Tuesday morning, Delorah had barely stepped into the hallway before the noise hit her like a wave. It was a Blue Day—four long periods stretched ahead, each one bloated and slow as a funeral dirge. Tuesdays always felt heavier somehow, like the building itself knew what kind of day it was and sagged under the weight.
A cacophony of shouts, lockers slamming, sneakers skimming over slick tile. The neon-bright fluorescence overhead seemed to pulse in time with the chaos, too bright, too loud, and yet, somehow, crushingly normal. As if nothing in the world had truly shifted. As if nothing had been lost.
But Delorah knew better. The world might not have noticed. Might not have cared, but she knew Kit had.
She saw him almost immediately, a solitary shape slouched against the lockers near their second-period classroom. His hoodie was pulled up, shadowing his face, and his hands were wedged so deeply into his pockets it was as if he was bracing himself against gravity.
He was way too still. Like the way a photograph can freeze a moment before it's fully formed, the colors not yet settled. At first Delorah registered only a subtle wrongness: the off-kilter angle of his shoulders, the careful, deliberate way he seemed to take up as little space as possible, like he was willing himself invisible.
But then he looked up. And she knew.
His pupils were wide, dilated with sleeplessness or shock. His eyes glossed over, unfocused, as if he were seeing something that wasn't there—or refusing to see what was. The exhaustion etched beneath his eyes was almost spectral, dark bruises against skin gone too pale. Beneath the shadow of his hood, every sharp angle of his face looked brittle, fragile, as if a single wrong word might fracture him entirely.
He didn't just look tired—he looked altered. Like he'd crossed some invisible line during the night and left part of himself behind.
Her stomach twisted painfully.
She remembered the way he'd laughed on the pier yesterday. The way the wind tossed his hair, his voice carrying over the water, bright and unexpectedly full. She remembered the easy warmth in the way his hand had brushed hers as he reached for a cone of fries, present and real in a way he so rarely allowed himself to be. That unburdened moment felt impossibly distant now, and all she could see was how far he'd fallen back into the dark.
Kit was the one to look away first.
Delorah approached slowly, every step measured, as if she could keep from startling whatever thin thread still tethered him to this place. She forced her voice to stay light, steady, pretending it might matter. Pretending he wasn't already slipping through her fingers.
"Hey."
He barely moved, but his eyes flicked up for a second. "Hey." The word was nearly lost in the noise, more exhale than greeting.
A sheen of sweat clung to his hairline. She saw his jaw work, clenching and unclenching, as if he was grinding his teeth around a secret—chewing on words he refused to let escape, ghosts crowding the space behind his silence.
"I was going to check on you," she said gently. "But… I figured you might need some space."
He let out a sound that almost could have been a laugh, if not for the hollowness in it. "You figured right."
Something was missing from his voice.
No dry bite. No sly teasing, sharp as salt on a cut. No venom curling behind his words, no glint in his gaze like he wanted to hurt and be hurt back. The dangerous edge—the fight or the dare—was gone. Kit just looked... eroded. Scraped raw and dulled out, as if whatever fierce thing had burned through him the night before had left only soot and tremors in its wake. Even the fire was missing now—just gray ash clinging to bone, a hollow silhouette of himself.
Delorah's chest constricted. She fished into her backpack and pulled out the dented water bottle she always carried, the gesture as instinctive as breathing. She extended it toward him without a word.
For a moment, Kit just stared at it, eyes wide and dazed, as if the water had materialized out of thin air. Like it was a relic from some softer, less broken place.
"You look like hell," she said quietly, steady and not unkind. "Drink something."
He took the bottle without protest, his movements brittle and uncertain, almost childlike. No nod, no thanks. His hands shook faintly as he twisted the cap, swallowing mouthfuls awkwardly, as if relearning the sensation. As though being kind to his own body was a mercy he barely remembered how to grant.
Delorah let herself lean back against the locker beside him, leaving a careful sliver of space. Just close enough to block him from the worst of the hallway's commotion: the stray shoulders, the stares, the noise swelling and receding in waves. Most students passed them by without interest. A few slowed, casting glances that slid off Delorah's glare.
When she spoke again, her voice dropped, low and confidential. A narrow passage for the words to cross without getting lost.
