.
Then—
My phone buzzed.
I flinched so hard I nearly dropped it.
For one horrible second, I thought the sound would be too loud.
That someone outside would hear it.
Hands shaking, I muted it completely.
Then I looked.
Service.
Finally.
Dozens of notifications flooded my screen.
Emergency alerts.
Missed calls.
Texts from my parents.
Friends.
Unknown numbers.
I ignored every single one.
I searched for two names, Beau and Dean’s.
The messages I'd been trying to send suddenly pushed through.
Don't call me, not safe.
My building is the only one not evacuated, so I'm assuming you're safe.
I hadn't written I'm safe.
Because I couldn't.
The adrenaline kept slipping away.
The shaking kept getting worse.
The only thing keeping me grounded was one thought.
I stared at the empty text box.
What do you even say to the person you love when you don't know if you'll ever see them again?
My fingers finally moved.
I love you, Dean.
I closed my eyes after pressing send.
Because I knew exactly what those words would do to him.
They'd scare him.
But if I never got another chance...
He deserved to know.
My phone buzzed again.
Dean.
I opened it immediately.
Dean: I love you too. Are you safe?
A sob caught in my throat.
Even through a text...
He knew.
He always knew.
I didn't want to lie.
Not to him.
Not now.
But I couldn't tell him everything either.
So I typed the only honest answer I had.
Me: I'm okay right now.
Right now.
That was all I could promise.
His next message appeared almost instantly.
Dean: I wish I was with you.
My eyes filled.
I looked around the room.
At the blood dried across my sleeves.
At the terrified strangers hiding beside me.
At the doorway we'd barricaded.
Then I answered.
Me: I'm glad you're not.
Because I meant it.
I'd rather die here than let Dean walk into this building looking for me.
A minute passed.
Dean: Baby, I'm worried.
A broken laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Of course he was.
Of course.
I leaned my forehead against my knees.
The tears finally came.
Me: I'm sorry.
Immediately—
Dean: Don't apologize.
Then another.
Dean: I need you to listen to me.
I stared.
Waiting.
Dean: You are going to get out of there.
Another message.
Dean: You hear me?
God...
I wanted to believe him.
I wanted to believe him so badly.
But every few minutes, another distant gunshot echoed through the building.
Every time it happened, everyone around me flinched.
No one spoke.
We just waited.
So I answered honestly.
Me: I'm trying.
Almost immediately, another thought hit me.
Beau.
I hadn't heard from him.
My brother would've been looking for me.
I opened the conversation again.
Me: Is everyone else accounted for? Beau?
The reply came faster than I expected.
Dean: Beau is right beside me. Garrett found Hannah and Allie. Tucker found Sabrina. Logan found Jules and Grace. We're all together.
Relief crashed into me so suddenly I almost doubled over.
They were alive.
All of them.
My fingers moved before I thought.
Me: Good. Beau isn't answering his phone. Tell him I love him.
For the first time all day...
I smiled.
Just a little.
Because I could picture Beau rolling his eyes while pretending not to cry.
Dean's next message appeared.
Dean: Are you okay?
I stared at it.
Then typed the same answer.
Me: I'm okay right now.
He knew exactly what I wasn't saying.
I knew he did.
A long pause.
Then—
Me: I need you to promise me something.
I blinked.
Dean: Anything.
The word made my chest ache.
Anything.
If only.
I swallowed hard.
Then typed the thing that had been sitting in the back of my mind since this began.
Me: Promise me you'll be okay. No matter what happens. And you'll take care of my brother.
My fingers hovered.
Then one last sentence.
Me: Please, Dean. I need to know you'll both be okay.
His answer came almost immediately.
Dean: I promise.
I believed him.
Even if I didn't believe anything else anymore.
I wiped my eyes.
Then typed the only words that still mattered.
Me: I love you.
His reply appeared seconds later.
Dean: I love you too.
I held my phone against my chest.
Waiting for another message.
Waiting for the three little dots.
They never came.
Outside, another voice shouted.
A door slammed somewhere down the hallway.
Then...
Silence again.
I closed my eyes.
Dean knew I loved him.
Beau was alive.
The people I loved were safe.
For now...
That was enough.
It had to be enough.
Because all I could do now was keep fighting until someone came for us.
Lockdown - part I - Dean di Laurentis x Maxwell!Reader
Author's note: Don't mind me. I'm just running out of angsty ideas... For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger warnings: Lockdown, school shooting, blood, police, ambulance, death.
The boys were at practice when the university went into lockdown. One second, everything was normal — the team was running drills, coaches were yelling corrections, and the locker room was just another place filled with noise and routine.
Then the announcement came.
The entire team was immediately pulled from the ice and ushered into the locker room. The doors were secured, the blinds were closed, and every safety protocol the university had in place was followed.
They were told to quietly change.
Nobody panicked at first. Everyone wanted to believe it was a false alarm. A mistake. Maybe even just a drill that had gone wrong.
But then the minutes started passing.
And nobody came over the speakers to say it was over. Nobody told them they could relax.
It wasn't a drill.
The reality of that settled over the room slowly.
The team was trying to figure out what the lockdown was for.
That was the worst part.
Not knowing.
If someone had told them exactly what was happening, maybe they could have handled it better. If there was a name, a location, a reason, something concrete they could wrap their heads around.
But all they had was the announcement.
“This is an emergency lockdown. Remain indoors. Follow all instructions from university officials and law enforcement.”
And then silence.
No explanation. No reassurance. Just silence.
Nobody was laughing anymore.
The locker room, usually full of noise — music blasting, guys yelling across the room, someone throwing tape at someone else — was almost unrecognizable.
The entire team sat in clusters, phones clutched tightly in their hands.
Garrett sat on the floor against the lockers, one knee pulled to his chest, staring at the screen of his phone.
Hannah had answered.
She was with Allie.
They were okay.
They were in a classroom that had been locked down. Their professor had moved everyone away from the windows and was keeping them quiet.
But “okay” didn't mean safe.
Not really.
Not when they were still waiting.
Tucker had Sabrina on the phone until the line dropped. She’d told him she loved him before it cut off, and now he kept calling back even though every attempt went straight to a failed connection.
Logan had managed to reach Jules.
Grace had texted him once.
We're okay. Don't worry.
Which, of course, meant he was worrying more.
Beau had texted Dean. He was in the football training room. He wanted to know if Dean had heard from me.
He hadn't.
Dean sat alone on the bench near the equipment shelves, his phone pressed against his ear.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Nothing.
Every call failed.
Every text stayed undelivered.
He stared at the last message he’d sent.
Please answer. Just tell me you're okay.
No response.
“Dean.”
He looked up.
Coach Jensen stood a few feet away, his voice quieter than usual.
“You need to stop for a second.”
Dean shook his head.
“No.”
“Dean—”
“No, I need to call her.”
His thumb hit the call button again.
Nothing.
A failed call.
Nobody said anything.
Because they all knew.
Everyone knew the people they loved.
They knew their routines.
Their habits.
The places they would be.
And Dean knew mine.
He closed his eyes, forcing himself to think.
My schedule.
His brain immediately went there.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Morning class.
Lunch.
Study hours.
Then—
He froze.
Because he knew exactly where I should be.
The library.
Third floor.
The corner table by the windows because I hated sitting in the middle where people could walk behind me.
Except today wasn't a normal day.
He tried to remember if I’d mentioned changing my schedule. If I’d said anything this morning. His mind replayed every second.
The sleepy good morning text.
The way I complained about needing coffee.
The way I laughed when he told you he was going to destroy the team at practice.
“Dean?”
Garrett’s voice pulled him back.
Dean looked over.
Garrett’s face had gone pale.
“You heard anything?”
Dean swallowed.
“No.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
Dean hated that his brain was already imagining the worst.
He hated that every horror story he’d ever heard suddenly had my face.
The doors of the locker room stayed shut.
The emergency lights buzzed overhead.
The entire team waited.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
The coach received another update from university officials.
Still no details.
Still no all-clear.
Dean stared at his phone.
He didn’t notice when his hands started shaking.
He didn’t notice when Logan sat beside him.
He only noticed when Logan quietly said:
“She’s tough.”
Dean looked at him.
“She’s stubborn as hell. You know that.”
A broken laugh escaped Dean.
“Yeah.”
“She’s probably somewhere annoyed that you’re freaking out.”
Dean looked back at his phone.
“I just need her to answer.”
And that was the truth.
Not some grand declaration.
Not some dramatic realization.
Just that.
He needed one word.
One message.
One tiny proof that the person who mattered most was still there. Because until he heard my voice, the lockdown wasn't just a campus emergency, it was a nightmare where he had no idea if he was going to wake up
The announcement finally came.
Not the one they had been waiting for.
Not the one telling them everything was okay.
The one telling them they had to move.
The locker room fell silent as the instructions echoed through the speakers.
“Remain calm. Follow the directions of law enforcement. Keep your hands visible. Do not carry personal belongings. You will be escorted to a designated safe location.”
For a moment, nobody moved.
Because leaving the locker room meant leaving the one place they had felt even remotely protected.
Then the door opened.
Uniformed officers stood outside.
The reality of it hit harder than any announcement could have.
This was real.
The team was instructed to line up, keeping their hands visible and empty. No phones in their hands. No bags over their shoulders. Nothing that could be mistaken as a threat.
The boys followed every command.
They had never been so quiet.
Normally, moving as a team meant jokes, shoving, arguing about who was walking too slow. It meant noise.
This was different.
Every player walked with his eyes forward, listening carefully to every instruction.
The officers moved them through the building slowly, checking each hallway before allowing them through. Every door was treated as a possible unknown. Every corner was cleared before they advanced.
The campus they knew felt completely unfamiliar.
The halls where they usually rushed to class were empty.
The sounds of students laughing between lectures were gone.
The only things they heard were radios, footsteps, and short commands exchanged between law enforcement.
Garrett kept glancing down at his phone even though he wasn't supposed to have it out.
Hannah had been safe when they last spoke.
Allie was with her.
He repeated that to himself like a prayer.
Tucker kept thinking about Sabrina.
Logan kept replaying Grace's last message.
Jules's voice.
The fact that they had heard from them.
They had proof.
Dean didn't.
That was the thought he couldn't escape.
He kept his hands raised as instructed, but his mind was somewhere else entirely.
With me.
Trying to convince himself that no news was good news.
That the silence didn't mean anything.
But every hallway they cleared felt like another reminder that there were still places on campus they hadn't reached.
Places where people were still waiting.
Places where he had no idea if I was safe.
When they finally reached the evacuation point, the team was directed into another secured area with other students and faculty.
Only then were they allowed to lower their hands.
Only then were they allowed to breathe.
The evacuation point was filled with noise — people crying, asking questions nobody had answers to.
The boys barely noticed any of it, they were searching.
“Garrett!”
His head snapped up.
Hannah was running toward him.
For a second, he just stared.
Like his brain couldn't process that she was actually there.
Then he moved.
He caught her as she reached him, pulling her into his arms so tightly she let out a small breath of surprise.
“You're okay,” he whispered.
It wasn't a question.
It was something he needed to say out loud.
Hannah nodded against his shoulder.
“We're okay.”
He had spent the last hour imagining every possible outcome, and now she was standing in front of him.
Safe.
Alive.
Logan found Jules and Grace a moment later, pulling them both into a hug.
The team slowly started finding pieces of their lives again.
One by one.
Sabrina was in the next group brought through.
"Does anyone have any idea what's going on?"
"No, not yet."
Then Beau reached Dean.
Dean barely had time to register him before Beau grabbed his shoulder.
"Have you heard anything from Y/n?"
"No."
"Do you know where she was supposed to be?"
"I think the library."
Beau waited silently next to Dean.
They still hadn't seen me.
And after everything he had spent the last hour imagining, he wasn't sure he would be able to believe I was actually okay until he did.
The evacuation point was filled with noise now.
People were crying, trying to piece together what had happened.
For the first time since the lockdown started, the boys were surrounded by proof that the world was still moving.
They weren't trapped in that locker room anymore.
They weren't waiting for instructions.
They weren't completely powerless.
Then, all at once, every phone in the area started beeping.
The sound was almost overwhelming.
Hundreds of notifications were coming through at the same time as the cell service finally reconnected.
Messages from parents.
Siblings.
Friends.
Everyone checking in.
The boys immediately grabbed their phones.
Tucker had missed calls from his family.
Garrett had a dozen messages from people asking if he was safe.
Logan's phone was filled with texts from relatives.
Dean's screen lit up with notifications faster than he could read them.
For a moment, relief hit him.
People knew.
People were reaching out.
Then the news alerts started appearing.
And everything changed.
BREAKING NEWS: Campus shooting. Multiple students injured. Active situation ongoing.
Police confirm multiple buildings cleared and evacuated.
One building remains under active response.
Dean felt the air leave his lungs.
The boys stopped talking.
Because now they knew.
It wasn't just a lockdown, wasn't a precaution.
People had been hurt.
Dean started scrolling.
He barely registered the messages.
His mother.
His father.
His sister.
Everyone asking if he was okay.
Everyone telling him they loved him.
He responded to none of them.
Not yet.
His thumb moved faster, searching.
Looking for one name.
One conversation.
One sign.
Then he saw it.
My name.
For a second, he couldn't breathe.
He opened the messages.
The first one was short.
Don't call me, not safe.
His heart dropped.
The second one came right after.
I love you, Dean.
His hands started shaking.
Then the third.
My building is the only one not evacuated, so I'm assuming you're safe.
Dean stared at the screen.
Reading it once.
Twice.
Three times.
Because the words didn't feel real.
I was there.
I was still there.
The building they hadn't cleared.
The one still considered an active situation.
The one everyone was waiting on.
“Dean?”
Beau's voice sounded far away.
Dean didn't look up.
He couldn't.
He pressed the phone against his chest, trying to steady himself.
“She’s there,” he whispered.
The entire group went silent.
Beau immediately understood.
Dean looked up.
His face had gone pale.
“They haven't been able to clear the library.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody knew what to say.
Because there was nothing anyone could say that would make that sentence less terrifying.
Dean looked back down at the previous message.
I love you Dean.
And all he could think was that those had been the last words he might ever get from me.
He doesn’t even know what to type.
Dean: I love you too. Are you safe?
Dean stared at the screen.
His thumb hovered over the keyboard.
For the first time since the lockdown started, he had something to say.
Something he needed to say.
But his hands wouldn't move.
Because every possible message felt wrong.
Are you okay?
Too simple.
Because he knew I wasn't okay.
Nobody was okay.
Not after this.
Where are you?
Too dangerous.
I had already told him not to call.
Not to draw attention.
Not to risk anything.
I'm coming to get you.
The thought crossed his mind.
And it scared him how badly he meant it.
But he couldn't.
He couldn't run into an active situation.
He couldn't make things worse.
He couldn't do anything except sit there and wait.
And Dean had never hated anything more.
His fingers finally moved.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like every word mattered.
Because it did.
He typed.
I love you too. Are you safe?
He stared at the message.
His finger hovered over send.
A thousand thoughts raced through his head.
What if i couldn't answer?
What if i was hurt?
What if this was the last message he ever sent me?
His breathing turned uneven.
“Dean.”
Beau's voice was quiet.
Not because he wasn't scared.
Because he knew Dean was barely holding himself together.
“You should send it.”
Dean looked at him.
“What if she can't respond?”
Nobody had an answer.
Because that was the fear everyone was trying not to say out loud.
Garrett reached over and squeezed his shoulder.
“She knows you love her.”
Dean looked back at the screen.
I love you too.
Because that was the one thing he needed me to know.
No matter what happened.
No matter how scared he was.
He needed those words to reach me.
His thumb pressed down.
Sent.
For a second, nothing happened.
The message sat there.
Delivered.
But not read.
Dean watched the screen like staring at it could make the notification change.
Everyone around him went quiet.
This wasn't just waiting for a text.
This was waiting for proof that someone was still there.
Seconds passed.
Then a minute.
Dean kept refreshing the conversation.
Nothing.
And then—
The three little dots appeared.
Dean stopped breathing.
“She’s typing,” he whispered.
Everyone looked over.
Because suddenly, the entire world narrowed down to one phone screen.
One reply.
One person.
One moment.
Then the message came through.
Dean opened it immediately.
And the second he read it, all the hope that had been building inside him disappeared.
This is bad Dean.
Four words.
That was all.
But he knew me.
He knew the difference between when I was scared and when I was trying not to scare him.
This wasn't panic.
This wasn't me being dramatic.
This was me telling him the truth.
His face went pale.
“What did she say?” Beau asked.
Dean didn't answer.
He just stared at the screen.
Garrett stepped closer.
“Dean?”
His fingers tightened around his phone.
Finally, his voice came out barely above a whisper.
“This is bad.”
The words hung there.
Because everyone understood what they meant.
I wasn't just waiting.
Something was happening.
Something was wrong.
Dean typed immediately.
His hands shook so badly he had to delete the first attempt.
What happened?
Sent.
The message delivered.
No response.
The seconds stretched.
He looked back at my earlier messages.
My building is the only one not evacuated, so I'm assuming you're safe.
The words hit him differently now.
Not because of what they said.
Because of what they didn't say.
I hadn't said I'm safe.
I had only said I assumed he was.
Dean swallowed hard.
“She knew,” he whispered.
Beau looked at him.
“What?”
“She knew before I did.”
His voice cracked.
“She knew she was still there. She knew she couldn't call. She knew I was probably losing my mind.”
Dean looked down at the screen.
“And she still took the time to tell me she loved me.”
His phone buzzed.
Everyone looked.
Dean's eyes snapped down.
A new message.
But it wasn't from me.
It was another emergency alert.
Law enforcement response ongoing. Avoid the area.
Dean's stomach dropped.
He looked back at my name on his screen.
Waiting.
Still waiting.
“Come on,” he whispered.
Not to anyone else.
Not even really to me.
Just to the universe.
“Please.”
Dean stared at the message.
For a few seconds, he didn't understand it.
Not because the words were confusing.
Because they weren't what he expected.
He expected fear.
He expected another warning.
He expected me to tell him where I was, what was happening, something that would give him a direction to run in.
Instead:
Is everyone else accounted for? Beau?
His chest tightened.
Even now.
Even there.
Even when I was the one trapped inside the building that everyone was afraid of.
I was thinking about everyone else.
“She's asking about other people,” Dean said quietly.
Garrett frowned.
“What?”
Dean turned his phone so they could see.
The message sat there on the screen.
Is everyone else accounted for? Beau?
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Because they all knew me.
They knew exactly what that meant.
I wasn’t asking because you didn't understand what was happening.
I wasn't ignoring the danger.
I was checking.
Making sure everyone else was okay before letting myself admit that I wasn’t.
Beau let out a shaky breath.
“I left my phone in the training room.”
Garrett spoke:
"That is the most Y/n thing I've ever heard."
Dean almost laughed.
Almost.
But it got caught somewhere between his fear and his throat.
Because that was me.
The person who would stay late after practice because a freshman looked upset. The person who remembered everyone's birthdays. The person who would give away her last coffee because someone else needed it more. The person who was now sitting somewhere inside an active situation and worrying about everybody except myself.
His fingers moved immediately.
Dean: Beau is right beside me. Garrett found Hannah and Allie. Tucker found Sabrina. Logan found Jules and Grace. We're all together.
My reply is almost immediate.
Me: Good. Beau isn't answering his phone. Tell him I love him.
Tears come to Beau's eyes as he reads the message over Dean's shoulder.
Dean: Are you okay?
The message sent.
This time, there was no hesitation.
No fear about saying the wrong thing.
He needed to know.
The entire group watched the phone.
Nobody talked.
Around them, the evacuation center continued moving.
People were crying.
Officials were giving updates.
Phones were ringing.
But for Dean, it all faded.
There was only the screen.
Only me.
The three dots appeared again.
His heart jumped.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Like even typing the answer was taking effort.
Finally, your message came through.
Me: I'm okay right now.
Dean closed his eyes.
Right now.
Two words.
Two words that told him everything I wasn't saying.
His fingers tightened around the phone.
Dean: I wish I was with you
A pause.
Then:
Me: I'm glad you're not.
The entire world seemed to stop.
Garrett immediately looked at him.
Dean didn't even have to say anything.
His face gave it away.
“Somethings wrong, I can feel it."
Nobody moved.
Dean typed.
Dean: Baby, I'm worried.
The second it sent, he regretted it.
A minute passed.
Then:
Me: I'm sorry.
His eyes burned.
Even now, I was protecting him.
Dean: Don't apologize.
This felt impossible.
Nothing about this was okay.
But he knew I needed him calm.
Needed him steady.
So he typed again.
Dean: I need you to listen to me.
His breath shook.
Dean looked around at the guys.
At Garrett holding Hannah. At Tucker refusing to let go of Sabrina's hand. At Logan sitting beside Jules and Grace. At Beau looking as broken as he felt.
Everyone he loved was in front of him. Everyone except me.
Dean: You are going to get out of there.
Dean: You hear me?
The typing bubble appeared.
Then stopped.
Then appeared again.
Finally:
Me: I’m trying.
That was worse.
Because it was honest.
Not a promise.
Not reassurance.
Just the truth.
I was trying.
Dean pressed the phone against his forehead.
For the first time since the lockdown began, he let himself break.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just a quiet, terrified breath that he couldn't hold in anymore.
Beau put a hand on his shoulder.
“She’s still here.”
Dean nodded.
“I know.”
“She’s fighting.”
Dean looked back at the screen.
At my name.
At the messages.
At the words I love you.
“She always does.”
Another update came over the loudspeakers.
Law enforcement was still working through the remaining building.
