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**Part 1: Not Just the Weather**
The weather had turned warmer overnight.
It was the kind of spring morning that made you forget the weight of winter. Dew sparkled on the grass like glass beads, and even the sun seemed in a good mood, painting golden streaks across the sidewalk. Birds were too loud, and the air smelled like damp earth and something new blooming.
Lena Carter hated how that kind of morning made her hopeful.
Because hope was dangerous. It made you expect things.
And right now, the last thing she needed was expectations—especially where Jace Rivera was involved.
She sat on the edge of her porch, fingers curled around a chipped mug of tea she didn't really like. Her mom had left for her shift an hour ago, and the house felt unusually quiet. Her phone buzzed beside her on the step, but she ignored it. She already knew it was Jordan, probably trying to confirm their group project meeting or sending her another cat meme to make her laugh.
It was Jace she was thinking about. Again.
She hated that part.
He'd said he wanted to be real. And somehow that was the exact thing she couldn't stop replaying in her head. Not because she didn't believe him—but because a part of her did. A part of her wanted to believe there could be something real between them. Something *more*.
But it was too soon. Too easy. Too good.
And things didn't stay good in her world. They got complicated. They fell apart.
She exhaled and stood, brushing off her jeans. Time to get to school and pretend she wasn't unraveling internally.
As she crossed the street toward the bus stop, her phone buzzed again.
This time, she checked it.
**Jace:**
**Morning. I'll be there early today.**
Just that. No emoji. No question. No pressure.
It felt like a peace offering.
Lena smiled before she could stop herself.
---
By the time she reached the front steps of Fairhaven High, the usual chaos was already in full swing. Students loitered by the doors, backpacks slung over one shoulder, earbuds in, half-asleep. Someone was blasting music from a car nearby. A freshman tripped over his shoelaces.
And there he was.
Jace Rivera, leaning against the bike rack, a thermos in one hand and his hood pulled halfway over his curls.
He looked like he didn't care about anything. But Lena knew better now.
"Hey," she said as she reached him.
"Hey." His eyes did that soft thing they did sometimes—like he was letting his guard down only for her.
She nodded at the thermos. "Is that coffee? Or just pretend coffee?"
"It's coffee. Real deal. Extra bitter. You want some?"
She hesitated. "Is this like a metaphor for your soul or something?"
"Only if you're into dramatic metaphors."
She took the thermos and sipped it. Way too bitter. She made a face. He laughed.
"Still not your thing?"
"I like my caffeine not trying to kill me."
They fell into step toward the school entrance. It wasn't a big deal. Just walking together. Just a Tuesday morning.
But it felt like something.
"Did you finish the assignment for Civics?" she asked.
"I tried. I got distracted watching documentaries about cults."
"That's... on brand."
They paused at her locker. Lena turned the dial carefully, trying not to show how much she noticed that Jace didn't keep walking.
"So," he said. "About what we talked about yesterday."
She froze.
"Which part?"
Jace scratched the back of his neck, suddenly awkward. "The part where we said we're not faking it."
"Oh. That."
"I don't want to push anything. But I figured… maybe we could hang out. Not like tutoring. Not like group projects. Just... hang out."
Lena shut her locker a little too hard.
"You mean like—"
"No labels," he said quickly. "Not asking you out. Just... less pretending we don't care and more... whatever this is."
Her heart thudded.
She should say no. Or at least delay it. Make him work for it.
But instead—
"Okay," she said. "Maybe after school."
His smile was small, but it lit his whole face.
"Cool."
---
They didn't talk the rest of the morning.
Not out loud, anyway.
But every time she caught his eyes across the classroom, something wordless passed between them. Not flirty. Not cocky. Something steadier. A shared understanding.
By lunch, it felt like everyone else could see it too.
Lena sat at her usual table with Jordan and Priya, pretending to listen while Priya ranted about student council.
"I'm just saying," Priya was saying, "if Nathan brings up the snack budget one more time, I swear I'll start smuggling in churros from home."
Lena blinked. "What?"
"Exactly," Priya said. "You're not even listening."
Jordan leaned across the table, eyeing her. "You okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You're staring into the distance like you've just seen the face of God. Or, like... a really good-looking dude."
Lena blushed. "Shut up."
Jordan tilted his head. "Wait. Don't tell me. Rivera?"
She didn't answer.
Priya nearly dropped her sandwich. "Lena."
"What?"
"You and Jace? Since *when*?"
"There is no 'me and Jace.' We're just... talking."