"Did you use again?"
He was silent.
"Kit."
Still nothing. But silence hung between them, thicker than any answer. It pressed in, filling every corner, as heavy and suffocating as smoke after a fire. The truth lingered in all the things he didn't say.
Delorah let her head drop back, spine pressed hard to the cold metal. Felt the unyielding surface anchor her, remind her what was real.
"I'm not mad," she murmured at last. "But I'm scared for you."
That broke through. Kit flinched—just barely. A muscle jumped in his jaw, his shoulder tightening beneath the hoodie. Anyone else would have missed it, but Delorah noticed. She felt it, a current thrumming through the invisible thread between them.
Her next words came out gentler, softer than she thought possible. "I don't need you perfect. I just… I need you here."
His head moved, almost turning toward her. For a moment, for a single uncertain heartbeat she thought she saw a fissure in his features, something raw and honest peeking through. As if he might finally let himself reach for her, say something real.
But then the bell screeched overhead, sharp and merciless, slicing their fragile silence to ribbons.
And just like that, the moment was gone—dissipating between them, drifting away on the smoke and noise, before either of them could catch it.
"You going in?" she asked, her voice threading softly through the chaos of the corridor.
Kit's gaze snapped to the classroom door. For a heartbeat, he looked cornered. Like at any second he might turn and run, swallowed up by the hall or his own uncertainty. His fingers tightened around the water bottle cap, awkward and restless, like he couldn't decide whether to crush it in his fist or let it fall.
But then, piece by piece, he steadied himself. He gave a short, jerky nod.
"Yeah," he said, voice scraped thin and rough, as if the word itself cost him something. "I'll go in."
Delorah stayed motionless, giving him space but refusing to look away. She watched as he straightened his back by inches, shoulders pulled up in a gesture that was almost brave. With slow, deliberate hands, he pushed his hood down, exposing his face. Every bruise, every shadow—to the bright and indifferent light. He drew in a shaky breath, trying to find balance, to remind his body how to move forward.
The tremor was still there. A faint wavering in each motion, as if the choice to walk through that door hadn't fully settled into his bones. But he swallowed and pushed off the locker, shuffling a little, and took the first step toward the classroom.
Delorah fell into step beside him, saying nothing. Close enough that their arms nearly touched, a silent promise that she wasn't going to leave. Not today, not now. And though the world shifted and swirled around them, they slid through the doorway together, fragile and present, for whatever the next moment would hold.
Inside, the classroom buzzed with a half-awake energy. People's voices were muffled, bodies folded over desks, backpacks slumped in tangled heaps at the base of plastic chairs like discarded exoskeletons. Harsh mid-morning light spilled in through the oversize windows, slicing pale stripes across the floor and making everything feel too exposed, painfully real.
Their usual seats waited for them: back row, tucked in the corner, a pocket of relative invisibility far from the teacher's gaze and the flickering, pitiless fluorescence overhead.
Kit slumped into his seat as if gravity, not will, had dragged him there. His backpack hit the floor with a heavy thud. Sharp enough to make someone wince, but nobody even glanced over. Delorah slid in next to him, careful in her closeness, a quiet shield. She watched him fight to be present, blinking slow and unfocused, his gaze hazed like he was still lost somewhere behind his eyes. His body was here, barely, but his mind was adrift in the aftermath of whatever he'd used, whatever he was trying so desperately to leave behind.
Up front, the teacher was nowhere to be seen. Just the low din of chatter, pencils scratching, bored fingers tapping rhythms only the restless could hear, the occasional dry cough catching in the oppressive brightness.
Delorah leaned in until her shoulder nearly brushed his, her voice a thread spun out between them. "You sure you're okay?"
Kit didn't try to joke or deflect. He didn't even look at her, but his answer was raw, stripped of armor.
"No," he breathed. Quiet. Honest in a way that made her chest ache. "But I'm here."
Oh, how her heart clamped tight at that. How it twisted with relief and pain, pride spiked with dread. He was ruined, trembling at the edge yet he was here. He was trying.
"Okay." She let the word settle, soft as a promise. Her eyes didn't leave him. "That's enough for today."