No additional information was available.
Dean hated that phrase.
No additional information.
It was the same thing they'd been hearing for hours.
But now he had information.
He had me.
Even if it was only a few words at a time.
Even if every message made his heart break a little more.
I was still there.
His phone buzzed.
A new message.
Me: I need you to promise me something.
Dean immediately typed back.
Dean: Anything.
The response came almost instantly.
Me: Promise me you'll be okay. No matter what happens. And that you'll take care of my brother.
A pause.
Then:
Me: Please, Dean, I need to know you'll both be okay.
Author's Note: I haven't read Dean and Allie's book yet, so this is based loosely off the show. It's looooong. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Dean has a lot going on, believe me, I know.
He’s heartbroken that the one girl that he finally allowed himself to catch feelings for decided to sleep with Hunter Davenport of all people. Since this revelation, Dean had been borderline inconsolable. Partying harder, hooking up with anyone with a pulse.
Which, once again, left me putting the pieces back together.
The problem?
It destroys me a little bit more each time I do it.
I did the cliché and highly inconvenient thing of falling in love with my best friend.
It wasn't one grand revelation.
Just a thousand tiny moments that slowly became impossible to ignore.
I wanted Dean. Dean wanted Allie. Allie wanted Hunter.
It was honestly a little pathetic.
I take a deep breath and let myself into the hockey house. I am met with a puck bunny coming out of Dean’s room.
“Is Dean still in there?” I ask.
“He’s hungover, and I’m sure he doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Lucky for me, I’m not a genie stuck granting wishes.”
She huffs as I push past her and enter Dean’s room.
“Get up and take a shower.”
“Go away.”
“Not happening.”
“Just leave me alone.”
“Also not happening. We have plans today.”
“Hmm?” Dean mumbles, barely opening one eye.
“We’re going to lunch.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Why?”
“Because your stomach deserves something other than booze and puck bunny."
He groans, pulling the blanket over his head.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
A pause.
“No,” he admits quietly. “I don’t.”
And that’s the problem.
Because Dean says things like that all the time. Little reminders that I’m important to him. That I’m his person. That he trusts me more than anyone... just never in the way I want.
I walk over and yank the blanket off him. Immediately shielding my eyes and turning before he could see how red my cheeks were.
"Dean! You could've warned me."
“And deprive you of the show?”
"You have two minutes to make it in the shower or I getting Tucker to drag your ass there. I'm going to scrub my eyes."
He groans.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“And you smell like regret and cheap vodka.”
“That’s hurtful.”
“It’s accurate.”
“You know you’re the worst best friend ever, right?”
“Funny. I was going to say the same thing.”
That gets the smallest laugh out of him.
A win.
I’ll take it.
Without Tucker's involvement, Dean managed to shower. While he did, I straightened up his room, throwing away the trash and collecting his laundry. I had spent so much time in his room, I knew where everything went as if it were my own.
When Dean comes back in, he is thankfully wearing a towel.
"Now was that so hard?"
"It was pretty hard earlier."
"Dean Sebastian Kendrick Heyward-Di Laurentis"
He shot me a million-dollar smile.
I threw a clean shirt at him, smacking him in the face.
"This is abuse."
"This is restraint."
I turn around so that he can finish changing.
The mood shifts so fast it almost gives me whiplash.
“You’re supposed to be mad at me,” he says.
“For what?”
“For being pathetic.”
I stop.
Because there it is.
The thing about Dean is that everyone thinks he’s the loud one. The funny one. The guy who can walk into any room and make everyone love him.
They don’t see this version. The one who gets hurt and convinces himself he deserved it.
“Dean.”
“What?”
“You are allowed to be upset.”
“I’m upset because I’m an idiot.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You liked someone.”
“I loved someone.”
The correction is so quiet it almost hurts more.
I sit on the edge of his bed.
“Dean…”
“She knew, you know.”
I look at him.
“What?”
“Allie.”
My stomach twists.
“She knew I liked her.”
The room goes silent.
“She knew?” I ask.
He nods.
“She told me she didn’t want to ruin our friendship.”
A bitter laugh leaves him.
“Which apparently meant she was okay ruining me instead.”
My heart breaks for him. I shouldn’t be jealous of a girl who hurt him. I shouldn’t be angry that someone else gets to be the reason his heart is broken. But I am.
Because even now, when he's hurting, I'm still the one he comes to.
Just never the one he chooses.
And tomorrow, when he’s okay again, he’ll go looking for someone else.
Someone who isn’t me.
“Dean,” I say softly, “you can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Destroying yourself because someone didn’t choose you.”
His eyes meet mine.
“You sound like Logan.”
I force a smile.
“Yeah, well, Logan’s usually right.”
“Annoying, isn’t it?”
“Extremely.”
He looks down.
“I just don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“Why I’m never enough?”
“You are enough,” I whisper "any girl would be lucky to be with you."
Dean looks at me.
And for one dangerous second, I let myself imagine what it would be like if he heard what I actually meant.
You are enough for me.
But I don’t say it because Dean is broken right now and I refuse to be another person who takes advantage of that.
So instead, I stand.
“Let's go.”
“Where are we going again?”
“Where do you think?”
"You do love me."
The words are automatic.
A joke.
Something he says without thinking.
And I hate how easily my heart reacts to them.
I force myself to laugh.
“Unfortunately.”
He points at me.
“Hurtful.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Barely.”
“Good. Maybe you’ll stop making terrible decisions.”
He gasps.
“Are you talking about my dating life?”
“I’m talking about your life choices in general.”
“That feels personal.”
“It is personal. I’ve known you for eight years.”
“Exactly. You should be used to my charm by now.”
“Dean, you microwaved a fork freshman year.”
“One time.”
“It exploded.”
“It was a learning experience.”
“It was a fire hazard.”
“Same thing.”
I shake my head as we walk out.
This. This is the part that kills me. Not the big moments. Not the way he looks at me when he’s laughing. Not even the fact that he trusts me with everything.
It’s this.
The easy parts. The years of inside jokes and knowing exactly what he’s going to say before he says it. The way being around Dean feels like coming home. Because I know I’ll never be the person he comes home to.
He parks outside the restaurant, and I look over at him. He’s gone quiet, clearly in his head again.
“Are you going inside, or are you planning on sitting here until someone legally declares you missing?”
“I was considering it.”
“Great. I’ll tell the police my best friend was last seen dramatically staring out a car window like he was posing for an album cover.”
He shakes his head, but there’s a small smile.
We finally enter the little diner off campus we’ve been frequenting since freshman year because Dean claims the fries are “life-changing.”
They’re not. They’re fries. But I’ve stopped arguing.
“Eat your fries.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He steals one from my plate.
I immediately slap his hand.
“Those are mine.”
“You weren’t eating them.”
“The waitress dropped them off 30 seconds ago. AND you literally have your own order right there.”
He smiles.
And for a few minutes, things feel normal.
Then his expression changes, and the smile fades.
“What?” I ask.
He looks down at the table.
“I've never done this before. Completely misread the signals, you know?”
“Allie?”
He nods.
There it is.
The name that has been haunting him for weeks.
"I just don't get how I was wrong about her."
I lean back.
“Because sometimes we don't see people as they are, but as we want them to be.”
He laughs softly.
“That's depressing.”
“It’s also true.”
“I thought it was different with her.”
The words catch me off guard.
Because I understand that too well.
“I know.”
“And I thought...” He pauses. “Being her friend, but wanting more, I just-.”
My heart aches.
Because I know exactly what that feels like.
“Dean.”
“What?”
His eyes lift to mine.
“You are funny, and incredibly kind. You have this ability to brighten any room you enter. You make people feel seen. If Allie couldn't see it, it's truly her loss.”
His eyes lift to mine.
“There is a girl out there who will choose you. Loudly. Without hesitation. She'll make you feel understood and celebrated, and she is worth waiting for.”
The silence stretches.
For one second, I wonder if he hears the second meaning behind my words.
He doesn’t... of course he doesn’t.
Dean looks down at his fries.
I can't handle the tension.
"And if you ever repeat any of that, I will deny it."
He reaches across the table and steals another fry.
I smack his hand.
“Seriously?”
“What? Emotional conversations make me hungry.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet.”
“And yet what?”
He grins.
“You’re still here.”
"For now."
I mean it as a tease, something light. Something he’ll laugh at.
But Dean doesn't. His smile fades just slightly.
“What does that mean?”
I look down at my plate.
“Nothing.”
Because the truth is too embarrassing to say out loud.
It means I don't know how much longer I can love someone who only ever loves me back halfway.
I manage to change the subject and brush it off, we finish the meal and Dean drops me back off at my dorm.
Dean actually feels lighter when he walks back in the hockey house.
Not fixed.
Not magically over Allie.
But lighter.
And Logan notices immediately.
Logan has always been annoyingly good at reading people.
“You look alive.”
Dean looks over.
“What?”
Logan smirks.
“I said you look alive.”
“Thanks?”
“No, seriously.” Logan shakes his head. “This is the first time you’ve looked like yourself in weeks.”
Dean shrugs, trying to act like it’s not a big deal.
“Y/N dragged me out of bed, forced food into me, and insulted me for two hours.”
“Sounds about right.”
“She’s annoying.”
“She is.”
Dean smiles slightly.
“But?”
Logan raises an eyebrow.
Dean looks away.
“But she’s good at this.”
“At what?”
“Making things better.”
Logan is quiet for a second.
Then:
“Yeah.”
Something about the way he says it makes Dean look over.
“What?”
Logan leans back.
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
Logan sighs.
“I just think it’s funny.”
“What is?”
“You.”
Dean frowns.
“What about me?”
“You’ve spent the last three weeks acting like your life ended because Allie didn’t choose you.”
Dean’s expression hardens.
“She didn’t just not choose me.”
“I know.”
“She knew how I felt.”
“I know.”
“And she still—”
“I know, Dean.”
Logan’s voice softens.
That’s what shuts him up.
Because Logan gets it.
Then he says:
“But you know what’s interesting?”
Dean narrows his eyes.
“What?”
“You have had someone choosing you every single day for years.”
Dean stares.
“What are you talking about?”
Logan looks at him like the answer is obvious.
“Y/n.”
The name makes something in Dean’s chest shift.
“What about her?”
Logan laughs once.
“That’s exactly my point.”
Dean rolls his eyes.
“She’s my best friend.”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“So you say that like it explains everything.”
“It does.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Logan sits forward.
“Dean, be honest with me.”
“I am.”
“Are you?”
Dean looks annoyed.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Then answer this.”
Logan points at him.
“Who do you call when something good happens?”
Dean opens his mouth.
Then stops.
“Y/n”
“Who do you call when something bad happens?”
“Y/n.”
“Who calls you out on your bullshit when you’re lying?”
Dean doesn't answer.
“Who knows when you’re upset before you even admit it?”
Silence.
Logan nods.
“Exactly.”
Dean shakes his head.
“That’s what best friends do.”
“Sure.”
Logan shrugs.
“Except most people don’t spend eight years making one person their entire emotional support system.”
Dean looks away.
“She’s important to me.”
“I know.”
“She’s my family.”
“I know.”
“So what are you saying?”
Logan studies him.
“I’m saying Y/N has basically been your girlfriend for years.”
Dean immediately laughs.
“What?”
“Without the title.”
“No.”
“Without the benefits.”
“Logan.”
“What?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Logan nods.
“Then answer me this.”
Dean waits.
“When was the last time Y/N was in a serious relationship?”
Dean frowns.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”
“She dates.”
“Barely.”
“That’s not true.”
“Dean.”
Logan gives him a look.
“She’s had people interested in her constantly.”
Dean knows that.
He’s seen it.
Guys asking about her, flirting with her, trying to take her out.
And every time, she's had some excuse.
“She just hasn’t found the right guy.”
“Or maybe she’s been waiting for a certain hockey player to get his shit together.”
Dean’s stomach twists.
“No.”
Logan raises an eyebrow.
“No?”
“No.”
“You sound very sure.”
“Because I know Y/N.”
Logan smiles slightly.
“Do you?”
That annoys him. Because yes, of course he does. He knows everything about me. My coffee order. The way I tap her fingers when I'm nervous. The fact that I hate scary movies but watch them anyway because everyone else likes them. The fact that I can't eat when I'm upset.
I'm his best friend.
That’s all.
“She doesn’t like me like that.”
Logan laughs.
“Okay.”
“What?”
“You’re actually unbelievable.”
“I’m serious.”
“Then let me ask you something.”
Dean sighs.
“What?”
“If I asked her out, you’d be fine with that?”
The question hits harder than expected.
“What?”
Logan shrugs.
“If you two are just friends, it shouldn’t bother you.”
Dean immediately feels something ugly twist in his chest.
It’s not anger.
Not exactly.
But it’s something.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Because.
The thought appears before he can stop it.
Because I'm his.
The realization makes him uncomfortable.
“She wouldn’t say yes.”
Logan’s eyebrows lift.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“You didn’t say you wouldn’t want me to.”
Dean goes quiet.
Logan smiles.
“Personally, I think you’re full of shit.”
Dean scoffs.
“Thanks.”
“But I’m also not blind.”
Logan stands.
“Y/N is one of the best people I know.”
Dean looks down.
“I know.”
"Any guy would be lucky to have her."
And then he walks away, leaving Dean sitting there stuck with his thoughts.
He wants to dismiss it.
Logan is wrong.
I'm his best friend. That’s it.
Except suddenly, every memory feels different.
The way I looked at him at lunch. The way I always knew exactly what to say. The way I told him there was someone out there who would choose him. The way I said it like I was talking about someone else.
And for the first time in years, Dean starts wondering:
Why wasn’t it her?
And the even more terrifying question:
Why did the idea of someone else choosing her bother him so much?
Dean tries not to think about it, he really does.
For the first hour, he convinces himself that Logan is just being Logan. Overanalyzing. Starting problems where there aren't any.
That night, he’s lying in bed staring at his phone, and he realizes something that makes his stomach drop.
He almost texts me.
Not because he needs something.
Not because he’s upset.
Just because he wants to tell me about a stupid video Tucker sent him.
Like he always does.
His thumb hovers over my name.
And suddenly, Logan’s voice comes back.
You have had someone choosing you every single day for years.
Dean locks his phone.
It is ridiculous. Logan is ridiculous.
Over the next week, he starts noticing things he has never let himself notice. Not new things.
That’s what makes it worse: he's noticing things that have always been there.
He notices me bringing him coffee after early morning practices. He notices the way I defend him in front of our friends. The way I never ask for anything from him in return.
That's what gets to him. Because what does he do for me in return? Offer friendship. Provide a place beside him while he gave his heart away to everyone else?
When we meet up for our weekly lunch, Dean is nervous around me for the first time.
Which is crazy. It's me. The same girl he has been eating lunch with for four years.
But now? Now every interaction feels like a test.
Because what if Logan is right?
What if he has been blind?
What if she really does love him?
And worse:
What if he tells her and he's wrong again?
He starts by asking harmless questions.
They’re walking to the cafeteria.
“So…”
Y/N looks over.
“That sounds suspicious.”
Dean laughs.
“Can’t I just say so?”
“Normal people can. You cannot. Your 'so' is always weighted.”
“I ask normal things.”
“Do you?”
I smile.
And it almost makes him forget why he was asking.
Almost.
“So… what?”
I raise an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You were saying so.”
Right.
He looks away.
“Do you think people can ruin a friendship by dating?”
The question catches me off guard.
“What?”
“When friends fall for eachother and it doesn't work out, do you think it automatically ruins the friendship?”
She studies him.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Well, it can be awkward to be friends with someone who doesn't feel the same way. They might need space to sort out their feelings. It also depends on why they didn't work out.”
Dean swallows.
"Do you think it's worth trying?"
My expression changes slightly.
“The way I see it is you have to decide if you rather take the risk or live with the regret.”
The answer should make him feel better, but it doesn't. Because there is still uncertainty.
"Is this where you finally tell me that you're secretly gay and have a crush on Beau?" I ask to break the tension.
Dean almost trips, and I break out laughing.
Later that night, Dean finds Logan again.
“You were wrong.”
Logan looks up.
“About?”
“Y/N.”
Logan smiles.
“I wasn’t.”
Dean runs a hand through his hair.
“She didn’t say anything.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know.”
Dean gets frustrated.
“You don’t understand.”
“No, I do.”
Logan’s expression softens.
“You’re scared.”
Dean looks away.
“I just…”
He struggles to say it.
Because Dean doesn’t admit fear easily.
“I can’t lose her.”
And Logan’s expression changes.
“And if I’m wrong about Y/N…”
He swallows.
“She’s not like Allie.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Dean looks at him.
“Allie broke my heart.”
A pause.
“Y/N would destroy me.”
“You’re making a choice based entirely on the worst possible outcome.”
Dean doesn’t respond.
“You’re assuming you tell her, she says no, and everything falls apart.”
“Because it could.”
“Yes.”
Logan nods.
“It could.”
A beat.
“But what if you don’t lose her?”
Dean’s expression shifts slightly.
“What?”
“What if you don’t lose her and instead you get to love her, properly?”
The words settle somewhere deep.
Somewhere Dean doesn’t want them to.
“I don’t—”
“Listen.”
Logan cuts him off.
“Dean, it is obvious to anyone who knows you that the two of you are perfect for each other.”
Dean opens his mouth.
Logan raises a hand.
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Immediately come up with reasons why it wouldn’t work.”
Dean goes quiet.
Because that is exactly what he was about to do.
“She knows you better than anyone.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“And she loves you.”
Dean freezes.
Logan watches his reaction carefully.
Not because he’s trying to prove a point.
Because he thinks Dean already knows.
“You can deny whether it’s romantic all you want. But don’t pretend Y/N doesn’t love you.”
Dean swallows.
“She loves me because I’m her friend.”
“Maybe.”
Logan shrugs.
“Maybe not.”
The uncertainty bothers him more than an answer would.
“Y/N isn’t going to wait around forever.”
Dean’s chest tightens.
That’s the part he doesn’t want to think about.
“So you can risk telling her and losing her…”
Logan pauses.
“Or you can wait and actually lose her to a guy that’s not afraid to admit how he feels about her.”
The room goes silent.
And suddenly Dean isn’t thinking about rejection.
He’s thinking about someone else making me laugh. Someone else walking me home. Someone else knowing the little things about me that Dean has spent years memorizing.
The jealousy is immediate and terrifying.
It doesn’t feel like friendship, not anymore.
“I hate you.”
Logan laughs softly.
"You hate that I'm right."
"Whatever."
"I'm going to start charging you for these sessions. And if you and Y/n do get together, I feel like I've earned the right to be best man at your wedding...oo or the godfather of your first child...or you could name your son Logan..."
"You are ridiculous."
That weekend after the boys won their game, the hockey house is exactly what everyone expects. Loud. Crowded. A disaster waiting to happen.
Music shakes the walls, people are packed into every room, and there are enough empty cups lying around that Tucker has already declared himself “the only responsible person here,” which is hilarious considering he’s currently trying to convince someone that a traffic cone is a legitimate party decoration.
Dean should be having fun.
Usually, this is where he thrives.
The attention. The noise. The easy conversations.
The ability to walk into any room and make everyone feel like they know him.
Except tonight, his eyes keep searching.
And he hates it.
Because he knows exactly who he’s looking for.
Y/N.
He tells himself it’s because he wants to make sure I'm having fun.
Because that’s normal.
He sees me.
Except I'm not alone.
He stops.
Because one of his teammates is standing in front of me.
Birdie.
And Birdie is leaning closer, saying something that Dean can’t hear over the music.
Then I laugh.
Not my polite laugh. Not the one I give when someone says something mildly funny. My real laugh. The one where my eyes crinkle and my entire face lights up.
Dean felt something ugly twist in his chest.
Jealousy.
It wasn't the laugh that bothered him.
It was the way I looked at Birdie afterward, like I wanted to hear what he had to say next. Like, I was curious about him.
He watched as I pushed at Birdie’s chest lightly. Playfully.
Birdie is a good guy. Dean's known him for years. Everyone likes him; he’s funny, he’s kind. He’s not some asshole Dean can hate to make himself feel better. And that somehow makes it worse.
“You look like you’re about to fight someone.”
Dean doesn’t even turn around.
“I'm fine.”
Beau’s eyebrows lift.
“Interesting. Because your face says you’re about three seconds away from throwing someone through a wall.”
Dean finally looks over.
“Not you too.”
Beau frowns.
“Not me too what?”
Dean gestures vaguely toward Y/N.
A slow smile spreads across Beau’s face.
“Oh.”
“No.”
“Oh, this is funny.”
“Don’t.”
Beau crosses his arms.
“Dude.”
“No.”
"You are totally jealous right now."
“Am not.”
“You’re so in love with her.”
Dean immediately shakes his head.
“I’m not.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“Sure.”
Dean opens his mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Beau continues.
“Dean, I’ve seen you with girls.”
The words make him uncomfortable.
“Okay?”
“You flirt. You have fun. You like the attention. It's all fun, no feelings.”
Dean looks away.
“But with Y/N?”
Beau looks back toward me.
“You’re different. It's all feelings.”
“I’m not doing this.”
Beau laughs.
“You’re literally proving my point.”
“Shut up.”
“No.”
Beau turns.
“Garrett!”
Dean immediately rolls his eyes.
“Oh, come on.”
Garrett walks over, looking suspicious.
“What?”
Beau points between Dean and I.
“Tell him.”
Garrett follows his gaze.
A small smile appears.
“Oh.”
Dean groans.
“Nope. Not doing this. I think it's time for shots.”
"Maybe then you'll man up and ask your girlfriend out," Garrett laughs.