"Lena. Come on."
Jordan raised a brow. "You're smiling. She's smiling, Priya."
Lena slapped a napkin at him. "It's not a thing."
"It's totally a thing," Priya whispered gleefully.
Lena sighed. "Okay, maybe it's... becoming a thing. Maybe."
Jordan grinned. "Enemies-to-lovers arc. We love to see it."
"I swear, if either of you says 'slow burn,' I'm switching tables."
They didn't say it. But the knowing looks said enough.
And somehow, Lena didn't mind.
---
After the final bell, Lena stood near the side exit, where the teachers smoked and no one paid much attention to anything. Her heart thudded in a way she hadn't expected.
He showed up five minutes later, hands in his pockets, looking just nervous enough to make her feel a little braver.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey."
They started walking. No plan. No destination.
Just the sound of sneakers on pavement and the occasional car passing by.
"Where are we going?" she asked eventually.
"I don't know. I was hoping you'd have a brilliant idea."
She considered. "Wanna go to the bookstore?"
Jace blinked. "You're asking *me* to go willingly into a bookstore?"
"I'll buy you a pastry."
"Sold."
---
They ended up at this tiny indie bookstore downtown that smelled like old paper and cinnamon. The owner was seventy and always played jazz too loud. Lena loved it.
They didn't talk much while browsing. They didn't need to. Just drifted through the aisles, occasionally holding up a book to show the other. Lena bought a new poetry collection. Jace got a weird graphic novel he claimed was "for research."
Afterward, they sat on the curb outside, sharing a raspberry scone and sipping from a bottle of lemonade.
"You know," Jace said, "this doesn't suck."
Lena smirked. "High praise."
He bumped her shoulder gently.
Then they were quiet for a while.
She watched a cloud drift past. "So... what now?"
Jace leaned back on his elbows. "Now we keep doing this. Hanging out. Talking. Figuring it out."
"No pressure?"
"No pressure."
She nodded.
And for once, that felt like enough.
---
**Part 2**
*"Sometimes, all you can do is stay."*
The world outside the school library was muted—gray skies, the spatter of late October rain tapping against the tall windows. Inside, Lena sat cross-legged in one of the beanbag chairs tucked between the history shelves, her laptop open but forgotten in her lap. She wasn't reading. She wasn't even pretending to. Her thoughts were somewhere else.
Jace Rivera had missed first period. That shouldn't have mattered. But it did.
Not that she was worried. Obviously not. He was probably just late. Or sick. Or decided not to show up because he didn't feel like dealing with whatever drama he'd brewed up in Chem lab the day before. But something about the silence of his absence echoed louder than she expected.
Maybe it was the way he had looked at her yesterday when she handed him his sketchbook back—his actual sketchbook, not the fake one he'd used to dodge detention. The real one had drawings in it that made her breath catch. Quiet things. Angry things. A self-portrait, barely outlined, hidden on the last page like a confession. She hadn't meant to flip that far, but once she had, it was impossible to forget.
Lena pulled her knees tighter to her chest, the edge of the laptop biting against her thigh. She stared blankly at the Google Doc open on the screen, where a blinking cursor waited patiently beside the title: "English Lit Essay – Compare and Contrast: The Outsiders and Catcher in the Rye."
Right. Like she could even think about Holden Caulfield right now.
She shut the lid with a sigh and leaned her head back against the shelf. She'd told herself this wasn't anything. That whatever had started between her and Jace—if anything had—was probably temporary. A glitch in the matrix of high school dynamics. A proximity problem. A shared schedule and overlapping detentions and forced group projects.
And yet.
"Are you hiding," a voice asked, "or just being antisocial again?"
Lena's heart jumped. She looked up sharply to see **Mira**, her best friend, peering down at her with a raised eyebrow and a smirk that said she already knew the answer.
"I'm not hiding," Lena muttered, shifting so the laptop slid off her lap and onto the carpet. "I'm... decompressing."
Mira plopped down beside her with zero grace and pulled her legs up. "Decompressing looks a lot like brooding. And brooding usually means you're thinking about a certain boy with permanent eye bags and anger issues."
"I'm not," Lena lied quickly. "He's not even—he didn't even come to school today."
Mira's gaze sharpened. "He didn't?"
"No."
"Is that why you've been checking the library door every three minutes like he's gonna materialize from the fiction section?"
"I haven't been checking—" Lena paused. "Okay, maybe I looked. Once. Twice."
"Uh-huh." Mira leaned her head against the shelf, matching Lena's posture. "So. Spill."