He didn't turn, didn't speak. But beneath the desk, his hand shifted, his fingers grazing her hand. Just the gentlest brush. Not quite a grip, not quite a plea.
Warm. Unsteady. Alive.
A silent thank you. A heartbeat passing between skin, sealing what words couldn't reach.
And then the door clicked open. Voices fell. Class began.
They sat in silence while the rest of the class filtered in. Chairs scraped, laughter fractured the air and faded. Lately, Delorah felt like everything had faded: sound, color, people. Like static on an old radio, always threatening to drown out the signal if you listened too long.
Kit didn't say a word. Didn't even flinch.
He hunched so low over his desk that his breath misted the scratched plastic, the patchwork of silvered names and fossilized gum winking up at him. His hands shook, the tremors chasing through his fingers like his body was still on a fault line no one else could feel.
Delorah glanced at him and made herself look away, then peeked again, the urge helpless and prickling. Under the sour fluorescent lights, Kit looked…not tired, but bruised. Hollow. Like sleep wasn't something he did anymore, just something that happened around him.
His knee jittered under the table, ticktickticktick, like some runaway clock counting down to something she couldn't see. He kept his eyes trained on the desk with the stubbornness of someone daring anyone to notice how scared he was. It felt like watching someone trying not to breathe.
Mr. Grayson wandered in, the kind of teacher who always seemed to move just a little slower than the bell. "Morning, all," he called, and his voice brushed over Kit, caught just for a second, then moved on.
Delorah felt it the pause of a silent warning, or maybe a question.
Class started. Symbolism, layers, double meanings. The kind of lesson where everything was supposed to be a metaphor for something secret. Kit didn't even reach for his book. Delorah's pencil hovered, half a sentence abandoned whenever she forgot how to write.
Nobody else seemed to notice the boy beside her sinking lower in his seat, as if gravity was working overtime on just one person in the room.
Then, ten minutes before the bell, Mr. Grayson paused. One hand still in midair.
"Mr. Honey," he said.
Kit jerked like he'd landed on ice.
"You with us today?"
A long, heavy second. Kit blinked, dragged his gaze up, eyes too wide in his face. "Yeah."
Mr. Grayson's nod was slow, not convinced, but not unkind. And then, that line that pressed the morning into something heavier: "I'd like you to stay a minute after class, if you don't mind."
Delorah pressed her hands flat to the desk to stop her own shaking.
Kit said nothing more.
All the ordinary noise of school carried on. Only, now, it felt like she could hear the seconds ticking past. Loud, inevitable, counting down to something she was pretty sure neither of them were ready for.
A few students glanced over, curious, but Mr. Grayson swept right back into the lesson before whispers could pile up. The moment was over or at least, everyone seemed to think so.
But Delorah felt the echo of it in her gut, coiling her stomach into a tight knot.
She risked another look at Kit. He didn't move. Didn't even blink. He just stared, rigid, straight ahead. So completely still that for a second, she wondered if he'd stopped breathing, or if maybe he'd simply locked himself inside some invisible box nobody else could see.
But then she caught the giveaway: his hand gripping the edge of the desk, fingers white and bloodless. His knuckles looked like chalk, like he was holding on just to keep himself from flying apart.
She wanted to say his name, or reach out and loosen his fingers, but something about the tension in his shoulders. The way they wound tight as a drawstring. It made her think even a whisper would unravel him, right there in front of everybody.
So she swallowed, silent. Kit kept staring forward, held together by nothing but the strength in his own shaking hands.
When the bell rang, students funneled out fast like they were trying to leave themselves behind. Laughter and the scrape of chairs rising in frantic bursts, everyone desperate for the next thing. Escape always came easier for them.
Kit didn't move.
Delorah lingered at the edge of the door, caught between leaving or not. A terrible, awkward tether. She looked back one last time, cheeks prickling in the quiet, and waited. Hoping for some sign, anything.
Kit caught her eye and gave the smallest shake of his head. Not now. Silent, but firm. I've got it.
She nodded once, swallowing all the words she wanted to leave behind for him, and slipped out before her resolve could turn traitor. Every instinct in her body howled at her to stay, but she left just the same.
The door snicked shut with a soft, final beat.