"You guys are crazy."
"Whatever you need to tell yourself," Beau say, clapping him on the shoulder.
Garrett nods towards me.
“Go talk to her.”
Dean looks over.
“She’s talking to Birdie.”
“So?”
Dean hesitates.
And Beau laughs.
“Dude.”
Dean looks at him.
"You act like talking to her is suddenly terrifying. She's still Y/n."
Dean doesn’t have an answer. Because the thing is that it is terrifying because I'm the one person whose rejection would actually matter. The one person he can't lose.
And suddenly Logan's words come rushing back.
You can risk telling her and losing her.
Or you can wait and actually lose her to a guy that's not afraid.
Dean looks back towards me.
And for the first time, the possibility of losing me doesn't feel hypothetical. It feels like it's already happening.
He finds me later outside.
Because somehow, even in a house full of people, he always finds me.
I'm sitting on the porch steps, holding a cup of water between my hands.
“Hey.”
I look up, a smile immediately appears.
“Hey.”
“You hiding?”
I shrug.
“Taking a break.”
“From?”
I gesture toward the house.
“People.”
Dean laughs softly.
“Fair.”
He sits beside me. And for a few minutes, we just exist.
Like we always do.
No pressure. No expectations. Just us.
Which somehow makes everything harder. Because this has always been the easiest thing in the world.
Being with me. Talking to me. Loving me.
The last thought makes him freeze.
Because there it is.
The truth he has been avoiding.
“So.”
I look over.
“That sounds suspicious.”
Dean smiles slightly.
“Why do you always say that?”
“Because whenever you say ‘so,’ it means you’re about to ask something you don’t want the answer to.”
He hesitates.
"Am I wrong?"
Dean looks at me. But it's different. Because he's seeing it now. The way I know him better than he knows himself at times. I always have.
“Am I that obvious?”
“To me?”
I smile.
“Yeah.”
Dean looks down.
There’s a moment where he almost laughs it off.
Almost makes a joke.
Almost lets the fear win.
But then he remembers me laughing with Birdie.
The way I looked at him.
The way someone else could easily step into the place Dean had finally realized he wanted.
“Do you like Birdie?”
The question surprises me.
“What?”
“Birdie.”
I studied him for a moment.
“Why?”
“I’m asking.”
She looks away.
“I don’t know.”
That answer makes his stomach drop.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I think he’s nice.”
“Do you like him?”
I'm quiet.
Then:
“I could.”
Dean feels like someone punched the air out of him, like he's running out of time.
“He’s a good guy.”
I look at him.
“He is.”
Dean nods.
“Yeah.”
But he isn’t me.
The thought scares him more than he wants to admit.
Silence settles between them.
Then, because he doesn’t know what else to say, he falls back on the thing he has always said.
“I just want you to be happy.”
The words come out automatically.
I look at him.
“You always say that.”
Dean frowns.
“What?”
I look down at my hands.
“You always tell me I deserve to be happy.”
His chest tightens.
“What if…”
His voice catches.
I look over.
“What?”
Dean takes a breath.
“What if I finally figured out that I’m the one who wants to make you happy?”
The world feels like it has stopped.
I go completely still.
“Dean…”
He shakes his head slightly.
“No, just let me say this.”
Because if he stops now, he knows he’ll never start again.
“I love you.”
My eyes immediately fill.
And somehow, saying it out loud feels terrifying and freeing all at once.
“I love you, Y/N.”
A shaky breath leaves him.
“And I’m sorry it took me this long to figure it out.”
I don't say anything, so he keeps going.
“After Allie…”
He swallows.
“I thought I knew what was real. I thought I understood how someone felt about me, and I was wrong.”
My expression softens.
“And I couldn’t do that again.”
His voice drops.
“Not with you.”
A pause.
“Because losing you would ruin me.”
My eyes shine.
“Dean…”
“But then Logan said something to me.”
A small laugh escapes him.
“Actually, everyone has been saying something to me because apparently I’m the last person on earth to figure things out.”
That gets the smallest smile.
And he needs that.
“I was so caught up on what would happen if I told you and you didn’t feel the same.”
He looks down.
“And I never thought about what would happen if I didn’t.”
I go still.
“What?”
Dean looks back at me.
“What if I don’t lose you?”
His voice is quiet.
“What if I’m not wrong this time?”
A tear slips down my cheek.
“What if everything actually works out?”
He searches my face, like he’s still waiting for the worst.
Instead, I laugh softly through my tears.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you to say that?”
He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
It almost comes out as a laugh.
I shake my head, smiling.
“You are such an idiot.”
“I know.”
“No, seriously.”
I wipe at my cheeks.
“You’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met.”
Dean smiles.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“Because I have loved you for so long.”
His expression changes.
“I was just waiting for you to realize I wasn’t going anywhere.”
And that’s the part that breaks him. She had waited through everything, just wanted him to choose her.
And finally, finally, he does.
He reaches for her hand.
“Your idiot?”
I laugh.
“Unfortunately.”
Dean smiles.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah.”
He squeezes my hand.
“Because I think I’ve spent enough time being an idiot without you.”
She laughs again.
And that sound.
That laugh.
The one he has loved forever.
Finally belongs to him in a way he was brave enough to admit.
“My idiot boyfriend,” she says softly.
Dean freezes.
Then smiles.
“Boyfriend?”
She rolls her eyes.
“Yes, Dean.”
A pause.
“My idiot boyfriend who I’ve been in love with longer than I care to admit.”
Dean realized that moving on had never been about forgetting someone. It was about finally seeing the person who had been standing beside him all along.
I stared out the window of the patrol car as we pulled onto Greek Row, the familiar houses blurring together through exhausted eyes. A few hours ago, I'd been walking home from work, thinking about nothing more than getting into pajamas and collapsing into bed. Then someone had grabbed me from behind.
They'd taken my wallet, my phone—everything I had on me. For several terrifying minutes, I was convinced they weren't going to stop there. Even now, my stomach twisted at the memory of their hands on me, the panic that flooded my body as I fought to get away, praying they would leave before they decided to take something I could never get back.
I still couldn't believe I had made it out.
I'd managed to escape long enough to stumble into a nearby restaurant. The employees had rushed to help me, locking the door behind me and calling 911 while I sat there shaking, trying to answer questions through tears.
An ambulance came and checked me over. A blur of bright lights, medical questions, and people telling me I was lucky. They checked me over and eventually cleared me to go to the police station, where I gave my statement and answered every question I could remember how to answer.
Now, a police officer was driving me back to the hockey house.
Back to Logan.
I didn't have my phone anymore, which meant I hadn't answered a single one of his calls or texts. Knowing him, he had been losing his mind. He'd probably called my work, driven around looking for me, and convinced himself something horrible had happened.
This time it had.
The patrol car came to a stop in front of the house.
The porch lights were on.
I swallowed hard.
"You want me to walk you to the door?" the officer asked gently.
I looked at the front entrance, suddenly feeling much smaller than I had all night.
"I..." My voice shook. "I don't think I can do it by myself."
He nodded immediately.
"Of course."
He stepped out first, waiting until I was steady before walking beside me up the driveway.
The front door opened before we even reached the steps.
"Y/N?"
Logan's voice cracked.
He was standing there with his phone still in his hand, like he hadn't put it down in hours. Behind him were Dean, Tucker, and Garrett, all of them frozen in place.
The relief on Logan's face lasted less than a second.
Then he saw me.
The bruises.
His expression completely changed.
"Oh my God. What happened?"
I looked to the officer, silently asking him to spare me from explaining it again.
The officer gave them a moment before speaking.
"I'm Officer Miller.”
The officer continued, keeping his voice calm.
"Y/n was mugged while walking home from work tonight. She was able to get away and make it to a nearby restaurant, where they called emergency services."
Logan's face went pale.
"She's been checked over by EMTs," the officer added quickly. "She's medically cleared. The injuries are mostly bruises, but she should take it easy tonight and follow up if anything changes."
Garrett let out a shaky breath.
Dean's expression hardened.
"Did they catch who did this?"
"Not yet," the officer said honestly. "The report has been filed, and detectives will follow up with her. Right now, the important thing is that she's somewhere safe."
His eyes shifted back to me.
"You did everything right tonight. You got away, you found help, and you reported it."
I nodded, but I couldn't find my voice.
The officer looked back at the guys.
"Make sure she isn't alone tonight. She may feel fine physically, but after something like this, the adrenaline wears off, and things can hit harder later."
Logan immediately nodded.
"She won't be alone."
"I figured she wouldn't be."
The officer gave me one last reassuring look.
"If you need anything, the number on your paperwork will connect you with the department. Don't hesitate to call."
"Thank you," I whispered.
He nodded and walked back toward the patrol car.
The four of them stayed silent until the car pulled away.
Then Logan looked at me again.
And the fear he'd been holding onto all night finally broke through.
He didn't know what to say.
For once, Logan—who always had something to say, some joke to break the tension, some reassurance ready before anyone even asked for it—was completely silent.
His eyes kept moving over me.
Not in a way that made me uncomfortable.
In a way that made my heart ache.
Like he was trying to piece together what had happened. Like he was searching for every injury, every sign that I was hurt worse than I was admitting. His eyes flickered over the bandage on my arm, the bruising along my face, the exhaustion written all over me.
Like he was trying to convince himself I was really standing in front of him.
That I was alive.
That I was okay.
"Logan..." I whispered.
His lips parted, but nothing came out.
He looked like he wanted to ask a hundred questions.
Who did this?
Were you scared?
Did they hurt you?
Why didn't you call me?
But he didn't ask any of them.
Because he knew.
My phone was gone.
I was standing there shaking.
And whatever answers he wanted, he knew I probably wasn't ready to give them.
Garrett stepped forward quietly, breaking the silence.
"Let's go inside."
His voice was gentle, steady—the kind of voice you used when someone was barely holding themselves together.
Nobody argued.
Logan immediately moved to my side, but he still hesitated before reaching for me.
That hesitation hurt more than anything.
Because normally, Logan was the person who hugged first and asked questions later.
But tonight, he didn't assume.
He waited.
I gave the smallest nod.
Only then did his hand gently settle against my back.
Not holding me tightly.
Not trapping me.
Just reminding me he was there.
The four of them surrounded me as we walked inside, the familiar warmth of the hockey house hitting me all at once.
The same place I'd left hours ago.
The same place that suddenly felt completely different.
Dean shut the door behind us, locking it before turning around.
Tucker immediately grabbed a blanket from the couch.
Garrett disappeared toward the kitchen, probably looking for water or something I might be able to eat.
And Logan stayed right beside me.
Like if he looked away for even a second, I might disappear again.
"Do you need anything?" he finally asked, his voice rough.
I looked at him.
At the fear he wasn't hiding anymore.
At the guilt he was already carrying for something that wasn't his fault.
And all I could manage was the truth.
"I just don't want to be alone."
Logan's expression broke.
"You won't be."
He didn't hesitate this time.
"I promise."
The first few days were the hardest.
Not because of the bruises.
Those were healing.
The headache that had followed me home eventually disappeared.
Everyone kept asking about the physical injuries because those were the ones they could see.
The ones they could understand.
But the hardest parts weren't visible.
It was the way I stopped walking anywhere alone.
The way I flinched when someone came up behind me too quickly.
The way my entire body went tense whenever I heard footsteps getting too close.
The way I stared at my bedroom door every night, even though I knew it was locked.
Logan noticed everything.
Of course he did.
He noticed when I stopped sleeping through the night.
He noticed when I started checking the locks three times before bed.
He noticed when I would go quiet in the middle of a conversation because something had pulled me back to that night.
He never pushed.
That was the thing I loved most about him.
He never made me talk before I was ready.
He just stayed.
The first night after I came home, he slept on the floor beside my bed.
Not because I asked him to.
Because when I woke up from a nightmare, gasping and shaking, he was already there.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
His eyes opened immediately.
"What are you sorry for?"
"I woke you up."
His expression softened.
"Y/N."
I looked away.
"I just... I don't want to be this person."
Logan sat up slowly.
"What person?"
"The person everyone has to worry about."
His face tightened.
"You think that's what you are?"
I didn't answer.
Because maybe I did.
Maybe I felt like I had become this fragile thing everyone had to protect.
Logan moved closer, sitting beside the bed.
"You know what I was worried about that night?"
I looked at him.
"I wasn't worried because you were a burden."
His voice was quiet.
"I was worried because I love you."
The words settled heavily between us.
"I spent hours not knowing where you were. Not knowing if you were hurt. Not knowing if you were safe."
He swallowed.
"And then you showed up at that door, and all I could think was, 'She's here.'"
My eyes burned.
"You're not something I have to deal with, Y/N."
He reached out slowly, giving me the chance to move away.
I didn't.
"You're someone I choose."
The guys handled it in their own ways.
Dean got angry.
Not at me.
Never at me.
But at the idea that someone had hurt me and he couldn't do anything about it.
He started walking me home from class when Logan couldn't. He checked in constantly but pretended he wasn't.
"You eaten?" became his version of "Are you okay?"
Tucker tried to make things normal.
He would sit with me in the living room while everyone watched movies, even when I barely paid attention. He'd make stupid comments just to get me to roll my eyes.
"You know, this house was already full of dramatic hockey players," he'd joke. "We didn't need you joining the club."
And somehow, that helped.
Garrett was the quietest.
Maybe because he understood what it felt like to have something happen that changed the way you saw the world.
He never told me I should be over it.
He never said I was lucky and left it at that.
He just sat beside me when the memories got too loud.
One night, I found him in the kitchen making tea.
"You okay?" he asked.
I shrugged.
"I don't know."
He nodded like that was a perfectly acceptable answer.
"I know that feeling."
I looked at him.
"The worst part isn't what happened," he said quietly.
"It's realizing the world kept moving afterward."
My throat tightened.
Because that was exactly it.
Everyone else went back to normal.
Classes.
Practices.
Games.
Life.
But a part of me was still standing on that sidewalk.
A few weeks later, Logan found me sitting on the front steps of the hockey house.
It was where I had been dropped off that night.
The place where everything changed.
He sat beside me without saying anything.
For a while, we just watched people walking across campus.
"You know," he said eventually, "you don't have to prove you're okay."
I looked down.
"I know."
"Do you?"
I smiled faintly.
"Maybe not."
He bumped his shoulder against mine.
"That's okay."
The silence returned.
Then I whispered, "I hate that he still gets to be part of my life."
Logan looked at me.
"The person who did this."
I nodded.
"I hate that he gets to take up space in my head."
Logan was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "Maybe right now he does."
I looked at him.
"But eventually?"
He squeezed my hand.
"Eventually, he becomes a memory you survived."
My eyes filled.
Not because I believed him completely.
Not yet.
But because I wanted to.
And for the first time since that night, I could imagine a version of myself who did.
Author's Note: Prepare the tissues... For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger Warnings: Pregnancy, Miscarriage
I was dating Beau, the quarterback of Briar’s football team. Everyone knew him as the confident one — the guy who could walk into any room and own it. The guy who always had a plan.
But I didn’t have a plan.
Not for this.
I hadn’t been feeling like myself for a few days. At first, I tried to ignore it. Stress. Finals. Lack of sleep. Anything other than the thought that kept creeping into the back of my mind.
So I bought a pregnancy test.
And then I stared at the result until my vision blurred.
Positive.
I told myself it was wrong.
It had to be wrong.
I had an IUD. I had done everything right. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
So I took another test.
Positive.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
Five tests lined up on my bathroom counter, all saying the same thing, and somehow that made it feel even less real.
I sat on the floor for what felt like hours, staring at them, trying to figure out how my entire life had just shifted without asking me first.
Beau and I were in college. We were barely figuring out who we were. We had classes, football, friends, futures we were still trying to build.
A baby was not part of that future.
Not now.
Not yet.
I called my doctor because I didn’t know what else to do. My voice shook when I explained, and they told me I needed to come in for an ultrasound and blood pregnancy test.
I went alone.
I couldn’t tell Beau yet.
I couldn’t tell my friends.
I couldn’t even say the words out loud because the second I did, it would become real.
So I sat in the waiting room by myself, surrounded by women who looked like they knew exactly what they were doing, while I felt like I had accidentally walked into someone else’s life.
The ultrasound confirmed it.
I was pregnant.
About five weeks.
Five weeks.
That was such a small amount of time, but somehow it felt like I already knew this little piece of my future.
The doctor gave me information, answered my questions, and told me what to watch for.
I walked out with a little packet of papers in my hand, some prenatal vitamins, and a thousand thoughts running through my head.
At first, I only let myself panic.
But then, slowly, I started thinking about it.
My potential due date.
What month the baby would be born.
What their first birthday would look like.
Whether they would have Beau’s eyes.
Whether they would be a boy or a girl.
Whether I would be a good mom.
Whether my life could somehow fit around this new reality.
I started searching things I never thought I would search.
How big is a baby at five weeks?
What foods should you avoid during pregnancy?
What drinks should you stop having?
What happens after finding out you’re pregnant in college?
I learned things I never expected to care about. I started thinking differently about everything I put into my body. I caught myself imagining a future I wasn’t sure I was ready for.
And then I remembered I had to tell Beau.
That was the scariest part.
Because no matter how much I was struggling, this was his too.
I sat him down and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I had rehearsed what I was going to say a hundred times, but when I looked at him, all I could get out was the truth.
“I’m pregnant.”
For a few seconds, he just stared at me.
And then he pulled me into him.
He was scared. I could see it. He didn’t pretend he wasn’t. We were both terrified.
But he didn’t run.
He didn’t blame me.
He didn’t make me feel like I was facing it alone.
He just held me and told me we would figure it out.
And for the first time since seeing those tests, I let myself believe maybe we could.
For a few days, things felt different.
Not easy.
Not normal.
But different.
There was this strange new awareness between us. Like we were carrying around a secret that only belonged to us.
Then I started spotting.
At first, I wasn’t too worried.
The doctor had told me spotting could happen. It didn’t always mean something was wrong.
So I tried to stay calm.
But it didn’t stop.
A day passed.
Then two.
Then more.
And that fear I had been trying to push away started creeping back in.
I went back to the doctor.
This time, I wasn’t excited or terrified.
I was numb.
Another blood test.
Another wait.
Another room where I sat staring at the walls, hoping someone would tell me everything was okay.
But they didn’t.
The doctor explained it gently.
My pregnancy hormone levels were dropping.
I had miscarried.
I remember hearing the words, but not understanding them.
Because how could I lose something I had only just found?
How could I grieve someone I had never met?
I hadn’t even gotten to know my baby.
I hadn’t heard a heartbeat.
I hadn’t bought anything.
I hadn’t told everyone.
But somehow, there was still a loss.
Because for those few days, I had imagined a life.
And now I had to imagine one without it.
The hardest part wasn’t the doctor’s appointment.
It wasn’t the tears.
It wasn’t the emptiness.
It was having to tell Beau.
Because a few days ago, I had sat in front of him and changed both of our lives forever.
And now I had to sit in front of him and tell him that the future we had just started imagining was gone.
I didn’t know how to say it.
I didn’t know how to take something that had already hurt me so much and put it into words that wouldn’t hurt him too.
I didn’t know how to tell the person who had promised we would figure it out that there was nothing left to figure out.
It was weird.
That was the only way I could describe it.
Because I had spent the first few days terrified of becoming a mom.
I had cried on my bathroom floor because I wasn’t ready. Because I had plans. Because Beau and I were supposed to have one more year of college before we figured out the rest of our lives.
I hadn’t wanted to be a mom.
And then somehow, I became one.
Not in the way I imagined. Not with a nursery or a heartbeat or a baby in my arms.
But I had been a mom.
For those few weeks, I had carried a little life inside me. I had changed the way I ate. I had taken vitamins every morning. I had looked up how big my baby was and wondered if they would have Beau’s smile.
I had started making space for someone who wasn’t supposed to exist in my life yet.
And then, just like that, I wasn’t a mom anymore.
I didn’t know how to grieve something I had only known for such a short time.
I didn’t know if I was allowed to be this heartbroken.
When I got home, Beau was already there.
And he didn’t know.
He didn’t know that I had sat in that doctor’s office alone.
He didn’t know that I had heard the words that changed everything.
He didn’t know that the future he was still holding onto wasn’t there anymore.
He smiled when I walked in.
Not a huge smile. Not a careless one.
A hopeful one.
And somehow that hurt worse.
“Okay, hear me out,” he said, standing up from the couch. “I’ve been thinking.”
I froze.
Because those words used to make me smile.
Beau was always thinking. Always planning. Always finding a way to make things work.
“We can do this,” he said.
My chest tightened.
“We’re seniors, right? So we only have one year left. We figure out classes. Maybe you take a lighter schedule if you need to. I can talk to Coach about adjusting things around football. My parents would help. Your parents would help. We’d make it work.”
I stared at him.
He kept going, his eyes lighting up as he talked through all the possibilities.
“We could get a place off campus. Nothing crazy, but somewhere with an extra room. And after graduation, we figure out jobs and everything else. It’s not exactly how we pictured things, but—”
His voice softened.
“—it could still be good.”
That was what broke me.
Not the doctor.
Not the blood test.
Not the empty ultrasound.
It was Beau standing in our apartment, already loving a future that no longer existed.
I started crying before I could stop myself.
Not quiet tears.
Not the kind I could hide.
The kind that ripped through me.
Beau immediately stopped talking.
“Hey,” he said, his face changing. “What’s wrong?”
And I wanted to tell him.
I wanted to say the words.
But my throat closed up.
Because saying them meant they were real.
“Beau…”
He crossed the room in seconds.
“What happened?”
