For a moment, she just stared at him. Kai—the boy everyone whispered about, the one the whole school was desperate to impress—stood in front of her, hands trembling, his mask shattered.
She had never seen him like this. Nobody had.
And maybe that was why her chest ached.
"Kai," she said softly, the word catching in her throat.
He looked away quickly, jaw tight. "Don't. You don't have to say anything."
But she couldn't stop herself. "You didn't do anything wrong."
His laugh was hollow, sharp. "I almost did. I almost—" He cut himself off, dragging a hand through his hair like he wanted to tear it out. "You don't get it. I can't— I shouldn't let myself—"
Something inside her twisted. She recognized that panic. That shame. She lived in it every day.
"You didn't scare me," she blurted, though her voice trembled. "Not really. It just… it was new. I didn't know how to—" She swallowed hard, her hands knotting together. "I didn't know what to do with it."
That made him pause. His breathing slowed, eyes flicking back to hers. He looked… almost fragile, like a glass window about to crack.
She took a tiny step closer—not much, but enough to close a fraction of the space he had put between them. Her voice was low, unsteady but real. "You don't have to panic every time someone flinches. I… I panic too. All the time."
For a moment, silence stretched between them, heavy but different. Not awkward. Not empty. Just… honest.
Then Kai's lips curved into the faintest, almost broken smile. "Guess we're both kind of messed up, huh?"
Her chest tightened. "Yeah," she whispered. "Maybe."
The last of the students trickled out of the hallway, their footsteps fading until it was just the two of them, standing in the echo of what almost happened.
Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke again. But somehow, for the first time, the silence didn't feel unbearable.
It felt like something they could share.