Inside, everything felt colder. The hum of the fluorescent lights grated in Kit's ears, high and buglike. The room was too bright, too bare. Kit's body refused to cooperate; he was stuck, spine welded stiff to the back of the plastic chair, legs locked down so hard his muscles ached.
He kept his eyes fixed on a pale scar in the woodgrain, refusing to track Grayson's movements, refusing to acknowledge the tight, electric tension crowding in.
Mr. Grayson crossed the room, stopping just short of Kit's desk, and leaned back against his own instead of sitting. Arms folded gently, his posture open. A kind of permission, not a threat. Just this steady, patient gravity.
Kit didn't make a sound. Didn't breathe, almost. If he could just be still enough, maybe time would skip him over, the way a record needle glides past a scratch. Maybe if he stayed silent, he could disappear inside the shuddering outline of his own skin.
"You've always been quiet," Mr. Grayson finally said. His voice was even, nonjudgmental, searching but not sharp. "But this isn't just quiet, Kit."
For a moment, Kit didn't answer. When he lifted his eyes, it was slow and agonizing. Like scraping up through mud. "I'm fine," he said, the words brittle as frost.
Grayson cocked his head, glasses slipping an inch down his nose. "That's not the word I'd use."
Kit's jaw worked and locked. His hand twitched once on the edge of the desk. Not a threat. Not even anger. Just a break of something hairline, something on the verge.
Kit huffed a humorless breath. "Is this where you ask if I've been drinking, or getting high?"
"I don't need to ask," Mr. Grayson replied, voice gentle—steady the way a hand on your back can be steady. "I've been doing this a long time, Kit. I recognize that look."
Kit let a half-laugh escape him, gritty and small. It wasn't a real laugh. It was the shell of one, hollowed-out and dark. "What look is that?"
"The one people get when they haven't slept. When food doesn't matter. The look that says you're running from something you haven't said out loud—maybe not even to yourself."
Kit's ears rang sharply, insistent, like the world pressing in from all sides. Behind his eyes, a hot pressure welled up, blurring the edges of his vision. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw prickled. It was always that close, that feeling, standing right behind him. If he slipped even once, it would be everywhere.
But Mr. Grayson didn't crowd the space, didn't fill the silence with false warm words or impatient sighs. He hovered quietly, letting the hush settle, treating Kit like he wasn't a problem to be solved but a person allowed to go silent. Kit could feel Grayson's patience as a kind of shelter. It was awkward, sure, but real.
"Look," Grayson said, nodding gently. "I'm not here to judge you or hand out lectures. I just… I have to say this. Whatever's happening—whatever weight's making it this hard? You aren't meant to carry it on your own. When you try, it's only a matter of time before you buckle under it." His words weren't forceful, but they had the certainty of someone who's seen it before, too many times to count.
Kit kept his eyes pinned to the desk. His heart was pounding, pulse shoving blood into his face and temple. He wanted desperately to roll the words off, let them slip away into chalk dust, into nothing. But it wasn't that easy. Grayson didn't sound fake. Didn't sound like the teachers from the pamphlet talks, the counselors with their warm mugs and script lines about hope.
He sounded like he meant it.
Kit felt something in his chest tighten again. A strange, fragile ache for wanting to believe, knowing it was dangerous to try. He squeezed his eyes shut for one long moment.
Grayson took one step closer, careful, never crossing the line. Kit saw the way he moved. Like a person who'd coaxed scared animals out of the rain before. Not forcing. Offering.
"You've got something, Kit," Grayson said quietly. "A spark. Some people sit where you're sitting and I can't tell if they want to disappear or explode. You? You make me think you're still here to fight it. That's why people care what happens to you. I care."
Kit's throat went raw. He blinked and felt heat gather under his eyes, a tide he shoved down hard. He could barely swallow.
Grayson's tone didn't budge. "So I'm going to ask you to do something harder than keeping everything bottled up and acting like you're fine."
Kit risked a glance up, swiping a hand under his eye before looking away.
"Ask for help," Grayson said.
The silence wrapped around them then. Thick and weighty but yet somehow not cruel. Not cold. It was just heavy. Like the air before rain.