I looked at him, and I saw the hope on his face disappear before I even spoke.
“I went back to the doctor.”
His hands found mine.
“And?”
I swallowed.
“They said…”
My voice broke.
“I lost the baby.”
The silence that followed was unbearable.
For a second, neither of us moved.
And then Beau’s face crumpled.
Not in anger.
Not in disappointment.
Just pain.
He pulled me into him, and I collapsed against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
The words came out over and over.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Because some part of me felt like I had failed him.
Failed the baby.
Failed this tiny future we had barely started imagining.
But Beau just held me tighter.
“Don’t apologize,” he whispered.
And that somehow made me cry harder.
Because I knew he was hurting too.
He had lost something too.
A future.
A dream.
A baby he had already started making room for.
We stood there holding each other in the middle of our apartment, grieving something neither of us had been prepared to love.
Something neither of us had been prepared to lose.
The days after were strange.
Some moments, I felt completely normal.
I would laugh at something stupid Beau said. I would get annoyed about a professor assigning too much work. I would complain about being tired.
And then I would remember.
There wasn’t a baby anymore.
There wasn’t a due date.
There wasn’t a tiny person we were going to meet.
And it felt like the world kept moving forward while mine had stopped.
I still had the prenatal vitamins sitting on my bathroom counter.
I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.
I don’t know why.
Maybe because throwing them away felt like admitting there had never been a baby.
Maybe because, in those few weeks, there had been.
Beau never pressured me to move on.
That was the thing about him.
He didn’t try to fix it.
He couldn’t.
There was no speech that could make it hurt less. No promise that could bring back what we lost.
He just stayed.
He learned when I needed to talk and when I needed silence.
He learned that sometimes I would cry randomly because something small reminded me.
A baby announcement online.
A pregnant woman walking across campus.
A date on the calendar that made me think, that would have been around when I was due.
He never told me I should be over it.
He never acted like because it was early, it mattered less.
Because it mattered.
We both knew it did.
One night, a few weeks later, we were sitting on the couch together.
It was quiet.
The kind of quiet that used to feel uncomfortable but now felt safe.
“I really thought I was going to hate being pregnant,” I admitted.
Beau looked over at me.
I swallowed.
“I was so scared. I was angry. I kept thinking about everything I was losing.”
His hand found mine.
“But then I started thinking about it,” I continued. “And I started imagining them.”
My voice cracked.
“And I think that’s the part no one tells you. You don’t have to hold your baby to love them.”
Beau looked down at our hands.
“I miss them,” he whispered.
The honesty of it broke something open in me.
Because I had been so caught up in my own grief that I forgot he had his own.
He had gone from planning how to rearrange his life to losing the future he had just started picturing.
“I miss them too,” I said.
And for the first time, we let ourselves say it.
Not the pregnancy.
Not what happened.
Not the situation.
Them.
Because even though they were only with us for a short time, they were ours.
Eventually, life started moving again.
Classes continued.
Football continued.
People who didn’t know what happened laughed and joked around us, unaware that we were carrying something heavy.
I started healing.
Not forgetting.
Healing.
There was a difference.
I stopped blaming myself.
I stopped wondering if I should have done something differently.
I stopped asking why I had been given something just to lose it.
Some things don’t have answers.
Some losses don’t make sense.
But I learned that grief and love can exist at the same time.
I had not planned to become a mom.
I had not been ready.
But for a brief moment, I was.
And even though I wasn’t anymore, that didn’t erase what happened.
It didn’t erase the love.
It didn’t erase the dreams.
It didn’t erase the little life that had changed both of us before we ever got the chance to meet them.
And maybe someday, when the pain wasn’t so sharp, I would think about that time and remember more than just losing them.
Maybe I would remember that, for a little while, I got to love them too.
Author's Note: The one girl Dean can't do casual with. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger warnings: Cheating, Sex mentioned
I was not a huge fan of frat parties, unless it was Dean and Beau’s frat where all of my friends were. The bass vibrating through the floorboards and making the red plastic cup in my hand tremble, I tried to hide my annoyance. But when my boyfriend who had insisted I meet him here wasn’t answering my texts…
Me: I’m here.
Me: Where are you?
Delivered. Not Read.
I wandered through clusters of laughing strangers until someone pointed upstairs.
"I think your boyfriend went that way."
My stomach tightened.
The upstairs hallway was quieter, the music muffled by closed bedroom doors. I reached the last room just as the door opened.
A girl stumbled out first.
Lipstick smeared.
Hair messy.
She froze when she saw me.
"Oh."
That one syllable told me everything.
Then my boyfriend appeared behind her, shirt untucked, eyes widening in horror.
"...Babe."
I stared at him.
At the lipstick on his neck.
At the panic on his face.
At the way he reached toward me like somehow he could erase the last ten seconds.
"It's not—"
"Don't."
My voice came out strangely calm.
He swallowed.
"I can explain."
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Because there wasn't an explanation in the world that could change what I'd seen.
"You know what?" I said quietly. "Don't bother."
I turned around before he could touch me.
“To be clear, we are broken up now. Lose my number.”
He called my name twice.
I didn't stop walking.
I made it halfway across campus before the tears started.
Not dramatic movie tears.
Just silent ones that blurred the streetlights until I couldn't tell where I was going anymore.
I wiped angrily at my face.
"Seriously?" I muttered to myself. "You're crying over him?"
But grief doesn't ask permission.
Neither does humiliation.
By the time I found myself outside the hockey house, my mascara had surrendered completely.
I stared at the entrance.
Dean.
Campus's resident commitment-phobe.
The guy who flirted with everyone.
The guy who left parties with a different girl every other weekend.
The guy who was one of my closest friends.
I let myself in and walked up to his room. I hadn’t stopped to consider that he might not be home, that he might be with someone. I just knocked softly on his bedroom door.
"...Dean?"
There was shuffling. The sound of someone knocking into something or something falling. A pause. Then the door clicked open.
Dean took one look at me and all the humor disappeared from his face.
"What happened?"
I tried to answer.
Instead, I burst into tears.
"Oh, sweetheart..."
He pulled me inside before anyone in the hallway could see.
He handed me tissues.
Water.
A hoodie because apparently I'd forgotten mine somewhere.
He waited.
He always waited.
Eventually, I managed, "He cheated."
Dean went very still.
"He what?"
"I caught him."
Silence.
Dangerous silence.
The kind that made me briefly wonder if I should be worried.
Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw.
"Do you want me to hit him?"
Despite everything, I laughed weakly.
"No."
"...You sure?"
"Pretty sure."
"Because I'm flexible."
Another watery laugh.
He looked relieved I'd made a sound that wasn't crying.
I stared at the floor.
"I came here because..." I took a shaky breath. "I wanted to ask you something."
"Okay."
"I know you don't really... do relationships."
His eyebrows drew together.
"And?"
"I just..." My face burned with embarrassment. "I thought maybe we could... rebound."
His expression didn't change.
"...Rebound."
"No feelings. No commitment. Just..." I shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I want to stop thinking about him. Six Flags, right? I want a fast pass."
Dean looked at me for a very long time.
Then he sighed.
"So that's why you're here."
I nodded.
"You think sleeping with me will fix this."
"I think it'll make me stop feeling so pathetic."
He closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, there was something unbearably gentle in them.
"I can't."
I blinked.
"...What?"
"I can't do that."
I frowned.
"I thought this was literally your thing."
"It usually is."
"Then why—"
"Because it's you."
I stared at him.
He looked almost frustrated.
"I can separate sex from feelings," he said quietly. "Most of the time."
"And?"
"And with you..." He laughed once, bitterly. "With you it would never be just sex."
The room suddenly felt much smaller.
"I've spent years pretending I don't have feelings for you because you were happy with him."
I couldn't speak.
"I wasn't going to tell you," he continued. "Especially not tonight."
His eyes met mine.
"But I'm not going to use the worst night of your life to finally get what I've wanted."
The words settled between us.
Heavy.
Honest.
"You deserve someone who chooses you because they love you," he said. "Not because you're trying to forget somebody else."
A fresh wave of tears escaped before I could stop them.
"Oh, no."
He moved instinctively.
"Come here."
I folded into him without thinking.
His arms wrapped around me carefully, like he was afraid I'd break.
Maybe I already had.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into his shoulder.
"For what?"
"For asking."
"You don't have anything to apologize for."
"I just..." My voice cracked. "I didn't know where else to go."
"I'm glad you came here."
I cried harder.
Dean simply held me.
No expectations.
No impatience.
Just warm hands rubbing slow circles across my back while I fell apart.
After several minutes, the question I'd been trying to swallow escaped anyway.
"...What's wrong with me?"
He pulled back just enough to look at me.
"What?"
"What was wrong with me that he cheated?" I whispered. "Was I not pretty enough? Was I boring? Did I—"
"Stop."
His voice wasn't loud.
Just firm.
"There is nothing wrong with you."
I looked away.
"There wasn't enough about you," he continued, "or too much about you. You didn't fail some invisible test."
"He still cheated."
"Because he cheated."
I shook my head.
"There has to be a reason."
"There is."
I looked at him hopefully.
Dean sighed.
"The reason is that he made a selfish decision."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"It can't be."
"It can."
His thumb brushed away another tear.
"You loved him."
"I did."
"You trusted him."
"I know."
"That says something good about you."
I closed my eyes.
"It says something terrible about him."
The words hit harder than I expected.
"You know what I see when I look at you?" Dean asked softly.
I shook my head.
"I see the girl who remembers everyone's coffee order."
A tiny laugh escaped me.
"The girl who stayed up until three in the morning helping me study for chemistry, even though you'd already passed."
"I barely remember that."
"I do."
He smiled sadly.
"I see someone who's kind when nobody's watching."
His forehead rested lightly against mine.
"I see someone who makes rooms better just by walking into them."
More tears.
"But I also see someone who's trying to blame herself for another person's choices."
I couldn't answer.
"So let me make this absolutely clear."
His voice was unwavering.
"He cheated because he chose to cheat."
Not because you weren't enough.
Not because you deserved it.
Not because there is something broken inside you."
He squeezed my hand.
"You are not the reason someone else failed to be faithful."
The knot in my chest loosened just enough for me to breathe.
Dean smiled faintly.
"I know you won't believe me tonight."
"I want to."
"So borrow my belief until yours comes back."
I let out one long, shaky breath.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
He pulled the blanket from the back of the couch.
"Movie?"
I nodded.
"Terrible action movie or animated comfort movie?"
"The animated one."
"I was hoping you'd pick that."
He wrapped the blanket around both of us, leaving careful inches of space between us until I was the one who leaned closer.
This time, when I rested my head on his shoulder, it wasn't because I wanted to forget someone else.
It was because, for the first time that night, I finally felt safe.
Author's Note: First time writing for Beau. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind where the world felt calm and still. The terrifying kind. The kind where even the hum of my phone charging across the room felt like it was coming from somewhere miles away.
I opened my eyes slowly, immediately regretting it. Light poured through the crack in the curtains, and pain exploded behind my eyes so violently that I squeezed them shut again, my stomach twisting in response.
“Fuck.”
The word came out as barely a whisper, as my head throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
As much as I should force myself to drink water and take some meds, the only thing I would be doing is trying to go back to sleep, hoping the pain would magically subside the next time consciousness caught up with me.
That plan lasted all of a few seconds, until Beau’s arm pulled me a bit closer, reminding me he was still here.
We had been dating for a few months now, and somehow I had managed to avoid this.
The ugly parts.
The parts where I wasn’t laughing at his jokes or stealing his hoodies or pretending I wasn’t secretly obsessed with how easily he could make me smile.
I had avoided the moments when I was sick, tired, and inconvenient to be around. I wanted to be low maintenance and fun, not needy and helpless.
I knew that wasn’t fair. I knew Beau had never given me a reason to think he would leave. But old habits were harder to break than I wanted to admit.
“Baby?”
His voice was rough with sleep.
I froze.
“Sorry.”
His eyes opened immediately.
That was one of the things I was learning about Beau.
He could sleep through almost anything.
Except me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
The answer came too quickly.
Beau blinked at me. Analyzing my face.
“Nothing?”
“I just woke up.”
“You’re crying.”
I hadn’t even realized I was, but his voice was overwhelming.
I wiped at my cheek quickly.
“I’ll be fine.”
Beau’s expression softened, “Migraine?”
“How did you-?”
“You haven’t opened your eyes yet. You’re practically whispering. You look pale. How bad is it?”
I looked away.
That was answer enough.
His entire demeanor changed.
“Bad,” I admit defeatedly.
Beau sat up immediately, trying his best not to jostle me too much. I couldn’t hide my wince at the movement.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. I’ve got you.”
“Beau—”
“No.”
I frowned.
“No?”
“No ‘I’m fine.’ No ‘you don’t have to.’ No apologizing.”
My eyes opened slightly.
He was already moving around the room, shutting the curtains completely, unplugging the bright alarm clock, and turning off every little source of light.
“You don’t even know what I need.”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”
He came back to the bed and crouched beside me.
“But I know you.”
My throat tightened.
Beau brushed my hair away from my face carefully.
“You don’t have to earn being taken care of.”
That almost broke me.
Because that was the part nobody talked about.
The guilt.
The feeling that needing someone was somehow failing.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” I admitted.
Beau frowned.
“Like what?”
“Like this.”
I gestured weakly.
“Miserable. Not fun.”
For a moment, he just stared at me.
Then he shook his head.
“Baby.”
The way he said it made my chest ache. He gently took my hand in his.
“I am here for all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly. I hate that you’re hurting. But I’m glad that I’m here to take care of you.”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead, careful and gentle.
“You’re allowed to have bad days.”
Another kiss.
“You’re allowed to need me.”
Another.
“And you’re allowed to wake up with a migraine and still be my favorite person.”
I closed my eyes.
The pain was still there.
The world was still too bright and too loud and too much.
And through it all, Beau stayed.
He brought me water, food, and headache medicine. He kept the room dark. He sat beside me for hours, barely moving except to check if I needed anything.
And when I finally started to fall asleep again, curled against him in the quiet, I realized something.
Author's Note: Just a break from writing angst. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Logan fixed my car, so the least I could do was buy him a beer.
That was the deal.
A beer for fixing my brakes.
Somehow, that turned into tutoring him through a class I’d already aced the semester before. One study session became another, and before long we were finding excuses to spend time together.
Logan was good at a lot of things.
Hockey.
Listening.
Making people feel like the only person in the room.
Keeping secrets, apparently.
Which was ironic because he was absolutely terrible at lying.
He once tried to convince his roommate he hadn’t eaten the last slice of pizza while actively holding the empty pizza box.
We developed an effortless banter and a connection that felt less like something new and more like we’d somehow skipped straight to years of knowing each other.
We kept our relationship to ourselves.
Not because we were ashamed of it.
Mostly because Jules would have plastered it across every social media platform before we’d even told our families, and neither of us needed that kind of chaos.
The strange part was that I wasn’t exactly a stranger to Logan’s world.
I had been friends with Allie and Hannah before Hannah started dating Garrett, so I already knew his friends. I knew the hockey house. I knew the stories behind the names Logan mentioned.
Honestly, the boys could have caught us a hundred times if they had paid attention.
They missed the shared glances when I served them drinks.
They missed the subtle touches during movie nights.
They missed the fact that Logan somehow always ended up sitting beside me.
Not hiding.
Just unnoticed.
Which, honestly, said a lot more about them than it did about us.
It almost fell apart at the annual youth hockey fundraiser.
After Logan told me the fundraiser was the reason he’d been able to play hockey as a kid—that without it, he never would have earned the opportunities that eventually led him to Briar—I threw myself into making it successful.
I helped secure silent auction donations, designed flyers, coordinated with local businesses, and did whatever needed to be done.
Because the truth was, without that fundraiser, Logan and I never would have met.
So naturally, when the venue fell through two weeks before the event, I did what any reasonable person would do.
I begged my aunt to let us take over her bar.
Malone’s.
When the night finally arrived, the place was packed wall to wall. Between serving drinks and helping my aunt behind the bar, I barely had time to breathe.
Then, about thirty minutes into the event, Dean climbed onto the stage.
“And let’s hear it for my buddy John Logan for putting this whole thing together!” he announced to a chorus of applause.
Logan immediately looked concerned.
“Look at him,” Dean continued. “It doesn’t get any better looking than that. And he’s single, ladies.”
If only he knew.
Dean’s grin widened as whistles erupted through the crowd.
“Seriously. He’s house-trained, he’s got all his teeth, and he only cries after playoff losses.”
Laughter rolled through Malone’s.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
Across the room, Logan looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.
“Oh, come on,” Dean called. “Don’t act shy now.”
Logan rubbed the back of his neck.
“I hate you.”
“No, you love me.”
“I tolerate you.”
“Same thing.”
The crowd laughed again.
Aunt Della watched me stare across the room.
“You know, honey, subtlety is usually more effective when you aren’t smiling like someone just handed you a winning lottery ticket.”
I looked away.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“You were practically writing his name in your head with a heart around it.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“I own a bar. I have seen people make worse decisions over tequila.”
I rolled my eyes but looked back anyway.
Logan was thanking sponsors while Dean continued embarrassing him, but somehow, like he could feel me watching, his eyes found mine.
Just for a second.
His smile softened.
Not the polite smile he gave donors.
Not the grin he wore with his teammates.
The one that was only mine.
Then, remembering where we were, he looked away.
Aunt Della hummed.
“Oh, he’s gone.”
“What?”
“He looks at you the same way.”
I ducked my head, trying and failing not to smile.
“I guess we’re not as subtle as we thought.”
“Oh, everyone who matters knows.”
Before I could ask what that meant, a woman in her twenties walked straight up to Logan.
Confident.
Beautiful.
She laughed at something he said before lightly touching his arm.
Dean, because apparently he enjoyed making Logan suffer, practically shoved him toward her.
“There you go, buddy!” he called. “See? I told you the ladies would come!”
My stomach twisted.
Logan looked horrified.
Then he looked toward the bar.
Toward me.
Our eyes met.
I raised an eyebrow.
His expression clearly translated to:
Please save me.
I laughed.
He sighed dramatically before turning back.
“I’m really sorry,” he said kindly. “I’m flattered, but I’m actually seeing someone.”
Dean froze.
“...What?”
The woman blinked.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No worries.”
She walked away.
Dean stared.
“Since when?”
Logan shrugged.
“For a while.”
“A while as in?”
Logan smiled.
“Months.”
Dean looked personally betrayed.
“You’ve been hiding a girlfriend from us?”
“It wasn’t exactly intentional.”
“Bull.”
Dean grabbed Logan by the shoulder and dragged him toward the booth where Garrett, Tucker, and Beau were sitting.
“Did any of you know about Logan’s secret girlfriend?”
Garrett blinked.
“...What?”
Tucker looked between them.
“Since when?”
“Months,” Logan answered.
Garrett laughed.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
Garrett shook his head.
“That’s actually impressive.”
“It is not impressive,” Dean argued. “It’s suspicious.”
Logan laughed.
“How is that suspicious?”
“Because none of us have met her.”
“You’ve probably walked past her.”
Dean narrowed his eyes.
“What does that mean?”
Logan immediately realized his mistake.
“...Nothing.”
“Oh, no.” Dean pointed at him. “You don’t get to ‘nothing’ me.”
Beau leaned forward.
“Does she go to Briar?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Is she in our year?” Garrett asked.
“No comment.”
Dean snapped his fingers.
“I knew it.”
“You know literally nothing,” Tucker said.
“I know she’s someone we’ve seen before.”
Garrett looked at Logan.
“Why keep her secret?”
Logan’s expression softened.
“Because we wanted something that was ours before the rest of the world got involved.”
The answer actually silenced Dean.
“...Okay.”
Everyone looked at him.
“That’s actually kind of sweet.”
Tucker nodded.
“I hate that that’s a good answer.”
Dean sighed.
“But you’re still introducing us.”
“When we’re ready.”
Dean looked devastated.
“I can’t believe I have to wait.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Barely.”
From behind the bar, I shook my head.
Because apparently I enjoyed making bad decisions, I grabbed a tray and loaded it with their next round.
“You’re going over there?” Aunt Della asked.
“I work here,” I said. “Kind of hard to avoid customers.”
She smiled knowingly.
“Sure.”
I rolled my eyes and walked toward the table.
Dean was still interrogating Logan.
“There had to be signs!”
“There were,” Logan said.
“We missed all of them?”
“Apparently.”
I set a drink in front of Garrett.
“Thanks,” he said distractedly.
One by one, I placed the drinks around the table.
Dean accepted his without looking up.
“Tucker, back me up here. There’s no way someone dates John Logan for months without us noticing.”
Tucker took a sip.
“I don’t know. We didn’t notice when Beau bought a new truck for three weeks.”
“I parked it in the driveway,” Beau defended.
“Exactly.”
Finally, I reached Logan.
Our fingers brushed as he took the glass.
“Thanks,” he said softly.
“You're welcome,” I replied, keeping my voice professional.
To everyone else, it was nothing.
To us, it took every ounce of self-control not to smile.
I turned away.
Dean finally looked up.
“Thanks, sweetheart.”
“My pleasure.”
As I walked away, I could practically feel Logan trying not to laugh.
Little did Dean know.
He had just thanked Logan’s mystery girlfriend.
And somehow, that was only the beginning.
We made it another two weeks. Which, honestly, was a miracle. Because Dean had officially become a private investigator.
At this point, I was pretty sure he had spent more time trying to identify Logan’s mystery girlfriend than he had studying for his actual classes.
He had theories.
A lot of theories.