"There's nothing to spill."
"You gave him his sketchbook."
"I did."
"And?"
"And that's it."
Mira exhaled loudly. "You are infuriating sometimes, you know that?"
Lena gave a tight smile. "Tell me something I don't know."
There was a pause. The rain continued its slow rhythm against the window. Then Mira said quietly, "Do you like him, Lena?"
The question hung in the air like fog—soft but suffocating.
Lena didn't answer right away. She couldn't. Because if she said it out loud, it would become real. And things that became real could hurt.
"I think," she said finally, "I want to like him less than I do."
Mira nodded slowly. "That's fair."
"I don't trust it. Or him. Or... me, honestly."
"You don't have to figure it all out right now," Mira said gently. "But maybe don't run from it, either."
Lena swallowed. "I'm not running."
Mira nudged her. "You're hiding in the history section during lunch. It's a *little* bit like running."
They sat there for a while, letting the quiet fill the cracks between them. The bell rang for fifth period, and Mira stood, brushing lint from her jeans.
"I'm heading to class. You coming?"
Lena hesitated. "I think I'll stay a little longer."
"Suit yourself," Mira said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. "But if Rivera shows up, tell him I'm still mad about the time he stole my seat in Bio."
"He doesn't even *have* Bio."
"Exactly."
With a final grin, Mira disappeared down the aisle, leaving Lena alone again. The moment her friend was gone, Lena opened her laptop, not to work, but to stare at the search bar blinking on her homepage.
She typed:
**Jace Rivera.**
And then deleted it.
She typed again:
**Jace Rivera sketchbook art contest.**
Deleted it again.
Her fingers hovered, uncertain. She didn't know what she was looking for. A clue? A headline? Something that would explain the ache in her chest when he wasn't there.
Before she could press enter, her screen darkened as someone stood in front of her.
She looked up. And there he was.
Wet hair. Hoodie pulled half over his head. The silver ring on his middle finger he always fiddled with. Jace Rivera looked like a mess. But he was there.
"You Googling me now?" he asked, voice low.
Lena slammed the laptop shut so fast she almost crushed her fingers. "You weren't here. I thought—" She stopped herself before the words got too close to the truth.
"I wasn't skipping, if that's what you're thinking," he said, sitting down on the floor beside her without asking. "Had to take my mom to an appointment."
Lena blinked. "Your mom?"
Jace nodded, eyes on the floor. "She's been kind of sick. Not like... major sick. Just enough that she doesn't like going alone."
"Oh." She felt something twist in her gut. "You didn't have to explain."
"Didn't want you thinking I was avoiding you."
Lena looked away, heat rising to her face. "I wasn't."
"You were Googling me, though."
"I was not."
"You typed my name. I saw it."
"It was for a project."
Jace laughed under his breath. "Right. School project. Super believable."
Lena shoved his shoulder with hers, lightly. He didn't shove back. He just stayed close. Too close. His presence was like static—buzzing against her thoughts, making it hard to focus on anything else.
"I looked at the sketchbook," she admitted after a moment.
"I figured."
"There's one drawing I can't stop thinking about."
He didn't ask which one. Maybe he already knew.
Lena turned her head. "It's not how I see you, you know."
Jace's voice was rough. "It's how I see myself."
"Well," she said quietly, "sometimes we see ourselves wrong."
There was a long silence.
Then he said, "Sometimes other people do too."
They weren't touching, but Lena could feel the space between them thrum with tension. Not the angry kind. Not anymore. Something else. Something quieter and much more dangerous.
"I'm not good at this," Jace said, voice barely above a whisper.
"Me neither."
"I keep thinking I'm gonna mess it up. Whatever *this* is."
"You haven't yet," Lena replied.
His eyes finally met hers. They looked tired. And a little scared.
"But you're waiting for me to," he said.
Lena didn't deny it. "I'm used to people leaving."
"I'm not planning on going anywhere," he said.
And somehow, that felt more terrifying than if he had.
They stayed like that—just sitting—until the final bell rang and the sky outside had darkened to a cold, watery gray. Students shuffled past the library in waves, laughing and shouting and shaking water from their jackets.
Jace stood slowly and offered her a hand. "Come on. I'll walk you home."
"I'm not scared of the rain," Lena said.
"I know," he said. "But I am."
She looked up at him, confused.
He offered a crooked grin. "Gives me an excuse to stay close."
And for the first time in a long time, Lena let someone walk beside her without looking for the exit.
---