After a beat, Kit rose up slow, like every movement cost him double. He grabbed his bag, slung it over a shoulder, tried to keep his hand from shaking on the strap. Clenched hard enough that it might leave a bruise, if anyone bothered to look.
"I… I have to go," he muttered, voice thin. Small. He didn't know if it was cowardice or instinct.
Grayson just nodded, not blocking the way. Not making any last demand. Letting Kit keep what little agency he had, something not everyone would have done.
Kit shuffled to the door, glad for the ache in his throat. It masked the flood of feeling that was clawing just under the surface.
His fingers brushed the door handle.
"Adrian."
Kit froze. The sound of his name, his real name slicing right through whatever defenses he'd built. He didn't turn, but his whole body flinched.
Grayson's voice followed, steady as ever: "Whatever it is… it's not too late."
Kit stood still for a second. Caught for a single heartbeat between flight and something else. Then he pulled the door open and slipped out, head ducked, shoulders bunched hard against the world.
He walked faster than he needed to. Like running from words could ever make them less true.
But his teacher's voice and that impossible offer trailed after him anyway.
They always did.
Delorah's next class felt like a punishment. A sentence handed down for sins she couldn't name, let alone confess.
She slipped into her seat just as the bell screeched overhead, the classroom door swinging shut behind her with a flat, metallic thunk. Too loud, too final. Her body was here, but her heart was stuck somewhere back in that liminal hallway space.
The thin place between Kit's trembling hands and the vacancy in his eyes. She imagined she could still feel it in her chest: the hollowness where worry and hope used to be tangled together.
The second-period teacher flicked a glance in her direction, then resumed droning through the attendance sheet, barely seeing her. No scolding for her lateness, not even a raised eyebrow.
It was as if she'd slipped beneath notice. Just another blur in the background. Maybe that was for the best. Her mind was a haze, static humming louder than the dull classroom shuffle around her. She wouldn't have remembered what he said anyway.
She kept catching herself picturing Kit's face, over and over, details sharpening and shifting each time she blinked. He didn't look just tired. He looked haunted. As if he'd spent the night wrestling ghosts and lost, over and over. His skin had gone an uncanny, paper-thin pale, even his freckles faded. The shape of his face had changed: cheekbones gone blade-sharp, mouth drawn down at the corners. Shadowed eyes, raw and rimmed in red, hollowed out where sleep should have been. He'd looked like the space between bones.
His sweatshirt had hung on him like an accusation. She wondered when he'd last eaten something solid. Or if he'd slept more than an hour at a time. His small smile. That half second, trying-for-her smile. It wasn't a smile; it was just the memory of one, thin and trembling at the edges, like it didn't remember how to cling to his lips.
And the way he'd lied to her. The way he'd said he was fine with a mouth that didn't know the words for honesty anymore.
Now he was somewhere else. Maybe still sitting in that classroom with Mr. Grayson. Maybe hunched in the hallway, hiding in one of those half-lit alcoves where no one ever paused. Or maybe something worse.
Delorah's thoughts slammed hard against a wall. She would not, could not imagine the worst. Not now.
The idea of Kit slipping, falling back into that silent ache that swallowed everything. Of him doing it alone. It made her insides cinch tight. Almost unbearable.
"Ms. LaRoche?" The teacher's voice sliced through the fog, sharp as breaking glass. "Are you with us today?"
She jerked her gaze up. "Yes. Sorry," she mumbled, voice sounding farther from her than she intended. A few students peered at her then. Some out of boredom, some out of habit, nobody who'd ever ask what was wrong.
Delorah let her hand move by autopilot, flipping open the textbook, eyes grazing over paragraphs of words that didn't stick. Every line was just black marks on white paper. She wouldn't remember any of it five minutes from now, or even five seconds.
Kit had said that things were getting worse. Not for attention, not for drama, just as a fact. She finally understood what that meant. The panic she carried now wasn't thunderous or obvious to anyone but her; it was subterranean, rumbling below her ribs. A tectonic shifting that threatened to break something beneath the floorboards.
Her pen tapped at the edge of her open notebook, not taking notes, just counting. One, two—pause—three. Each click was a heartbeat, proof she was still anchored here, even if the rest of her wanted to slip out after Kit, out into the corridors where things were still uncertain but at least honest.