According to Dean, she was either:
Someone from Briar he had somehow never met.
Someone from another school who was “mysterious and therefore suspicious.”
“A government witness Logan, is hiding.”
Or, his personal favorite:
“Imaginary.”
“I am telling you,” Dean announced one night in the hockey house, dropping into the chair across from Logan, “there is no way this girl is real.”
Logan didn’t even look up from his laptop.
“She’s real.”
“That’s exactly what someone with a fake girlfriend would say.”
Tucker looked up from his phone.
“How does that make any sense?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
“It really doesn’t.”
Dean ignored him.
“Think about it. Months. Months, Logan. And not one person has seen her.”
Logan took a sip of his drink, fighting a smile.
“Maybe you’re just not as observant as you think.”
Dean pointed at him.
“That attitude is exactly why I’m suspicious.”
I sat beside Logan, pretending to focus on my homework while listening to this conversation for what was probably the hundredth time.
The funniest part?
Dean wasn’t completely wrong.
He really hadn’t noticed.
Not because Logan was hiding me.
Because every time Dean looked, I was just another person in the room.
The girl helping with the fundraiser.
The person grabbing coffee at the student center.
The friend of a friend he’d said hi to in passing.
He knew me.
He just didn’t know he knew me.
By the end of the week, Dean had taken things too far.
Naturally.
He had a list.
In his notes app.
And he called the girls on it “suspects.”
Logan nearly choked on his drink when he found out.
“You have what?”
“A list.”
Tucker leaned over to look.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know who she is.”
“Why?”
Dean ignored him and scrolled through the note.
“I’ve narrowed it down.”
I looked over at Logan.
He was already looking at me.
Both of us were fighting a losing battle not to laugh.
“Okay,” Logan said. “Who are your suspects?”
Dean straightened.
“First, Sarah from my economics class.”
“Why?”
“She asked me if Logan was single.”
Logan stared.
“That was six months ago.”
“Exactly. And you’ve been dating mystery girl for months.”
“You’re insane.”
“Second, the girl who works at the coffee shop.”
“Why?”
“She knows your order.”
“Everyone knows my order.”
Dean pointed at him.
“Exactly.”
I covered my mouth with my hand.
This was getting ridiculous.
“And third…”
Dean paused dramatically.
Everyone looked over.
“One of the puck bunnies. I just haven’t figured out which one yet.”
Beau shook his head.
“Maybe stop investigating your friend’s personal life.”
Dean didn’t even hesitate.
“Never.”
And that was when Logan decided he’d had enough.
Not because he was annoyed.
Because he was smiling.
The kind of smile he got when he knew something everyone else didn’t.
“Dean.”
“What?”
“You want to meet her that badly?”
Dean immediately sat up straighter.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
The room went quiet.
“Okay?” Tucker repeated.
Logan nodded.
“Yeah.”
Then he reached over and grabbed my hand.
Dean’s face went completely blank.
Not confused.
Not shocked.
Blank.
Like his brain had stopped working.
His eyes dropped to our hands.
Then slowly lifted to my face.
“No.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
Dean pointed at me.
“No.”
Logan grinned.
“Dean—”
“No.”
“She’s been here the whole time.”
The silence lasted exactly two seconds.
Then:
“You?”
I smiled.
“Me.”
Dean looked between us.
“You are the mystery girlfriend?”
“Apparently.”
“You?”
I laughed.
“Still me.”
He stood so quickly his chair scraped against the floor.
“I HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATING YOU.”
The room exploded.
Tucker was laughing.
Beau was shaking his head.
Even Garrett, who had been quiet through the entire thing, was smiling.
Logan just looked proud.
Dean looked personally betrayed.
“You let me make a suspect list.”
“You did that on your own.”
“You let me accuse a coffee shop employee.”
“You said she was suspicious because she knew my drink order.”
“THAT WAS A VALID LEAD.”
I laughed harder.
Dean turned toward Logan.
“And you.”
“Me?”
Dean opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Then sighed.
“...I hate both of you.”
“No, you don’t,” Logan said.
Dean dropped back into his chair.
“No. I don’t.”
Then he looked at me.
“Can I just say something?”
“Sure.”
“I am deeply offended that you have been bringing me drinks this entire time and didn’t tell me.”
I smiled.
“You never asked.”
The room exploded again.
Logan laughed beside me.
“You okay?”
Dean sighed dramatically.
“No.”
A pause.
“My entire detective career is over.”
“You didn’t have a detective career.”
Dean looked offended.
“I had a notes app.”
“That’s worse.”
And just like that, Logan’s secret girlfriend stopped being a secret.
Could Never Happen to Me - part II - Garrett x Logan!Reader
Author's note: This one jumps around a little bit, but I think it wraps up the story well. There is a lot of Logan and his sister. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger warnings: talks of abuse, therapy, harassment
Facing my new reality, that everyone knew about Holden was terrifying for me. I expect judgement, anger, disappointment. I prepared myself to answer the questions "Why didn't you leave?" "How could you stay?" But they don’t come. And honestly, I don’t know what to do with that.
My friends are nothing if not concerned, patient, and supportive. I forgot what it was like when they were a part of my everyday life. How did I leave this, for him? I came downstairs after a shower and they were all acting gentle around me, not pitying, just careful. And honestly, it hurt more. I wished that things were back to normal, the way they were before Holden, but honestly I didn’t remember how to be that girl anymore.
Between Garrett and Logan, I had everything I could need. Pain meds, water, food, etc. It was almost suffocating, but also nice to have someone taking care of me. It was like I could fully relax, knowing that they had everything under control.
Slowly, life found a rhythm. I needed time, space, and safety. And I found all three at the Hockey House. The first couple week, Logan insisted I stay there. He took the couch. When I had nightmares, I would sneak into Garrett’s room across the hall. There was never any judgement as he opened his arms and let me curl into his side.
As the next week approached, I decided it was time to go back to my apartment. Garrett drove me and helped me get rid of Holden’s things. He offered to stay the night, but I needed to do this myself. He made me promise to call him if I needed him, hesitating slightly before leaving and giving me my space.
I was leaving class the next day, when my entire body froze. Holden was there, holding two coffees.
“Can we talk?” he asked innocently.
“We have nothing to talk about,” I walked passed him towards the parking lot where I knew Garrett would be waiting for me.
"Y/n, you have to know I never meant for this to happen. It was all just a big misunderstanding. You know I love you."
“Holden. We are over. There is no chance of us getting back together. Please leave me alone.”
“Please, just talk to me. I promise I’ll-”
“Empty promises. You made them before, and look how that worked out for me.”
“Y/n-”
“Get the fuck away from her,” Garrett said sharply as he approached. I felt my shoulders relax as he angled himself between Holden and me.
“Awe. I see it now. You’re with him now, is that it? You were just using me, weren’t you?”
“Go away, Holden. I have nothing left to say to you.” I said, voice weaker than I care to admit.
He sneered at Garrett before walking away.
Garrett watched him walk out of eyesight and then turned to me, “Are you okay?”
I barely managed to shake my head before the tears came.
Garrett pulled me into his chest, holding me there and whispering comforting words in my ear. That night, I took him up on his offer to stay the night. He ordered my favorite food, frowned when I barely touched it, but didn’t push.
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, then the texts started coming in.
Holden: I can't eat.
Holden: I can't sleep.
Holden: You're destroying me.
Holden: Please give me one more chance.
I ignore them and put my phone away. Part of me knows I should just block him, but for some reason, I don’t.
Holden: You think you got Garrett, but he’ll get bored.
Holden: He’ll never love you like I did.
Holden: You’re nothing without me.
Logan catches his name on my screen and blocks him for me. He doesn’t give me some big lecture, just quietly takes care of it.
As the weeks turn into months, I start to realize how much I lost. I go to a hockey game with the girls, the boys all come up to us after the game. Everyone acts like I belong there. And I realize they never stopped loving me, even though I am the one who disappeared.
The following Monday, I start therapy, and Garrett insists on driving me. I am open and honest with the therapist about everything that happened, telling her about the fear the Holden still has over me and how I feel broken now. I tell her about the guilt and shame. About the nightmares and texts. I tell her about Logan and Garrett. All of it.
"Why do you think you stayed?"
I didn’t have an answer.
"What would you say to a friend in your situation?"
I couldn’t answer that either. But it made me realize that I wouldn’t blame someone else in my situation.
The therapist recommends that I look into a restraining order against Holden if he continues to harass me. She also suggests that further down the line, I might bring Logan in for a session. Ultimately, she gives me the homework of making a list of what I lost being in the relationship with Holden.
Garrett doesn’t ask questions when I climb into his jeep, just drives us back to my dorm.
“Do you want me to come up?”
“No, I think I’m going to call it a night. Thanks, G.”
Garrett Graham had become my safe place, and that terrified me.
Not because he'd done anything wrong.
Because he hadn't.
I didn't want him to feel like I was using him. I didn't want to become so dependent on another person that I forgot how to stand on my own again. After everything Holden had taken from me, the thought of needing someone—even someone as kind as Garrett—felt dangerous.
It was a strange dynamic.
When I woke up shaking from a nightmare, Garrett was the person I called.
When a panic attack stole the air from my lungs, he somehow knew exactly what to say.
If I had an early class, he'd show up with coffee and insist on walking me across campus. If it was late, he'd drive me home under the excuse that he didn't want me running into Holden by myself.
Somewhere along the way, sleeping alone had become the exception instead of the rule. There were nights I'd wake from another nightmare, and he'd simply lift the blanket without a word, letting me crawl into bed beside him. He never asked questions. Never expected anything. Sometimes he'd read while I fell back asleep. Sometimes we'd just lie there in silence until my breathing evened out.
Anyone looking in from the outside would've assumed we were dating.
We weren't.
At least... I didn't think we were.
Something had changed between us after my birthday. I felt it every time our eyes met a little too long. Every time his hand brushed mine. Every time he smiled because I'd laughed at something stupid Dean had said.
I couldn't put a name to it.
All I knew was that I looked forward to his texts more than I should. I smiled whenever his name lit up my phone. I relaxed the second he walked into a room.
And somehow, none of that scared him.
He never asked me what we were.
Never hinted that I owed him anything.
Never made me feel guilty when I needed space.
He was just... there.
Steady.
Patient.
Safe.
Maybe that was why my therapist spent more time asking about Garrett than she did about Holden during my next session.
"What do you feel when you're with him?"
I frowned.
"Safe."
She nodded.
"And how does that make you feel?"
I stared at her.
"I already answered."
She smiled gently.
"No. You told me how Garrett makes you feel. I'm asking how feeling safe makes you feel."
The question caught me completely off guard.
I opened my mouth.
Closed it again.
Finally, I whispered, "Scared."
"Why?"
"Because..." My hands twisted together in my lap. "The last time I trusted someone, he almost destroyed me."
She let the silence settle before asking, "Do you think trusting Garrett means you're giving him the same power Holden had?"
I didn't answer. Because I'd never considered that maybe those weren't the same thing. Maybe depending on someone wasn't the same as being controlled by them. Maybe there was a difference between someone making themselves your entire world… and someone simply refusing to let you face the dark alone.
This continued on, my new normal. My life was starting to feel like it was mine again.
I went to the Hockey game wearing Garrett’s hoodie, which Dean and Tucker made many jokes about. It was harmless, though. Logan was just glad I was going to the game.
The arena was loud in the way it always was on game night—pucks hitting sticks, skates carving ice, the low roar of the crowd building and collapsing in waves.
Garrett was on the line, stick steady, scanning the ice like he always did. Dean was talking to him mid-shift, some quick exchange I couldn’t hear but could imagine. Tucker hovered near the boards, ready for anything, like he always was.
They had no idea.
None of them did.
I didn’t notice at first. People came and went all the time.
But something in my stomach tightened anyway.
A feeling before thought.
Before recognition.
Someone sat a few rows up and to the side.
I didn’t look.
Not immediately.
Because I already knew.
My pulse changed before my head did.
Slow. Heavy. Wrong.
When I finally turned, Holden was sitting there like he belonged.
Like he had always belonged.
Like nothing had ever ended.
My breath caught so sharply it hurt.
He didn’t smile right away.
Just watched the ice.
Watched the game like he was appreciating it.
Then, casually, like he had just noticed me:
“Hey.”
My fingers went numb around my sleeve.
I looked back at the ice immediately, instinctively, like not acknowledging him might make him less real.
It didn’t.
Logan was still down there, completely unaware. Garrett too. Dean and Tucker circling through a line change, focused, laughing about something I couldn’t hear.
They were moving fast.
Too fast.
No one was looking up.
“No,” I said under my breath.
Holden leaned back slightly in his seat.
“I wasn’t going to come,” he said. “But I thought it might be nice. One last normal night.”
My throat tightened.
“There is no normal night,” I whispered.
That finally made him look at me fully.
Not angry.
Not yet.
Just patient.
Like I was the one being unreasonable.
“You’re upset,” he said softly. “I get it.”
My chest hurt at the familiarity of it; that tone used to work. It used to make everything inside me bend. But not anymore.
“Leave,” I said.
Holden didn’t move.
Down on the ice, Dean checked someone into the boards. The sound echoed through the arena. The crowd roared again.
Garrett took the puck.
Logan was calling for a pass.
None of them saw me.
Holden exhaled slowly.
“I just want to talk,” he said. “Two minutes.”
“No.”
That time, my voice didn’t shake.
It should’ve felt like power, but it felt like standing too close to the edge of something I couldn’t see yet.
Holden tilted his head slightly.
“You’re different,” he said.
“I’m not doing this,” I said.
“I think you are,” he said quietly.
Something in my chest went cold.
“Don’t,” I warned.
Holden finally smiled.
Small.
Controlled.
“I’m not the one making a scene,” he said.
Down below, Garrett lifted his stick, intercepting a pass. Logan moved in fast, skating hard up ice. Dean followed.
The arena erupted again.
I flinch.
“Relax,” he said lightly. “I’m just watching the game.”
But he wasn’t.
And I knew it.
“What do you want, Holden?” I said it before I could talk myself out of it. My voice came out quieter than I intended, swallowed half by the noise of the arena, but I knew he heard me. I could feel it in the way he shifted slightly toward me.
The ice roared below us—another rush, another hit, someone shouting Logan’s name as he cut across center ice.
Holden didn’t look at the game this time.
Just me.
“That’s a better question,” he said.
My stomach tightened.
“Answer it,” I said.
A pause.
He studied me like he was weighing something. Not urgency. Not anger. Control.
“I want you to stop acting like I’m some mistake you can erase,” he said finally.
My jaw clenched.
“I didn’t erase you,” I said. “I broke up with you after you abused me repeatedly. Even after I broke up with you, you continued to harass me. So I blocked you. Take the hint.”
Something flickered in his eyes at that—quick, sharp, offended—but it smoothed out just as fast.
“I didn’t come here to argue,” he said. “I came because you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’m not doing this. You need to leave before I call for security,” I said again, firmer.
Holden leaned back, spreading his hands slightly like he was being reasonable.
“No.”
My pulse picked up.
“You can’t just show up and act like nothing happened,” I said, voice tighter now. “You don’t get to—”
“Don’t get to what?” he interrupted softly.
The question wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
Because it landed exactly where he wanted it to—inside my hesitation.
I swallowed. I didn’t have an answer, and the fear was starting to consume me.
That time, his expression changed just enough to show the edge underneath. Then he tilted his head slightly, eyes drifting past me again.
“To them, I’m just a guy watching hockey.”
My blood ran cold.
Below us, Logan passed the puck without looking up. Garrett was already transitioning. Dean and Tucker were talking mid-play like everything was normal.
“But you,” he said quietly, “know I’m here.”
My chest tightened painfully.
“I told you to leave,” I said.
A beat.
Then he smiled again.
“You always were good at telling people what to do when you felt guilty,” he said.
My breath caught.
That old rhythm again. Twist. Redirect. Make it about me.
I shook my head once, hard.
“Stop,” I said.
Holden didn’t react.
He just watched the ice for a second, then said, almost casually:
“You think they’d notice if I went down there?”
Everything in me froze.
“What?”
He nodded toward the tunnel.
“I mean,” he continued, like we were discussing weather, “if I went down, stood by the glass, said hi to Logan after the game… would he notice something’s off?”
My throat went dry.
My voice dropped.
“Don’t.”
Holden finally looked at me again.
And for the first time since he sat down—
There was no softness in it.
Just certainty.
“I’m not doing anything,” he said.
A pause.
Then, quieter:
“I’m just reminding you I can.”
The ice erupted below us again—Garrett scoring this time, the arena exploding in sound, players colliding in celebration.
I stopped breathing and Holden just sat there beside me like he hadn’t said anything at all.
And suddenly I’m right back in that kitchen, shaking, terrified, ashamed, helpless.
Except I’m not alone I remind myself, and he’s not in control anymore. I stand up and walk away.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” he said louder than he intended gaining unwanted attention from the people around us.
I didn’t look back, simply walked up to the nearest security guard
“That man in the black and red shirt threatened me and is threatening to pick a fight with the Briar players after the game. I’m John Logan’s sister. And that man’s name is Holden…”
The officer walkies for backup before escorting me outside the boys’ locker room, where I completely crumple. Holden is escorted away from the arena.
The hallway outside the locker room was quieter than the arena, but it didn’t feel calmer. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I kept them wrapped around my sleeves, like that could hold me together.
The security guard had spoken into his radio in clipped, practiced words. Backup. Escort. Disruptive individual. My name. Logan’s name.
Everything sounded too far away to belong to me. Then the door at the end of the hall slammed open.
The game that I had long forgotten was over. A bunch of the players I vaguely recognized filed into the locker room. Then Logan. Still in full gear. Helmet half off, hair damp with sweat, chest rising fast as he’d skated straight through every wall between the ice and me.
His eyes locked onto me immediately.
“Hey,” he said, voice sharp. “Hey—what happened?”
I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
That was all it took, his face changed.
Behind him, Garrett appeared next, still pulling his gloves off. Dean right behind him, then Tucker.
All of them stopped at once when they saw me.
Garrett’s expression dropped first.
“What happened?” he said again, but quieter this time.
My throat tightened so hard it hurt.
“He was here,” I said.
Logan blinked once.
“What?”
I swallowed.
“Holden. He was in the stands.”
Silence.
Dean’s jaw clenched so hard I could hear it.
Tucker stopped moving completely.
Garrett took one step forward.
“Did he touch you?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, he didn’t—he just—he was talking to me and I—”
My voice cracked.
“I left.”
That landed differently.
Logan’s shoulders dropped slightly, like he’d been bracing for impact that never came.
“You left?” he repeated.
I nodded.
“I told security. They took him out.”
Another silence.
Then Dean exhaled a sharp, disbelieving laugh.
“Good.”
Garrett didn’t laugh.
He looked past me for a second, toward the arena doors, like he could still see him through the walls.
Then back to me.
“You did the right thing,” he said immediately.
My chest tightened.
“I shouldn’t have even been near him,” I whispered.
Logan shook his head once.
“No,” he said, firm. “Don’t start that.”
I looked down at the floor, because that was exactly where my brain wanted to go.
What if I had frozen again? What if he had done something worse before I moved?
Garrett stepped closer.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
I looked up.
His eyes were steady, but something inside them was tight—contained.
“You’re here,” he said. “You’re safe. That’s what matters.”
My breath hitched.
That word—safe—felt unfamiliar in my chest, my body didn’t know what to do with it.
Logan ran a hand through his hair, pacing once, agitated.
“I want him charged,” he said suddenly.
“Logan—” I started.
“No,” he cut in immediately. “Don’t. Not this time.”
Dean nodded once.
“Yeah,” he said. “That guy doesn’t get to just walk in here and—”
“Guys,” I interrupted, sharper than I meant.
All of them looked at me.
“I just…” My voice faltered. “I just don’t want this to get bigger than it already is.”
That made Logan stop.
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then his voice softened.
“It already is big,” he said.
My eyes burned instantly.
Garrett stepped closer again, careful this time.
“Hey,” he said. “You don’t have to manage what happens next. That’s not on you.”
My throat tightened.
But my brain still couldn’t let go of it.
Because somewhere underneath everything else—
Under the fear, under the adrenaline, under the shaking—
There was still that old reflex.
Fix it. Control it. Make sure no one gets hurt because of you.
Logan seemed to see that in my face.
He sighed.
“Look at me,” he said.
I did.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “You understand me?”
My lips trembled.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“He came here.”
Not blame, just fact.
“He made a choice,” Logan continued. “Not you.”
My eyes filled again before I could stop it.
Garrett shifted slightly beside him.
“You did exactly what you were supposed to do,” he said. “You got out. You got help.”
My breath stuttered.
“I didn’t think,” I admitted quietly. “I just moved.”
Dean let out a low breath.
“That’s the best kind of thinking,” he muttered.
A beat.
Then Tucker, softly:
“Security’s got him off property.”
That finally made something in my chest unclench, just a little.
Not relief.
Not yet.
But space.
Logan exhaled slowly.
“Okay,” he said. “Good.”
Then he looked at me again, really looked.
“You okay?”
I almost said yes.
Old instinct.
Automatic.
But I didn’t.
Because I wasn’t.
Not fully.
So I shook my head instead.
“No.”
That honesty made Logan’s expression shift—something protective, immediate.’
“You will be.”
Garrett looked at me for a second longer than the others.
Then, quieter than everything else:
“You did good.”
“You guys should go shower. I’ll wait out here until you're done.”
They looked at eachother, hesitating, but finally moved into the locker room.
“Do you want me to call the police?” the security guard asked.
Everything inside me screamed no, but I managed to nod.
Within 10 minutes, there were officers. Two of them. Calm voices. Controlled steps. One of them asked me to come sit somewhere quieter.
They took my statement, and honestly, it sounded ridiculous when I said it out loud. I started with tonight, then explained the texts, my birthday, the months of our relationship.
They wrote everything down, asking clarifying questions occasionally.
“Did he make any physical contact with you tonight?” she asked as I finished.
“No.”
“He threatened my brother. But I left before it escalated further.”
Okay,” she said. “I’m going to explain the next steps, alright?”
My stomach dropped.
She explained it carefully—restraining order process, documentation, filing with the court, temporary protection, what a judge would review. She used words like petition, affidavit, hearing date.
None of them felt real in my mouth when I tried to repeat them.
“What happens to him?”
“That depends on the judge,” she said. “But a temporary order can be granted quickly if there’s an immediate risk.”
“I don’t want this to get bigger,” I said, voice barely there.
The officer slid a second form forward.
“This is the petition,” she said. “You’ll need to sign it if you want to proceed tonight. It requests that he be ordered to stay away from you, your residence, your school, and any known locations—including events like this.”
My eyes flicked up at her.
“That means—”
“He won’t be allowed here,” she confirmed.
A pause.
Then quieter:
“Or anywhere near you.”
I stared at the paper. At the line where my name went. At the moment everything became permanent in a way I couldn’t undo later.
My hand hovered over the pen.
I thought about Holden sitting in the arena. About the first version of him I ever met. About how something so small had slowly turned into something that made my whole world shrink.
I signed.
The ink spread across the paper like it had been waiting for me to stop pretending.
The officer took it immediately.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll submit this for an emergency temporary restraining order tonight. A judge will review it as soon as possible.”
She paused, then added:
“You did the right thing coming forward.”
I didn’t respond to that.
Because it didn’t feel like right.
It felt like survival.
She opened the door to reveal the four boys sitting in seats and hoodies just waiting.
The officers explained everything to them, answering their questions, and then they left.
My knees felt weak. Garrett and Logan walked on either side of me. Dean and Tucker were close behind. Nobody spoke for a while.
Then Logan finally said: “He’s not coming near you again.”
I almost laughed at that, but it got stuck halfway up my throat.
I went to sleep in Logan’s room, just like I had on my birthday. I felt like I should feel relieved, like this was finally over, but I was instead filled with dread.
The next day, I had my weekly therapy session. This was the session Logan had agreed to attend with me. I spent the first twenty minutes updating my therapist about everything that had happened with Holden at the arena and everything that the police had said. She asked how it made me feel, and despite my brother being in the room, I answered honestly.
“I feel like everything I start to put all of this behind me, I’m blindsided and reminded that it is who I am now. Like I don’t get to move on, I’ll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Logan started to say something, but my therapist raised her hand, signalling for him to wait.
“Why did you get the security guard involved last night?”
“Holden threatened Logan and Garrett and I knew if he went down their they’d get into a fight. He could charge them with assault, they could get hurt, or they could hurt their hockey careers. I couldn’t let him do that.”
Logan shifted uncomfortably.
“Why was Holden threatening you not enough to get security involved, but once he threatened those you care about, you didn’t hesitate?”
I don’t have an answer again.
“Okay, let’s shift our focus to Logan. Thank you for joining us today. I want to start by asking you to describe your sister.”
Logan blinked once. The question had caught him off guard in a way he hadn’t prepared for. He shifted slightly in his chair, glancing at me for half a second before looking back at the therapist.
“My sister,” he repeated, “She’s… stubborn,” he said first, almost like it was obvious. A faint, strained smile flickered and disappeared just as fast. “Like, annoyingly stubborn. The kind where you know she’s hurting, and she’ll still tell you she’s fine because she thinks she has to be.”
My throat tightened immediately.
He kept going anyway.
“She’s also… the smartest person I know. Like, she’ll downplay it, but she notices everything.”
He hesitated, like he was choosing words carefully now.
“She takes care of people before she takes care of herself. Always has.”
I stared at my hands.
Because hearing it like that—plain, unfiltered—felt different than living it. It felt heavier.
Logan swallowed.
“She’s my little sister,” he added quietly, “so I guess I’ve always thought it was my job to protect her. And I didn’t. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks,” he said, voice tighter now. “Like… replaying everything. Over and over.”
My stomach sank slightly at the shift in his tone.
Logan wasn’t looking at me anymore.
He was looking somewhere past me.
“Every time you said you were busy,” he continued. “Every time you bailed on dinner. On games. On hanging out. I just… let it happen.”
“Logan,” I started quietly.
He shook his head once.
“No. Let me finish.”
That stopped me.
Because he didn’t say it like a request, he said it like something he needed to get out before it crushed him.
“I kept telling myself it was school,” he said. “Or stress. Or that you were just… changing. Growing up. Whatever excuse made it easier. And I thought I was respecting your space. I thought I was doing the right thing by not being an ‘overbearing brother.’”
He finally looked at me then.
And there it was.
Guilt.
“I should’ve known,” he said quietly.
My chest tightened immediately.
The therapist leaned forward slightly. “What makes you say that?”
Logan let out a short laugh that had no humor in it at all. “Because I know her better than anyone,” he said, nodding toward me. “If anyone should’ve caught on to what was going on it should’ve been me, and I missed all of it.”
Silence pressed into the room.
I could feel my own emotions trying to rise—defensive, sad, protective—but Logan kept going before I could interrupt again.
“I keep thinking,” he said, voice lower now, “if I had just… pushed a little harder. If I had shown up more. If I had ignored whatever excuse she gave me and just—taken her out of it for one night—”
His throat tightened.
“I could’ve stopped it before it got bad.”
That was the word that did it.
Stopped.
Like it was something he had control over. Like love could override someone else’s manipulation if it was just strong enough. I leaned forward slightly.
“No,” I said, sharper than I intended.
Logan blinked like he hadn’t expected me to interrupt him.
I swallowed, trying again more carefully.
“No,” I repeated. “You don’t get to do that.”
His brow furrowed faintly.
“Do what?”
“Turn this into something you could’ve prevented,” I said.
My voice wavered, but I forced it steady.
“You didn’t miss it because you didn’t care. You missed it because I was hiding it. From everyone.”
The therapist watched both of us carefully, but didn’t step in.
I turned fully toward Logan now.
“I picked what you saw,” I said. “I picked the version of me that smiled and said ‘school’s crazy’ and then went back to him and pretended nothing was wrong.”
Logan shook his head slightly.
“That’s not—”
“It is,” I cut in, softer this time. “Because I was scared. And I thought if you knew, it would get worse.”
His eyes flickered at that.
Something cracked behind them.
“I kept thinking about you,” I admitted. “About how angry you’d be. How you’d look at him. How you’d—” I stopped myself, breath catching. “And I couldn’t handle what that would turn into.”
Logan went still.
For the first time, his guilt didn’t look like self-blame.
It looked like understanding landing too late.
“You were protecting me,” he said quietly.
It wasn’t a question.
I nodded once.
“That’s what I told myself” I whispered, “It was NEVER about protecting Holden, I promise.”
That did something to him.
His shoulders dropped slightly, like he’d been holding himself too rigid for too long.
“I hate that,” he admitted.
My chest tightened.
“I know.”
A beat.
Then he added, quieter:
“I hate that you thought you had to.”
Silence settled again, but different this time.
Less like pressure.
More like space.
The therapist spoke gently.
“Logan, I want to reflect something back to you,” she said. “What you’re describing is a very common trauma response in loved ones—retrospective guilt. The mind tries to create control after the fact by rewriting what ‘should have been possible.’”
Logan didn’t look away from me.
“So I just… accept it?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “You process it. But you don’t build your identity around it.”
Logan rubbed his hands together once, like he was trying to steady himself.
The therapist turned back to me.
“And you,” she said gently, “you’ve been carrying a lot of responsibility for other people’s reactions. That’s something we’re going to work on.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “That sounds… accurate.”
Logan let out a short, humorless laugh.
“Understatement of the year,” he muttered.
I almost smiled at that.
The therapist glanced between us.
“This question is for both of you.”
We both looked up.
“When you think about what happens next… what do you need from each other?”
Logan spoke first.
“I need you to stop disappearing,” he said quietly. “Even when it feels easier.”
Then he added, softer:
“And I need to know you’re safe.”
My throat burned.
I nodded once, because if I tried to speak, I wasn’t sure I could.
The therapist turned to me.
“And you?”
I stared at Logan for a second.
At my brother.
At the person who had been standing too far outside my life while I was drowning in it.
“I need you to stop blaming yourself,” I said finally. “Because I already did enough of that for both of us. And I need to know you aren’t going to throw your future away for me.”
Logan’s eyes flickered.
Something in him cracked just slightly at that.
Not in a bad way.
The therapist nodded slowly.
“That’s a good place to start,” she said “Last thing for today, Y/n I want you to describe Logan to me.”
I glanced at Logan.
He shifted in his chair, like he suddenly didn’t know what to do with being observed instead of observing.
I swallowed.
“Logan is good,” I said first, quietly. Then it steadied as I went on. “He’s honest, kind, loyal, and generous. The type of person who would give you the shirt off his back without thinking twice.”
A faint, almost embarrassed exhale left him.
I didn’t stop.
“He has an incredible work ethic. I’ve always looked up to him because he makes the best out of any situation he’s in.”
My voice softened slightly.
“He brings out the best in people.”
I kept going anyway.
“He’s never let the cards he was dealt change him.”
Silence followed.
The therapist didn’t speak immediately. She just let it sit there.
Logan shifted slightly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.
“That’s…” he started, then stopped, like he didn’t trust his own voice for a second.
He cleared his throat.
“That’s not how I feel right now.”
My chest tightened a little.
The therapist tilted her head slightly. “What do you feel right now, Logan?”
He let out a slow breath, eyes dropping to the floor.
“Like I didn’t do enough,” he said honestly.
“Logan, can I offer something?”
He gave a small nod.
“What you’re describing is a very human response to helplessness,” she said. “You’re trying to turn love into control over the past. But what your sister described—what you are—is someone who showed up when it mattered most.”
Logan’s jaw flexed.
“That feels late,” he admitted.
“I didn’t say those things about you because I feel guilty,” I said quietly, “I said them because they’re true.”
That time, he didn’t argue.
He just stared at me for a second, like he was trying to memorize the version of this moment where I still saw him clearly.
“I don’t want you to think you have to take care of me through this,” he said.
A small, tired smile tugged at my mouth.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just not letting you rewrite yourself either.”
That made something in him shift.
The therapist nodded once, like she’d been waiting for exactly that balance to appear.
“That’s a very important boundary,” she said gently. “On both sides.”
And the space between us finally felt like what it actually was again.
Siblings.
Not rescuer and victim.
Not failure and aftermath.
Just… us.
The conversation continued in the car, and slowly, our relationship started to rebuild itself.
Weeks passed in a way that didn’t feel like a straight line.
More like uneven steps forward, occasional pauses, and the rare day where I didn’t think about looking over my shoulder.
The restraining order went through quickly.
Faster than I expected.
Faster than my nervous system seemed willing to accept.
There were still moments I flinched at noises too sharp or footsteps too close behind me, but they didn’t spiral the way they used to.
They passed.
Time passed.
The championship game had finally come to an end. The arena had emptied almost an hour ago. The roar of the crowd had faded into the distant hum of cleaning crews and the occasional scrape of equipment being packed away. The locker room doors swung open one by one as the boys filtered out, saying their goodbyes before heading home.
Dean pointed between Garrett and me with an exaggerated grin.
"Don't stay too late, lovebirds."
"Oh my God," I groaned.
Garrett threw a towel at him.
"Get out."
Dean laughed all the way down the hallway.
One by one, they disappeared until it was just us.
I leaned against the concrete wall outside the locker room, still wearing Garrett's jersey. It hung almost to the middle of my thighs, sleeves swallowing my hands. His number was painted across my cheek in fading blue.
He looked at me and smiled.
God… that smile still did something to me.
"Look at you."
With a grin, he spun me in a slow circle. He admired his work.
"People are going to think you're my girlfriend dressed like that."
He chuckled.
"Would that be such a bad thing?"
The words left my mouth before I could overthink them.
Garrett froze.
Not dramatically.
Just...
Stopped.
His smile faded into something much softer.
His eyes searched mine.
"...What?"
I suddenly became fascinated by the floor.
"I mean..."
Great. Excellent recovery.
I sighed.
He didn't interrupt.
Didn't rush to fill the silence.
He never did.
I looked back up.
"When everything happened with Holden..."
My fingers tightened around his.
"I didn't know who I was anymore."
He stayed quiet.
"I didn't trust myself. I questioned every decision. I apologized for things that weren't my fault."
My voice shook.
"I kept waiting for you to get tired of me."
His face immediately fell.
"Y/n—"
"I know."
The words settled between us.
"You never asked me for anything. You never tried to fix me. You never pushed me before I was ready."
A tear slipped free.
"You just…kept showing up."
Garrett swallowed hard.
"You walked me to class. You sat outside therapy. You answered every phone call. You held me when I couldn't stop crying. You celebrated every little victory like I'd won the Stanley Cup."
His eyes were beginning to shine now.
"I don't think you even realize what you gave me."
I stepped closer.
"You gave me myself back."
Silence.
Real silence.
The kind that doesn't need filling.
"I spent months thinking love meant earning someone's approval. You taught me it wasn't supposed to hurt."
Garrett looked like he couldn't breathe.
"I like who I am when I'm with you. I laugh more. I sleep. I don't second-guess every sentence. I feel...safe."
His eyes closed briefly.
Like hearing that meant everything.
"I didn't think I'd ever feel that again."
He opened them.
Neither of us moved.
"I've spent months making choices because I was afraid. So I want this one to be different."
I squeezed his hands.
"I'm choosing you. Garrett Graham. The boy that I am undeniably in love with."
Garrett actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because he looked completely overwhelmed.
"You have absolutely no idea..."
He stopped, shaking his head.
"No."
He smiled.
"You deserve to hear this right."
He stepped closer until we were barely inches apart.
"I've loved you for a long time."
My heart skipped.
"But I would've waited a year, ten years, as long as you needed."
I answered by closing the distance between us.
The kiss wasn't desperate or consuming. There were no fireworks. No chaos. No uncertainty.
A beginning instead of a rescue.
When we finally pulled apart, Garrett rested his forehead against mine again.
"I've wanted to do that forever."
"I know."
"You did?"
I smiled.
"Dean is a terrible secret keeper."
Garrett groaned.
"I knew it."
I laughed for what felt like the thousandth time since meeting him.
Real laughter.
The kind that reached my eyes.
Months ago, I thought surviving Holden would be the hardest thing I'd ever do.
I was wrong.
Learning to trust again had been harder.
Learning to trust myself had been the hardest of all.
Garrett hadn't saved me.
No one could have.
I saved myself the day I decided I deserved more.
He had simply been there every step of the way, holding the flashlight until I found my own way out.
Author's Note: That's a wrap, folks. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Warnings: Cemetery.
People liked to joke that Beau had the last laugh.
Dean couldn't even argue.
Six months after showing up at your dorm with red eyes and a heart finally ready to heal, the two of you officially started dating.
Dean smiled more these days.
Not because he missed Beau any less.
But because he'd finally learned those two things could exist at the same time.
Life kept moving.
Graduation came.
Careers followed.
The hockey house became apartments. Then houses.
The late-night pizza runs turned into backyard barbecues.
The boys who once argued over whose turn it was to buy toilet paper now debated lawn mowers, mortgages, and whose kid had learned the funniest new word.
And through it all… Beau was never forgotten. It still hurt sometimes. It probably always would.
But eventually...the memories made everyone laugh more than they cried.
Three years later...
The cemetery looked different in the spring. The trees were full again, and wildflowers had begun pushing through the grass.
Dean carried a small bouquet of blue and red flowers in one hand. His other hand was wrapped around yours.
A little boy bounced excitedly between the two of you, trying very hard to walk like a big kid instead of asking to be carried.
He had Dean's smile, your eyes, and an endless supply of curiosity.
"Daddy?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"Are we almost there?"
Dean smiled.
"We're here."
The three of you stopped in front of a familiar headstone.
Dean crouched beside your son.
"Remember how Mommy and I told you about my best friend?"
The little boy nodded enthusiastically.
"The football player!"
You laughed softly.
"That's right."
Dean looked at the headstone before looking back at his son.
"This is him."
Your little boy tilted his head, studying the engraved name with all the seriousness only a child could manage.
"So..."
He looked up.
"This is Beau?"
Dean swallowed.
"Yeah."
The little boy smiled brightly.
"Hi, Beau! My name is Beau too. Just like you."
Your eyes immediately filled with tears.
Dean laughed quietly beside you.
Your son looked around the quiet cemetery.
"Can he hear us?"
Dean glanced at you before answering.
"I like to think so."
The little boy nodded as though that settled the matter.
"I brought you something."
He reached into the pocket of his tiny jacket and carefully placed a smooth blue marble at the base of the headstone.
"My favorite."
You looked at Dean.
Neither of you had told him to do that.
Dean blinked rapidly.
"That's very kind, buddy."
The little boy beamed proudly.
Then he looked up at his father.
Dean smiled through the tears gathering in his eyes.
"Because before you were ever born...this was one of the best men I've ever known. He taught me what loyalty looked like. He made people laugh when they needed it most. He loved his family with everything he had."
Dean looked over at you.
"And he introduced me to the woman I'd spend the rest of my life loving."
You smiled, your own tears spilling freely now.
Dean looked back at his son.
"He was my favorite person, and I loved him, and I loved you before you were even born, so we gave you his name.”
He gently placed a hand over the little boy's heart. Your son considered that for a moment before nodding solemnly.
"Okay."
A beat later, he looked back at the headstone.
"I think you would've liked my dinosaur pajamas."
You laughed.
Dean laughed.
For one perfect moment, it felt exactly like Beau was standing beside them, grinning at the ridiculousness of it all.
Dean slipped his arm around your waist.
You leaned into him instinctively.
The little boy reached up and grabbed both of your hands.
Three hearts.
Bound forever by one extraordinary friend.
As the three of you turned to leave, Dean looked back one last time.
"Thanks, Beau."
The breeze rustled through the trees.
Somewhere in the back of Dean's mind, he could almost hear the familiar response.
About time, idiot.
Dean smiled.
"Yeah."
Then, hand in hand with his wife and the little boy who carried his best friend's name, he walked toward the life Beau had always wanted for him.
Author's Note: Spoilers for the third book (The Score). Reader is a cheerleader, but it is only mentioned a couple of times. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger Warnings: character death, grief, mentions of drug/alcohol abuse.
The next morning, you didn't bring him coffee. You didn't stop by after class. You didn't show up with your gym bag slung over your shoulder to drag him to his workout.
If Dean wanted space...
You would respect that.
Even if it hurt.
Dean kept doing everything you'd helped him build. He went to class. He made it to the gym. He even started skating with the guys again. From the outside, it looked like he'd finally found his footing.
But the house felt different. The routines stayed, but the warmth left with you.
Dean noticed it too. Every morning he'd glance toward the front door around the time you usually arrived with coffee. Every afternoon, he'd find himself listening for your laugh without realizing it. Every evening, he'd check his phone. You never texted. Because you were giving him exactly what he'd asked for.
Space.
It was somehow worse than if you'd been angry.
When the days turned into a week, Garrett decided he had to do something. You found him sitting in the stands after one of your practices.
"You okay?" he asked.
"That depends on your definition of okay."
Neither of you spoke for a minute.
Finally, he broke the silence.
"I don't know what happened," he admitted. "But I want you to know... we're here for you too."
You looked over at him.
"You showed up for Dean," he continued. "But somewhere along the way, you started showing up for all of us."
A small smile found its way onto your face.
"Thanks, G."
He nudged your shoulder.
"Want to talk about it?"
You looked down at your hands.
"There isn't really anything to talk about."
A shrug.
"He wanted space."
Garrett stayed quiet.
"And..." You swallowed. "I guess he doesn't need me anymore."
Garrett's eyebrows pulled together.
"Y/n..."
"I know how that sounds."
"I don’t think it’s about that."
You looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
Garrett hesitated.
Long enough that you knew he was choosing his words carefully.
"I don't think he meant to push you away."
Your stomach tightened.
"He has my number, Garrett."
Your voice stayed calm, even though your chest ached.
"He knows where I live. He knows my class schedule."
A humorless smile crossed your face.
"I haven't heard a word from him in a week."
Garrett nodded slowly, like he'd expected exactly that answer.
"He's scared," he said quietly.
You looked out across the empty field.
"He's allowed to be."
Another pause.
"But I'm not going to push him. Not on this."
Garrett sighed.
"You're probably the first person who's made him want something besides surviving."
Your eyes flicked back to him.
"And that's exactly what scares him."
You sat with that for a long moment.
Then you stood, slinging your bag over your shoulder.
"When he's ready..." you said softly, "...he knows where to find me."
Garrett watched you walk away.
He had a feeling Dean was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
Dean was halfway through his second set on the bench press when Garrett walked into the campus gym. He didn't say hello. He didn't even grab a weight. He simply stood at the end of the bench with his arms crossed.
"Need a spot?" Dean asked.
"No."
Dean finished the rep, racked the bar, and sat up, something in Garrett's expression made his stomach sink.
"What?"
Garrett didn't dance around it.
"I saw Y/n after practice."
Dean froze.
"Oh."
"Yeah," Garrett said flatly. "Oh."
Dean grabbed his water bottle, taking a drink mostly to avoid the conversation.
Garrett wasn't letting him.