They hadn't talked next steps, hadn't planned for the aftermath. No safety net, no map for after the disaster. She didn't even know what "after" looked like.
Her fingers, aching and cold, drifted under the desk, curling around her phone, thumb hesitating. She wanted to ask, Are you okay? But that was like shouting into a canyon. Empty, too easily ignored. Did Grayson say anything? Too direct. Too needy.
Instead, she typed: Still with you. Just let me know when you're ready.
She didn't send it right away. Just stared at the words awhile, feeling the weight in them. Hoping Kit would read between the lines, that he'd know she was still a tether, however fragile. Then she pressed send and slipped the phone quietly away, the message already echoing out into the dark, hoping it might wrap around him and pull him back before he drifted too far.
Maybe it would be enough. For now. Maybe it would keep him anchored until lunch.
She just hoped. No, she promised herself. She'd be waiting when he reached for that lifeline.
The lunch bell rang. Sharp, jarring, splitting the hush of the halls and sending Delorah's anxiety skittering up her spine. The sound was too loud, too bright, almost crystalline in how it cut through her nerves.
She was up and moving before the echoes faded, a ghost slipping through the clatter and congestion of bodies pouring into the corridor. Her locker flashed by, unvisited.
Friends called her name, or maybe she imagined it, but she didn't look back. Each step was pulled by a compass point only she could feel, directing her straight toward second period History: Kit's last known whereabouts before lunch.
He hadn't texted her back. She'd checked twice during the class, then a third time before the bell, thumb hovering, waiting for a vibration that never came. Her stomach had been churning ever since. Tight, hollow, restless.
The classroom loomed at the end of the hallway. The door, half-closed, made a dull angle against the frame. Inside, the lights were dimmed, shadows pooled in the corners. It felt abandoned, in that hurried way rooms do right after a class empties out. Still holding the muggy breath of too many people, but somehow lifeless.
Delorah hesitated for a heartbeat, knuckles pressed to the wood, then pushed the door open just enough to see.
There he was.
Kit sat alone near the window, folded strange and awkward over a desk, all elbows and knees and sharp, defensive angles. His long legs had nowhere to go, tangled under the scarred tabletop, and his head was cradled in the crook of his arms, face pressed low. His whole body looked like it was trying to shrink, trying to become less, but not quite knowing how. A slip of pale skin shone where his hoodie had ridden up, fragile and unprotected.
His breathing drew her attention. A shallow, uneven pulse. Not the breathing of real sleep, but of someone gone under, holding on by a thread. He looked too still, as if any movement might snap him right through the desk.
Delorah stood frozen in the doorway, hardly daring to breathe. The quiet was thick, a hush so delicate she was afraid to disturb it. She lingered a moment, taking him in, the sight of him alone in that dim, dusty light pinning her heart. It felt like watching a moment trapped behind glass: she could see his pain and all its confusions, but couldn't touch it, couldn't change it. She ached anyway.
His hair had slid forward like a messy curtain, shadowing most of his face in silhouette. But from the angle where she stood, she could see his mouth, loose and unguarded, lips dry. For a moment he looked younger than usual. Every line of worry had slipped away, leaving only raw vulnerability. Kit almost never let himself be seen like this.
She crossed the room quietly, careful not to let her footsteps echo. From this close, she could see the trembling in his fingers, the way his whole body caved in around itself.
Delorah reached out gently, and laid her hand on his shoulder. Warm, solid, something to tether him back.
"Kit," she whispered, her breath barely making a sound. "Hey. Lunch started."
He jerked at her touch. A flinch, not quite startled, more like his nerves fired before the rest of him caught up. He didn't look up right away, just burrowed deeper into his arms. For a moment, she wondered if he'd even answer.
Then, muffled, his voice edging rough and cracked, he said, "Didn't mean to—just… closed my eyes for a second." It was a lie, or half a lie, worn thin by something darker than exhaustion.
Delorah crouched down beside his desk, folding herself into the narrow, paint-chipped gap until she was level with Kit's line of sight. Her knees popped, but she barely noticed. Up close, the shield of his hair did little to hide the exhaustion in his face.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice soft. Almost childlike, stripped down to something basic and honest.