"She thinks you don't need her anymore."
Dean closed his eyes.
"...She said that?"
"Not exactly." Garrett shrugged. "She said you wanted space, and she's respecting it."
Dean looked at the floor.
"She hasn't texted."
Garrett stared at him.
"You haven't texted her either."
Dean didn't answer.
"You've spent the last week checking your phone every five minutes like you're expecting her to magically read your mind."
Dean looked up sharply.
"I don't—"
"You do."
Silence.
Garrett sighed.
"I've lived with you for four years, Dean. I know you."
Another silence settled between them.
Dean twisted the cap on his water bottle until his knuckles turned white.
"I don't know what happened," Garrett admitted. "One minute you're looking at her like she's the best thing that's happened to you since..." He stopped himself. "And the next you're pretending she doesn't exist."
Dean swallowed.
"That’s not fair.”
Garrett stepped closer.
"Isn’t it? Because from where I'm standing, she spent weeks putting your life back together."
Dean flinched.
"She dragged your ass out of bed, got you caught up in school, got you back in the gym, she got you talking again."
Dean looked away. "Stop."
"You’ve smiled, laughed-"
"Garrett."
"You started living again."
"I said stop."
Garrett did.
Only because Dean's voice had cracked.
The gym suddenly felt too quiet. Dean sat on the edge of the bench, elbows on his knees, breathing harder than he had during his workout.
Garrett waited.
Eventually... Dean spoke, "I don't want to love her. I don’t like what it means for me."
The words barely rose above a whisper.
Garrett tilted his head. "What is it supposed to mean?"
Dean laughed once, but there wasn't an ounce of humor in it.
"It means..." He rubbed both hands over his face. "It means I have something to lose again."
He stared at the rubber floor.
"And I'm not strong enough for that anymore."
The words hung between them.
Dean's mind betrayed him instantly.
Beau's grin. His laugh. Their birthday. Goose and Maverick.
The phone call. The funeral. Everything after.
It all hit him in one brutal wave.
"I couldn't save Beau," Dean whispered.
Garrett's expression softened.
"You couldn't have."
"But he's still gone."
"I know."
Dean shook his head.
"If I let her in..."
His voice disappeared.
Garrett finished the sentence for him.
"...Then she could leave too."
Dean nodded.
There it was.
Not heartbreak.
Not rejection.
Loss.
Pure, paralyzing loss.
Garrett crouched so they were eye level.
"What happened to Beau was horrible and I know part of you is always going to carry that grief."
A long silence followed.
"But you know what Beau would hate?"
Dean finally looked at him.
"This. The guilt you've been dragging around like it's some kind of debt you owe him."
Dean's jaw tightened.
"You think punishing yourself keeps him close? It doesn't. It just keeps you miserable."
Dean looked away again.
Garrett continued more gently.
"Beau loved you."
A tear escaped before Dean could stop it.
"He would want you to have a life."
Another tear.
"He would've wanted you to fall in love."
Dean let out a shaky breath.
"He loved Y/n like a second sister,"
A broken laugh escaped Dean.
"I’m honestly surprised that he didn’t set the two of you up himself."
That actually made Dean smile through the tears.
They both laughed quietly.
Garrett let the silence settle before speaking again.
"You can't keep pushing her away, Dean."
Dean's smile disappeared.
"Because she might not keep coming back."
Those words landed harder than anything else Garrett had said. He'd told himself he wanted space. Now all he felt was the emptiness she'd left behind.
Garrett stood.
"You've spent months afraid of losing someone."
He picked up his gym bag.
"But if you keep doing this..."
He looked back at Dean.
"...you're going to."
Garrett walked away.
Dean sat in the gym until it closed. He got in his car and started driving.
He hadn't planned on coming here.
He'd found himself pulling into the cemetery parking lot, cutting the engine without really thinking about it.
The walk to Beau's grave felt familiar, even though he hadn't been there since the funeral.
He stopped in front of the headstone, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie as he stared down at the engraved letters.
For a long time, he didn't say anything.
He just stood there.
Anger hit him first.
Hot. Immediate.
Beau should've been here.
He should've been complaining about football workouts starting back up. Giving Dean shit for missing an easy goal. Arguing with Tucker over something stupid. Calling his sister just to annoy her. Graduating. Falling in love. Getting married someday. Becoming the incredible dad Dean knew he'd be.
None of that was ever going to happen.
The anger dissolved as quickly as it came, leaving behind the familiar ache that had settled into his chest the day he'd lost his best friend.
It was still there.
It always would be.
Dean scrubbed a hand over his face.
"I don't know how to do this without you."
His voice cracked.
"I feel like I'm fucking everything up."
Silence.
Then, almost instinctively, another voice answered in his head.
Not Beau's.
Not really.
Just...
The version of Beau that had lived inside him for years.
The one who'd never let Dean take himself too seriously.
You probably are.
Dean let out a wet laugh, shaking his head.
"Yeah..."
He looked down at the grass.
"I fucking miss you, man."
Look at you.
Dean could almost picture the grin.
You big sap.
A tear escaped despite his laugh.
"You would've made fun of me for crying."
Absolutely.
Dean smiled through the tears.
"You were such an asshole."
And yet, you loved me anyway.
"I did."
The words came so easily.
Because they were true.
"I still do."
The breeze stirred the trees overhead, carrying with it a quiet that somehow didn't feel so empty anymore.
Dean took a slow breath.
"There's this girl..."
He laughed softly.
"You already know her."
Another smile found its way onto his face.
"Actually, it's Y/n."
He shook his head.
"I swear you had something to do with this."
A memory surfaced before he could stop it.
Beau pointing between the two of them from the couch.
"You'd actually be good for each other."
Dean had called him delusional.
God.
Beau would've never let him live that down.
Dean smiled wider.
"She's one of the only people who misses you the way I do."
His throat tightened.
"We don't have to explain why today hurts."
"We don't have to explain why certain songs make us cry."
"We remember the same stories."
He swallowed.
"And she saved me."
The admission settled over him with surprising peace.
"She walked into that house when everyone else had given up on reaching me."
"She dragged me back to myself."
His eyes filled again.
"I think..."
He laughed under his breath.
"No."
He corrected himself.
"I know I'm in love with her."
Another quiet smile.
"So..."
He glanced at the headstone.
"Thanks."
Almost immediately, his own memory supplied Beau's response.
Took you long enough.
Dean laughed, wiping at his eyes.
"You really would've been unbearable about this."
Damn right.
The smile faded into something softer.
"Beau..."
His voice grew quiet again.
"I'm sorry."
He looked down at the carved name.
"I hate that you're not here."
"I hate that you don't get the future you wanted."
"The wife."
"The kids."
"Coaching football on Saturdays."
"The cookouts."
"I hate that none of us get that with you."
He took a shaky breath.
"I know you'd tell me to quit feeling guilty."
Another breath.
"And I know you'd tell me to keep living."
Dean rested his fingertips against the cool stone.
"So that's what I'm going to do."
His voice was steady now.
"I'm going to love her."
"I'm going to let the guys be there for me."
"I'm going to laugh without feeling like I'm betraying you."
His eyes burned one last time.
"But don't think for a second that means I'm leaving you behind."
A small smile returned.
"You've been with me through every important moment of my life."
He patted the top of the headstone gently.
"And I plan on keeping it that way."
Dean stood there for another minute, letting the silence settle around him.
For the first time since the funeral...
Visiting Beau didn't feel like saying goodbye.
It felt like checking in with an old friend.
When he finally turned to leave, the hole in his chest was still there.
It probably always would be.
But for the first time, it didn't feel empty.
It felt full of memories.
And somehow...
That made walking away a little easier.
By the time he reached campus, it was nearly dark. His feet carried him toward your dorm before he'd consciously decided where he was going. The lights in your room were on. For a moment, he almost turned around. The fear was still there. But underneath it...there was something stronger.
Hope.
He climbed the steps before he could lose his nerve. Three quiet knocks.He heard movement inside. The door opened. Your eyes widened.
"Dean?"
He looked exhausted. Eyes red. Hair a mess from running his hands through it too many times.
"I owe you an apology."
You didn't say anything.
"I've spent the last week convincing myself I was protecting myself."
He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh.
"But I wasn't."
He looked down for a second before meeting your eyes again.
"And in the process..."
His voice cracked.
"I hurt the one person who's never once given me a reason to be afraid."
Silence settled between you.
Dean took a slow breath.
"I don't expect you to forgive me tonight."
He shook his head.
"I just..."
Another shaky breath.
"I couldn't let another day go by without telling you that pushing you away was a mistake.”
He looked at you with the same vulnerability he'd shown outside your dorm a week earlier.
"I was terrified," he admitted, "Because somewhere along the way, you started being more than just the person helping me."
His eyes met yours.
You felt your heart tighten.
"And after Beau..." He swallowed. "Loving someone felt like asking to lose them."
The words hung between you.
"I convinced myself that if I pushed you away first..." He laughed bitterly. "...then maybe it wouldn't hurt so much."
He shook his head.
"Turns out losing you before I ever really had you hurt just as much."
For a long moment, neither of you spoke.
You looked at him carefully.
"You really hurt me, Dean."
"I know."
"You don't get to disappear for a week and then show up expecting everything to be okay."
"I know."
"You made me think I'd imagined the last month."
His shoulders sagged.
"I know."
There wasn't a single excuse.
No attempt to justify it.
No blame.
Just acceptance.
"I was angry," you admitted quietly.
"I figured."
"But mostly..." You looked down for a moment before meeting his eyes again. "I was worried."
Dean frowned.
"Worried?"
"I thought maybe I'd pushed too hard."
He immediately shook his head.
"You didn't."
"I thought maybe I'd crossed a line."
"You didn't."
"I thought maybe seeing Beau in me had become too painful."
His face crumpled.
"God, no."
The answer came so quickly that it caught you off guard.
"You remind me of him," Dean said softly, “You understand what it was like to love him."
A tear slipped down your cheek.
"When we talk about him..." Dean continued, "...I don't have to explain why I miss him. You already know."
You laughed quietly through your tears.
"I do."
"He loved you."
You smiled.
"I loved him too."
Dean nodded.
"I know."
Silence settled again.
Not awkward.
Just full.
Dean reached into the pocket of his hoodie before pulling his hand back out again, empty.
"I went to see him today."
Your eyes softened.
"I talked to him."
A tiny laugh escaped you.
"I think he talked back."
That made you smile.
"Oh?"
"He called me an idiot."
"Sounds like Beau."
Dean laughed.
"He also reminded me that he'd spent years trying to set us up."
Your laugh escaped before you could stop it.
"I told him he was delusional."
"So did I."
You both laughed.
For just a moment, it felt like Beau was standing between you, rolling his eyes because he'd been right all along.
The laughter faded.
Dean's expression grew serious again.
"I don't want to lose you."
"It’s okay to be scared, Dean, but you can’t just disappear."
His eyes filled.
"If you're scared..."
You reached for his hand.
"Tell me."
His fingers curled around yours almost instantly.
"If you're grieving…if you’re angry….
His grip tightened.
"Tell me."
Another tear slid down his cheek, and he nodded.
"I can do that."
You searched his face, looking for the certainty that had been missing a week ago.
This time...you found it.
"So..." you said, squeezing his hand lightly.
"What happens now?"
Dean looked down at your intertwined fingers before looking back at you.
"I'd like to start by taking you on a proper first date."
You raised an eyebrow.
"A first date?"
"I don't think dragging me to the gym counts."
You laughed.
"I don't know... that felt pretty romantic."
"It was mostly humiliating."
"For you."
"Definitely for me."
The sound of your laughter echoed down the quiet hallway. Dean realized he'd missed it more than he'd missed anything all week. Maybe Beau had been right. Maybe he'd just needed someone stubborn enough to call him on his bullshit.
Looking at you now...he couldn't believe he'd ever tried to run.
Author's Note: Spoilers for the third book (The Score). Reader is a cheerleader, but it is only mentioned a couple of times. For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger Warnings: character death, grief, mentions of drug/alcohol abuse.
Dean lost Beau.
It was so unpredictable, such a hugely devastating loss.
And he didn’t know how to handle it.
He leaned into parties, drinking heavily, and even dabbling with drugs. He couldn’t face his grief, couldn’t process that his best friend was just gone, and that was that.
Dean hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.
He couldn’t bring himself to coach the Hurricanes, the youth team, anymore. He didn’t bother attending his classes. He only went to hockey when his friends dragged him, and even then, he was so hungover he basically sat on the bench. A serious conversation with the coach led to a suspension, and then to him quitting the team altogether.
His friends tried to be there for him, but he pushed them away. There wasn’t much they could do, not when he was so determined to go down this road of self-destruction.
That was at least until you came knocking on the front door of the hockey house.
“Um…hi…I know you don’t know me. I was a friend of Beau’s. I’m here for Dean, if you could just point me in the direction of his room.”
Logan looked at me like he recognized me, but couldn’t quite remember where from. He stared speechlessly for just a second too long before stepping aside and telling you which room you would find Dean in.
You didn’t know why you were here exactly. This was probably a very bad idea. However, it is the least you could do for Beau.
You knock on the door, and there is no answer. You knock again and hear a “leave me alone.”
Nope. Not happening.
You open the door and can’t believe the mess you walk into.
“Y/n? What are you doing here?”
You and Dean had met several times through the years, as you were part of Beau’s football world.
“I’m here to fix this,” you gesture to him and his room.
“I don’t-”
“Nope,” you interrupted, “You are not going to argue. You are going to start by eating this,” you hand him his favorite sandwich from his favorite restaurant, “then you are going to drink water, take a shower, change clothes, and remember what deodorant is.”
He looked slightly startled, but didn’t argue as he looked at the sandwich.
“We lost Beau. I am sorry it took me so long to come here. But I’m here now, and I’m not going to let you lose yourself, too.”
After Dean eats, you make him take a shower. You go downstairs, where Logan and Garrett are on the couch; you know of them, but have never actually met them before. It feels weird to intrude on their house and start making demands, but you are here on a mission, you remind yourself.
“Would the two of you be willing to help me for a few minutes?” you ask, slightly uneasy.
“Sure, what’s up?” Logan asks, pausing their game.
You let out a breath, “I’m deep cleaning Dean’s room. I could use a couple of trash bags and need to know where the washer and dryer are.”
They look at each other briefly before jumping up to help.
Logan grabs their other roommate, Tucker, and the two of them start throwing away all of Dean’s trash. Garrett and I start taking his dirty laundry and bedding to the washer and dryer.
“You’re Y/n, right? One of the cheerleaders?” Garrett asks.
“That would be me.”
“I have to ask, why are you doing this?”
“Beau was one of my best friends. He helped me through a lot. There’s nothing I can do to bring him back. But I know how much he cared for Dean, and I heard about him quitting Hockey. I want to be there for him in the way Beau was always there for me.”
By the time Dean was out of the shower, his friends were back downstairs, and his room was unrecognizable. He came in, a towel wrapped around his waist, jaw dropped.
“You didn’t have to do all of this.”
“I didn’t, your friends helped. Now put some clothes on so we can talk without your abs trying to seduce me.”
Dean almost laughed.
You faced the wall, noticing the pictures he had hanging there. Photos of him and the boys at hockey, photos of his family, pictures of him and Beau. One of the two of them, at their 22nd birthday party, dressed as Goose and Maverick, which made your chest tighten.
God, you missed him.
“Okay. I’m dressed.”
“Good,” you say, pushing the grief down and turning to face him, “Welcome to rock bottom, Dean. It’s time to wake up and get your life together.”
“I don’t-”
“No. You lost your best friend. You’ve lost hockey. You’ve lost yourself. I don’t have magic words that can fix any of this shit. But you are done hiding from your grief, and you’re not going to let this ruin you.”
“No more parties, no more getting drunk/doing drugs to numb the pain. Time to get back in the gym, to work on getting caught up in your classes, to learn how to function in a world without-” you pause, unable to finish.
Dean looks at you like you're speaking a foreign language. You ignore him and reach into your bag, “I spoke to your professors, they’ve given me a list of assignments that you need to complete to get caught up. I have notes for your classes from the last three weeks.” You place the papers on his newly cleared nightstand.
Dean didn’t move right away.
He just stood there, towel slung low on his hips, staring at the papers like they were something foreign. Something he didn’t deserve to touch.
Then he laughed.
It wasn’t amused. It was sharp—almost disbelieving.
“You spoke to my professors,” he repeated slowly.
You didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
He shook his head once. “Why?”
“Because no one else was going to.”
“That’s not—” He stopped, dragging a hand through damp hair. “You don’t even know me.”
“I knew Beau,” you said simply.
That shut him up.
For a second, the room went too quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed against your ribs.
Dean looked away first.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he muttered.
“I know.”
“I don’t want it.”
“That’s fine,” you said. “You don’t get to want it. This isn’t about what you want right now.”
That made his eyes snap back to you.
There it was—the first real crack of anger.
“You come into my house, clean my room, talk to my professors, tell me what I’m doing with my life—” he gestured vaguely at you, voice rising—“and you think that’s helping?”
“No,” you cut in, calm. “I think it’s stopping you from disappearing.”
That landed harder than the anger did.
Dean went still again, jaw tight.
Downstairs, faint laughter burst up through the floorboards—Logan and Garrett and Tucker moving on with life like nothing was falling apart upstairs. Like Dean wasn’t.
Like Beau wasn’t gone.
His shoulders dropped slightly, just for a second. A lapse.
And then he caught himself.
“You don’t get it,” he said, quieter now. “You can’t just walk in here and fix this.”
“I’m not fixing it,” you replied. “I’m interrupting it.”
He scoffed, but there was less heat in it now. More exhaustion.
“You think this changes anything? I still wake up, and he’s not—” His voice broke off mid-sentence like it physically refused to continue.
He swallowed hard.
You didn’t push that moment. You just waited.
When he spoke again, it was lower.
“I don’t know how to be here without him.”
That was the first honest thing he’d said since you walked in.
You softened slightly—but not enough to let the moment drift into pity.
“Then you learn,” you said. “Because you don’t get to check out of your life just because it hurts.”
Dean let out a slow breath, almost shaky.
“I tried,” he admitted. “I tried to stop thinking about it. I tried drinking, partying, whatever—just to make it shut up for a while.”
“I know,” you said.
“And it didn’t work,” he added, like it frustrated him more than anything else.
“No,” you agreed. “It doesn’t.”
Silence again.
Then, quieter:
“I’m not him,” Dean said. “I’m not Beau. I’m not the good one in the story. I don’t know how to—” He stopped, swallowing. “I don’t know how to do this without wrecking everything.”
That’s when your expression shifted—not softer, exactly, but sharper with intent.
“Good,” you said.
He blinked. “What?”
“Then we start there,” you continued. “Because right now you’re not trying to survive grief—you’re trying to erase it. And that’s what’s wrecking everything.”
Dean looked at you like he didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved.
You glanced toward the door.
“And you’re not doing this alone anymore,” you added. “Whether you like it or not.”
A beat.
Then, from the hallway, Tucker’s voice echoed faintly: “Uh—Logan says if she’s kidnapping him, he wants updates.”
For the first time, something almost like a laugh tried to break through Dean’s expression.
It didn’t fully make it.
But it got close.
And for now, that was enough.
Every morning, you arrived bright and early with coffee that Dean didn’t ask for, but somehow wound up drinking. You left notes on his desk with assignment deadlines broken into manageable chunks. You dragged him to the gym even when he claimed he “wasn’t in the mood to be perceived by society.”
“You’re literally in sweatpants,” you told him the third time he tried that excuse.
“And emotionally?”
“Also, sweatpants,” you shot back. “Now move.”
Somewhere between the treadmill and the weight rack, he stopped arguing about everything and started just… showing up.
Barely.
But still.
By the second week, the house had started to adjust around you.
Logan stopped acting surprised when you were in the kitchen. Garrett—quiet, observant—would sometimes sit with you at the counter while you organized Dean’s coursework into something that didn’t look like a disaster.
“You realize you’ve taken over, right?” he said once, watching you highlight a syllabus.
“I prefer ‘intervention with paperwork,’” you replied.
He huffed a laugh. “Dean doesn’t do well with control.”
“He doesn’t have control right now,” you said simply. “That’s the problem.”
Garrett didn’t argue with that.
He just looked toward the stairs like he could see through them.
“Whatever you’re doing,” he said after a pause, “it’s working.”
You didn’t respond to that.
Not because you disagreed.
Because you didn’t want to jinx it.
Dean started coming out of his room more in the third week.
At first, it was small things.
A shirtless shuffle into the kitchen at 2 a.m. for cereal. A silent sit-down on the couch while the others were watching a game. A grunt that passed for acknowledgment when Logan tossed him a remote.
Sometimes you’d sit beside him without saying anything, like silence wasn’t something to be feared.
Other times, you’d talk.
Not about fixing him.
Not about deadlines or consequences or “getting better.”
Just… Beau.
The first time Dean said his name out loud without shutting down afterward, it happened in the middle of your kitchen, while you were cooking something aggressively unhelpful but warm anyway.
The gym was where the change became undeniable. One day, after a set, he leaned against the wall and looked at you for a long moment.
“You don’t get tired of this?” he asked.
“Of what?”
“Me.”
The question wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t defensive.
It was genuine.
You stopped what you were doing.
“Dean,” you said carefully, “you’re not a chore.”
He scoffed lightly, but it didn’t have bite anymore. “Feels like it sometimes.”
“That’s not my problem,” you replied.
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s not very comforting.”
“It’s not supposed to be comforting,” you said. “It’s supposed to be true.”
That got him quiet.
Then, after a beat:
“…you’re kind of intense.”
“I’ve been told.”
Later that night, you found him sitting on the porch steps alone.
He had a water bottle in his hand and a hoodie pulled over his head, despite the warmth of the evening. The streetlights cast long, soft shadows across the driveway. The house behind him was loud—Garrett arguing about something in the kitchen, Tucker laughing too loudly at nothing in particular, Logan probably breaking some kind of furniture again.
Dean didn’t look up when you sat beside him.
“You’re avoiding them,” you said.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
A pause.
Then, quieter: “I’m just… tired.”
You nodded like that made sense, because it did.
After a moment, you nudged his shoulder lightly with yours.
“Talk to me.”
Dean exhaled slowly, staring at the pavement.
“I keep thinking I’m supposed to be further along by now,” he admitted.
“According to who?”
“Everyone,” he said. Then corrected himself. “No. Me.”
That was new.
You didn’t interrupt.
He kept going.
“I’m not… fixed. I’m not even close. Some days I still wake up and forget for a second. And then I remember and it just—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “It hits like it’s new all over again.”
Your voice stayed steady. “That’s not failure.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “Feels like it.”
“Grief isn’t a straight line,” you said. “It’s not something you complete.”
Dean glanced at you then, really looked at you.
“You always talk like you know what you’re doing.”
You huffed softly. “I don’t.”
That surprised him.
You leaned back on your hands, looking out at the quiet street.
“I just know Beau wouldn’t want you doing this alone,” you said.
The air shifted at the mention of him.
It always did.
But this time, Dean didn’t shut down.
Instead, he nodded once. Small. Barely there.
“I miss him,” he said.
Simple. Unfiltered.
Like he didn’t have the energy left to dress it up anymore.
You swallowed.
“Me too,” you said quietly.
That was the first time you’d both said it out loud together.
After that, things didn’t magically get easier.
But they got real.
Dean started hanging out with the guys again. He got caught up and actually started attending classes again. He answered texts instead of ignoring them for days. He would eat dinner with his friends and stopped retreating upstairs.
Everyone started to see it, the version of Dean that had seemed to die with Beau. The one who cracked jokes under his breath. The one who leaned against the counters as if he belonged in the room. The one who didn’t look at happiness like it was something dangerous.
You practically lived in the hockey house at this point, only leaving to attend classes, practice, and sleep. The boys had become a found family.
That night, Dean followed you out as you walked to your dorm.
“You okay?” you asked.
He hesitated like he was reconsidering being there at all.
Then: “Yeah. I just—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted to say thanks.”
You leaned against the doorframe. “For what?”
A pause.
“For not letting me disappear,” he said.
The words landed heavier than he probably meant them to. You nodded once, trying to keep it light even though it wasn’t.
“You’re like Simba from The Lion King, you just needed to remember who you are”
That earned you a smile.
“That was the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said…”
“Well it was that or compare you to Nemo, lost at sea, just needing someone to show you the way home…”
He laughed, a full chest laugh that forced his head back as his shoulders bounced.
You’d take the small victory.
“Can I walk you home?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to, please?”
“Sure.”
We walk in a comfortable silence, and he stops just short of your door. He gently grabbed your arm and turned you to face him. Then he looked at you properly. Longer than usual. Too long to feel casual. And something in your chest shifted because you could feel it—that moment tipping.
Dean opened his mouth like he was going to say something.
Then stopped.
His jaw tightened slightly.
“I should go,” he said, dropping his hand like it burned him.
I looked at him, confused, “Did I—”
“No,” he cut in quickly. Too quickly. “It’s not you.”
But he was already stepping back away from the house. And you knew. Even before he said anything else. He wasn’t taking distance from the moment; he needed distance from you.
He didn't text you that night. For the first time in nearly a month, your phone stayed silent.
Author's Note: Dean x Figure Skater!Reader. I'm not sure if this needs a part II... For more of my writing, check out my Masterlist: here.
Trigger Warnings: Head Injury, Hospital
Dean and the boys sat in the stands overlooking the rink, bundled against the chill that seemed to seep through every inch of the arena. It still felt strange being on this side of the glass. Usually, he was the one on the ice, skates laced and stick in hand, while other people watched. Now he was the spectator.
But that's what boyfriends did. They showed up. They cheered. They learned the difference between a lutz and a loop, even if they still couldn't identify either with any confidence.
He smiled to himself.
You and Dean had started out exchanging harmless comments in passing. The hockey team finished practice just before your figure skating sessions, and there always seemed to be a few minutes where your paths crossed. At first, it was nothing more than teasing smiles and sarcastic remarks.
Neither of you had planned for it to become anything more.
You had a strict rule about never dating hockey players. Dean, meanwhile, didn't do girlfriends. Casual was easy. Commitment wasn't.
Then one party, one conversation that lasted until nearly sunrise, and one kiss neither of you had expected changed everything.
That had been months ago.
Since then, life had become a whirlwind of road games and competitions, late-night food runs, weekends in New York, and hundreds of quiet moments that somehow meant more than any grand gesture ever could.
Dean had never felt so completely known.
You saw past the jokes and the constant need to make everyone laugh. You recognized the parts of him he usually kept hidden beneath sarcasm and confidence, and somehow you loved those parts just as much.
Talking to you never felt like work. Silence never felt awkward. Whether you were wandering through the city, studying together, or simply sitting in comfortable silence, being with you felt effortless.
For the first time in his life, Dean understood what people meant when they talked about finding home in another person.
Being with you felt steady.
Safe.
Like the most natural thing in the world.
And somehow, despite that comfort, you still made his pulse race. Every date turned into an adventure. Every kiss still made him grin like an idiot. Every time you stepped onto the ice, he found himself staring with the same mix of admiration and disbelief.
He glanced over at Garrett and Hannah sitting a few seats down. He used to give them endless grief about being nauseatingly in love, constantly teasing them whenever they got caught stealing glances at each other.
Now he got it.
As you and your partner glided to center ice, Beau nudged him with an elbow.
"Try not to look too jealous," he teased. "She has to skate with him."
Dean rolled his eyes but couldn't hide his grin.
"Shut up."
The boys chuckled before their attention returned to the ice as the opening notes of your music filled the arena.
Dean loved watching you skate.
It was impossible not to.
The moment your blades touched the ice, everything about you changed. You looked lighter somehow, every movement effortless, every edge deliberate. Graceful. Confident. Completely at home.
It was like watching someone breathe.
He'd seen you perform dozens of times, yet every routine left him speechless.
You made the impossible look ordinary.
The program built toward its final sequence. Dean recognized it immediately.
The grand lift.
Your partner's hands settled at your waist before lifting you high overhead as they gained speed down the length of the rink.
Dean smiled.
Then everything went wrong.
It happened so quickly that his brain couldn't process it.
A slight stumble.
A hand slipping.
Your body tipping just enough to throw off the balance.
Then—
You fell.
Dean swears he heard the crack of your head striking the ice despite the music. A collective gasp swept through the crowd.
His friends all released a string of curse words.
You didn't move.
Dean was on his feet before he even realized he'd stood.
"Y/N!"
The stairs blurred beneath him as he vaulted down toward the boards, the boys right behind him. Arena staff were only just beginning to react, but Dean was already pushing through the open gate onto the ice.
Someone shouted for him to stop.
He barely heard them.
His skates weren't on, forcing him to half-run, half-slide across the slick surface until he reached you.
You were exactly where you'd landed.
Perfectly still.
Your partner had scrambled backward, horror written across his face as he stared at you, frozen.
Dean dropped to his knees beside you, every instinct screaming at him to pull you into his arms.
He knew better.
Years of athletic trainers and emergency protocols echoed in his head.
Don't move her.
Not if there's a chance of a neck injury.
His hands hovered helplessly over yours before he carefully settled one against the ice beside your fingers, close enough that you could feel his presence if you were conscious.
"I'm here," he whispered, his voice shaking. "Don't try to move, okay? Just open your eyes."
There was no response. The fear that flooded his chest was unlike anything he'd ever experienced.
He had taken hits that left him unable to breathe. He'd broken bones. Played through injuries. None of it came close to this.
Behind him, he heard the pounding footsteps of the medical team racing onto the ice.
"Sir, we need you to step back."
Dean looked at you one last time, fighting every instinct telling him not to leave your side.
"I'm right here," he said softly, his eyes never leaving yours. "I'm not going anywhere."
Unresponsive.
Cervical collar.
Backboard.
Possible neck injury.
Possible spine injury.
Possible head injury.
The words blurred together, each one hitting Dean like another body check.
He sat on the narrow bench in the back of the ambulance, his knees pressed against the cabinets as the vehicle sped toward the hospital. The sirens wailed outside, but inside everything felt strangely controlled.
One paramedic knelt beside you, monitoring your airway while another secured the last of the straps across the backboard. The rigid cervical collar kept your head perfectly still. Electrodes dotted your chest, a pulse oximeter glowed on your finger, and the cardiac monitor filled the compartment with a steady, rhythmic beeping.
Dean couldn't tear his eyes away. Your chest rose and fell on its own, slow but steady, and for some reason, that tiny movement became the only thing he could focus on.
"Is she..." His voice cracked. He cleared his throat before trying again. "Is she going to be okay?"
Neither paramedic lied.
"We don't know yet."
The honesty somehow hurt more than false reassurance ever could.
Dean reached toward your hand before stopping himself, afraid of getting in the way. Instead, he rested two fingers gently against yours where they lay strapped beside your hip.
"I'm here," he whispered. "You don't have to wake up right now... just... keep fighting."
There was no squeeze. No twitch. Nothing.
One of the paramedics glanced at the monitor before speaking into the radio.
"Twenty-one-year-old female. Figure skating fall from an overhead lift. Unresponsive since impact. Cervical collar in place, fully immobilized. Concern for cervical spine injury and traumatic brain injury. Vitals currently stable. ETA three minutes."
Dean closed his eyes for a second.
Three minutes.
It felt impossible that his entire world had unraveled in less than ten.
The emergency department doors swung shut behind the trauma team, leaving Dean standing alone in the hallway.
"Sir, you can't come back here."
The nurse's voice was gentle but firm.
"We need room to work."
Dean looked through the small window in the doors one last time. He caught a glimpse of doctors and nurses surrounding your stretcher before someone pulled a curtain closed.
Then you were gone.
The waiting room was painfully quiet.
Dean sat hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees. Every few seconds, he glanced toward the double doors, hoping someone would come through with an update.
The entrance doors opened. Logan was the first one through, followed closely by Garrett, Hannah, and Beau. Garrett carried your bag over his shoulder. No one spoke at first.
Logan walked straight over to Dean.
"Any news?"
Dean slowly shook his head.
"They took her straight for imaging." His voice was hoarse. "They're worried about her head, neck, and spine."
Logan ran both hands over his face, pacing a few steps before stopping himself.
Garrett quietly set your bag on the floor beside Dean's chair.
"Hannah grabbed everything from the locker room," he said.
Dean nodded absentmindedly.
"Thanks."
He opened the bag and looked through it, finding your phone.
The lock screen lit up, revealing a picture of the two of us smiling back at him. His chest tightened. He remembered you mentioning the passcode months ago, laughing that it was "the easiest number for Dean to remember."
His birthday.
The phone unlocked.
Dean hesitated for only a second before opening your contacts and finding Mom.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
"I can do it if you want," Garrett offered quietly.
Dean swallowed.
"No."
He took a shaky breath and pressed call.
It rang twice.
"Hi, sweetheart!" your mom answered cheerfully. "How'd the competition go?"
Dean couldn't speak.
Not at first.
"...Mrs. Y/L/N?"
There was a pause.
"Dean?"
Silence. He didn’t know what to say.
Then her tone shifted immediately.
"Dean? Is everything okay?"
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"There was... there was an accident during her program."
Another silence.
"What do you mean, an accident?"
"Her partner dropped her during a lift." Dean felt every pair of eyes in the waiting room turn toward him, but he couldn't look at any of them. "She hit her head on the ice. She was unconscious when the ambulance took her."
The line went completely still.
When your mother finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Is she okay?"
Dean looked toward the trauma bay doors.
"They're still evaluating her. She's in CT right now. The doctors don't know how badly she's hurt yet."
"I'll be there as fast as I can."
"I know."
"Dean, love, she’ll be okay."
Dean's grip tightened around the phone.
After the call ended, the waiting room fell silent once again.
No one knew what to say.
Time crawled.
Every time the emergency department doors slid open, every head in the waiting room snapped up in unison.
A nurse calling another patient.
A family leaving with discharge papers.
Someone from housekeeping pushing a cart.
Never a doctor.
Never anyone coming for them.
Dean had lost track of how long they'd been sitting there. Twenty minutes? An hour? Three? Time had stopped making sense the moment the ambulance doors closed.
The doors opened again.
This time, your skating partner stepped hesitantly into the waiting room.
His competition jacket was draped over his shoulders. His hair was still damp, and his eyes were bloodshot.
The moment he spotted Dean, he froze, guilt written all over his face.
"I..." His voice broke. "Dean, I'm so—"
Dean stood before he could finish. For a split second, Garrett thought he might actually swing. Instead, Dean wrapped him in a hug. The other skater completely fell apart.
"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I lost my grip. I don't know what happened. I tried—I tried to catch her."
Dean closed his eyes, summoning a strength he didn’t know he possessed, "I know."
"I dropped her."
"I know."
"It's my fault."
Dean pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, "No."
Your partner shook his head, tears spilling freely. Dean understood why he blamed himself. He probably always would. But Dean also knew what came with loving an athlete. Hockey players blew out knees. Football players broke bones. Figure skaters trusted another person to throw them into the air and catch them again. Sometimes things went wrong. That didn't make it anyone's fault.
Dean squeezed his shoulder, "She'd tell you the same thing."
Before either of them could say anything else, the doors opened once more. A doctor in navy scrubs stepped into the waiting room, clipboard in hand.
"Dean Di Laurentis?"
Dean's heart lurched.
"That's me."
The doctor smiled—a small one, but enough for Dean's shoulders to loosen for the first time all day.
"I have some good news."
Everyone stood.
"The CT scans of her head and cervical spine are normal. There's no evidence of bleeding, no skull fracture, and no injury to her neck or spine."
Dean let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"The neurological exam looks reassuring as well. Her strength, sensation, and reflexes are all intact."
Garrett quietly muttered, "Thank God."
"She does have a significant concussion," the doctor continued. "Given the mechanism of injury and the length of time she was unconscious, we're taking it seriously. She's going to have a rough few days with headaches, fatigue, and she'll need plenty of cognitive and physical rest."
Dean nodded, absorbing every word.
"Is she..."
The doctor smiled again.
"She's awake and she's been asking for you."
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it, equal parts relief and disbelief.
"Can I see her?"
"You can."
The doctor handed him a packet of discharge instructions.
"If someone can stay with her continuously for the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, we're comfortable discharging her. We want someone around in case her symptoms worsen, and she'll need to avoid driving, strenuous activity, alcohol, and anything that risks another head injury until she's cleared."
"I'll stay with her," Dean answered immediately.
The doctor nodded.
"I had a feeling you'd say that."
Dean didn't wait another second. He was already halfway to the doors before anyone else had a chance to move.
He stopped just long enough to toss your phone to Garrett.
"Call her mom, please, G. Password's my birthday."
Garrett caught it with one hand.
"You got it."
"Dean-o."
The greeting came out weak and raspy, but it was unmistakably you.
Dean stopped in the doorway.
For a long moment, he simply stared.
You looked exhausted. Your hair was a mess, and your skin had lost its usual color. But the cervical collar was gone.
That alone made his chest loosen.
You turned stiffly toward the nurse as she removed the last of your IV.
"Look at him," you said, gesturing lazily toward Dean. "Isn't he just a beautiful specimen of a man?"
The nurse laughed.
Dean let out a watery chuckle, covering his face with one hand as he tried—and failed—to hide the tears threatening to spill over.
"Seriously?" he asked, crossing the room. "You give everyone a concussion scare, and that's your first line?"
You frowned in mock offense.
"It was..." You paused, clearly searching for the rest of the sentence.
"...a really good line."
"It was."
He bent down, pressing the gentlest kiss imaginable to your forehead before resting his own there for a moment.
"I was so scared."
The smile faded from your face.
"I know."
A beat passed.
"I'm sorry."
Dean shook his head immediately.
"Don't apologize."
"I didn't mean to..."
"I know."
His thumb brushed gently across your cheek. He opened his mouth, ready to make some smart remark to lighten the mood, but the door swung open before he had the chance.
"Fuck," Logan said as he walked in. "I don't think I've ever seen Dean move that fast."
Garrett, Hannah, and Beau filed in behind him.
"There she is," Beau said, relief washing over his face. "The woman who gave three Division I hockey players simultaneous heart attacks."
You blinked at him.
"Only three?"
A sleepy grin spread across your face.
"Must be losing my touch."
Logan folded his arms.
"You can barely keep your eyes open, and you're still making jokes."
"It's called commitment."
Dean laughed.
The sound had barely left him before you winced, squeezing your eyes shut.
Instantly, every smile in the room disappeared.
"You okay?" Dean asked quietly.
"Yeah..." You pinched the bridge of your nose. "Just... don't laugh so loud."
He gave you an apologetic smile.
"Noted."
Garrett stepped closer to the bed.
"We called your mom. She's on her way to the hockey house to meet us."
You nodded slowly.
"Okay."
"Your partner's downstairs in the lobby, too," he continued. "We told him he could come up, but... he didn't want to."
Your expression softened.
"He thinks it's his fault."
No one said anything.
"It isn't," you murmured. "Can you... tell him that?"
"We will," Garrett promised.
The nurse, noticing everyone had finally settled, stepped forward with a clipboard.
"All right, since it looks like you have plenty of people volunteering to keep an eye on you..."
She launched into the discharge instructions, making eye contact with each of them as she spoke.
"No driving until you're cleared."
"No alcohol."
"Lots of rest."
"Limit screen time if it makes the headaches worse."
"If she starts vomiting repeatedly, becomes difficult to wake up, develops worsening confusion, weakness, numbness, or has a seizure, bring her straight back to the emergency department."
Everyone nodded with surprising seriousness.
Dean looked like he was mentally memorizing every word.
By the time the nurse finished, you looked utterly drained.
You let your eyes drift closed, your head sinking carefully against the pillow.
Dean noticed immediately.
"If you guys don't mind..." he said softly, glancing at the others. "Can I have a couple minutes?"
No one argued.
Within seconds, the room emptied.
The moment the door clicked shut, Dean turned back to you.
"Think you can get changed?"
You cracked one eye open.
"Depends."
"On what?"
"Whether you're volunteering to help."
A small smile tugged at his lips.
"I am."
With slow, careful movements, he helped you sit up, one hand supporting your back while the other steadied your arm. Every motion was deliberate, giving you plenty of time whenever you paused because the room threatened to spin.
He slid the sweatshirt Hannah grabbed from your locker gently over your head, careful not to bump the tender spot hidden beneath your hair. Then came a pair of soft sweatpants, guiding your feet through one leg at a time while you leaned against his shoulder for balance.
When you were finally dressed, he crouched in front of you to help you into your sneakers.
Only then did he stop.
He rested his hands lightly on your knees and looked up at you.
"You don't have to be brave with me."
The room fell quiet.
His eyes searched yours, taking in the exhaustion, the lingering confusion, and the effort it was taking just to stay awake.
"How are you really doing?"
For the first time since the fall, there was no audience.
Just the two of you.
You stared down at your hands for a long moment before speaking.
"I think..." Your voice caught.
Dean stayed silent.
"I think I'm done skating."
The words hung in the room.
He knew what they cost you.
Skating wasn't just a hobby. It was early mornings before class. Hours in freezing rinks. Competitions. Blisters. Bruises. Missing holidays. Chasing scores by fractions of a point. It was the language you spoke before you knew how to put your dreams into words.
It was part of who you were.
Dean swallowed hard.
"Hey."
You finally looked up at him.
"You don't have to decide that today."
A tear escaped before you could stop it.
"But what if I never trust another lift again?"
Dean reached up, brushing it away with his thumb.
"Then you don't."
"I almost..." Your voice broke. "Dean, I don't even remember hitting the ice. I woke up in a hospital."
"I know."
"What if next time is worse?"
He took both of your hands in his.
"Then that's a conversation for months from now."
You let out a shaky breath.
"I don't know if I can go back."
"You don't have to."
You searched his face.
"But if I quit..."
"You won't be quitting."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
He squeezed your hands gently.
"If you decide, after you've healed, after the headaches are gone, after you've had time to think—not today, not tomorrow, but when you're ready—that skating isn't what you want anymore..."
He paused.
"...that's not quitting."
"That's choosing."
"You've already proved how tough you are. You don't owe anyone another performance just because you've spent years getting here."
You looked away, tears quietly slipping down your cheeks.
"It feels like I'd be losing part of myself."
Dean's expression softened.
"I don't think skating is what made you who you are."
"It isn't?"
He shook his head.
"You make little kids stop and watch through the glass because they think you're magic."
A watery laugh escaped you.
"You make my teammates feel like family."
Another tear rolled down your cheek.
"You make my mom think I'm finally dating someone good for me."
That earned him a tiny smile.
"You make every room brighter the second you walk into it."
He rested his forehead against yours.
"The ice is just where everyone else got to see it."
Your eyes closed.
For the first time all day, you let yourself cry.
Not because your head hurt.
Not because you were scared.
But because someone had finally given you permission not to have all the answers.
Dean wrapped his arms around you as carefully as he could, mindful of your aching body.
"You don't have to decide today," he whispered again.