Kit's eyes met hers, slow and reluctant. It felt like he was forcing himself up through water. Fighting the current just to look her in the face. His pupils swallowed almost every trace of color, far too blown for the sick fluorescent light. His skin had a sheen to it, a dampness that made Delorah want to reach out again, just to check if he was fevered. There was a faint smell clinging to him. Chemical, earthy, not quite weed, not quite anything she could name or blame. Like the shadow left in a room after something unfamiliar has burned.
"I didn't sleep much last night," Kit muttered, and every consonant was blunt with fatigue. "Wasn't even gonna come in today." He didn't dress the truth up, didn't care to soften what wasn't real.
"But you did," Delorah countered, as steady as she could muster. "You're here." She said it with the kind of softness that willed itself into strength. Trying to find an island in the storm for both of them.
Kit let out a ragged sound. A bitter echo masquerading as a laugh. "Yeah. Gold star for me." His eyes darted away, as if embarrassed by his own harshness.
Without thinking, Delorah reached for his hand, letting her fingers wrap around his. She half expected him to recoil, bracing for that quiet recoil he got sometimes when things felt too raw. But he didn't. He let her touch linger, let her knuckles press against his, as if the warmth might soak in.
His hand was cold. Not freezing, just chilled and trembling—small, stubborn aftershocks dancing beneath the skin.
"You scared me," she said, the words falling out as a confession. Not an accusation. Just honest worry made audible.
Kit's mouth twisted, uncertain. "I scare myself," he admitted, and for a breath the admission hung there, crystalline and dangerous. A sharp edge neither of them wanted to touch too hard.
They let silence settle between them, thick and significant. It didn't feel awkward; it felt earned, like both of them stood on the rim of something vast and there was dignity in not looking down just yet.
Delorah squeezed his hand, then gave it the slightest tug. An invitation, not a command. "Come on," she pleaded softly. "Eat something. Sit with me."
For a moment, Kit's whole posture caved inward, his shoulders drooping with the weight of decision. The invitation seemed to hurt, like it pressed against bruises she couldn't see. But eventually. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
"Yeah," he whispered. "Okay."
Delorah helped him up. He wobbled, just for a second. A tilt, a rearrangement of center, like gravity was slow to greet him. She steadied him with an arm, neither of them needing to say anything about it.
They left the room together, side by side, their footsteps an odd duet down the suddenly cavernous hallway. Voices and lockers and cafeteria chaos crashed somewhere ahead, but between the two of them, there was a small hush—shared, uncertain, and fragile as a shoelace knot.
Together, still, but each one fraying at the edges.
The cafeteria was chaos incarnate. Voices ricocheting off the tile, laughter and slammed trays collapsing into a steady roar. The air churned with the heavy, metallic scent of grease and old tater tots, thick enough to make Delorah's stomach clench. She stayed close to Kit, their shoulders nearly brushing. It felt too vulnerable to let there be space between them.
Instinct drove her straight to the lunch line. Open tables were too exposed. "C'mon," she murmured, aiming for gentleness. "We'll grab something small. Just enough to keep your hands busy."
Kit didn't argue. He just moved beside her, slow and deliberate, as if picking up a sandwich took calculation. Every time she glanced sideways, he seemed smaller inside his hoodie, his eyes distant and hollowed out by exhaustion. He followed her through the motions. A sandwich, bottle of water, the required shuffle past the bored cashier sitting at the end of the line.
Never letting go of her presence, like she was the only familiar object in a dream.
They edged toward the quieter end of the lunchroom, the part closer to the windows where kids with headaches tried to hide. Sunlight slid through dust-specked glass, painting everything in watery gold.
She tried not to crowd him, but part of her wanted to dot-watch his every move: make sure his hands weren't shaking, that he was actually here with her, that he wouldn't slip away if she blinked. Is it weird to watch someone breathe? Probably. Did it matter right now?
Not really.
They'd barely rounded the corner when it happened.
A voice sliced through the noise. Smooth, pitched just high enough to carry.
"Kit?"
Both of them froze as if startled prey. Delorah's heart jitterskipped. For a second, she wondered if she should step in front of him, shield him somehow. She could feel his tension, the way his whole body went alert.
She recognized the girl a heartbeat before she placed her name. A perfect uniform, honey-blonde hair braided tight, posture unflappable even with a crowded tray resting lightly in one hand. She looked familiar in that effortless, magazine-cover way. Always radiant, always exactly where she meant to be.
Delorah's mind flicked uselessly for a name. Nothing.
Kit, though—Kit knew.
"…Celeste?" The way he said it caught on the edge of caution.
Celeste's face brightened. "I thought that was you! God, I haven't seen you since the alumni dinner last spring."
A flicker of a shadow passed across Kit's face, like he was working so hard to hold it together that the effort showed through. "Yeah. It's been a while."
Delorah, suddenly feeling surplus to requirements, shifted backward a pace. For a split second she envied Celeste. Her calm, practiced ease. Her certainty about where she belonged. I should say something, right? Or is it better to disappear into the wallpaper? The secondhand embarrassment was prickling down her arms.
Celeste's gaze flicked to her. "Sorry—am I interrupting?"
Kit opened his mouth, but Delorah moved first, out of reflex. Polite, automatic. Like she'd been trained. "No, you're good."
Celeste's smile didn't miss a beat. "You're Delorah LaRoche, right? We had French together last year."
"Yeah," Delorah managed. Is this a trap? She didn't sound unkind, but something in her voice put Delorah's defenses up.
Celeste turned back to Kit, her words feather-light but edged with teasing. "I didn't know you two were close."
Delorah glanced sideways at Kit, curious what story he'd tell. Kit's reply was fast, clipped: "We're not." Then, a beat later, quieter, "We're just talking."
That stung a little. That quick denial, even though she knew why. Best to keep things simple. Safer to stay unremarkable. Still, she folded her arms and watched him, trying to read the signals in the line of his jaw and the way he wouldn't quite meet her eyes.
Celeste didn't seem to notice. "Well! Maybe I'll see you later, Kit. My parents said your family's been trying to get in touch."
His whole face blanked out in an instant, like someone wrenched a plug from the wall. "Right," he said, and Delorah didn't have to know what was behind it to feel the recoil.
"Nice seeing you both." Celeste's smile glinted. She was already gliding away, braid swinging in perfect rhythm.
Delorah watched her go. The silence left in her wake seemed to crackle, brittle and uncertain. She had a dozen questions for Kit but none of which felt safe to ask.
Is this what all his ghosts look like?
Is this what he's been escaping from?
Delorah watched Celeste disappear into the tide of students, that golden braid vanishing in a blur of uniforms and cafeteria noise. For a brief second, it felt like the whole room had eyes on them. Like everyone had watched the small, inscrutable drama pull across Kit's face, and filed it away for later.
Delorah turned back to Kit, searching for something steady in his posture, anything to let her know he hadn't drifted entirely out of reach. "Friend of the family?" she asked, voice kept as casual as she could manage.
Kit stared at the far wall, jaw working for a moment. The air around him felt pressurized, like even the question weighed too much.
"No," he said finally, voice flat as an old penny. Then, softer, "Not yet."
The words lingered between them, echoing with promises and threats Delorah had no names for. She reached out, gave the sleeve of his hoodie a gentle tug. A silent, let's go.
Without another word, they moved to a table tucked against the window, as far from the center of the noise as the room allowed. Delorah slid into her seat first, keeping Kit's tray close at hand so he wouldn't have to reach. She watched Kit sit—slow, deliberate—and drop his water bottle on the table with a quiet clink. He looked up once, just enough to catch her gaze. Something grateful flickered in his eyes, swiftly shuttered.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Conversation drained out with the energy it took just to be here. Delorah busied herself unwrapping her sandwich, pretending not to notice how Kit's hands lingered on the cap of his water, how he kept his head down as if the act of eating might expose too much.
Around them, the lunchroom's chaos ebbed and surged. Distant, irrelevant, like noise underwater. Delorah took a bite, chewed, waited. There was no need to fill the silence. For now, it was enough to share this scrap of quiet, enough to be here at all.
Together, they held their ground. Just two figures in the glare of early afternoon, shadows overlapping on the vinyl tabletop, holding fast against the current for one more hour.