Chapter Text
Gabby shut the door behind her and leaned against it like the house might shift if she didn’t hold it up herself. The lock clicked into place with a soft snick, and the weight of everything—of the afternoon, of Mary Anne—settled into her chest like a slow-filling tide.
She kicked off her boots, left her jacket slung over the banister, and padded up the stairs with her headphones still around her neck, a ghost of music humming low against her skin. Her room was dim, quiet except for the faint creak of the old floorboards under her weight. Familiar. Safe.
But her mind was nowhere near here.
She dropped her bag beside the bed, flopped down on the comforter, and stared up at the ceiling like it had answers. She’d talked to Mary Anne. Again. Longer this time. Closer.
And it wasn’t just that they talked. It was how they did it. Like they were standing on the edge of something they couldn’t quite see yet—but neither of them wanted to back away.
Gabby let out a breath that felt too full. She reached for her sketchbook, flipping to the page with the streetlamp—the one Mary Anne had looked at like it mattered. Like Gabby mattered.
That moment kept playing back in her head: Mary Anne sitting beside her, asking to see what she was drawing. The way Gabby had hesitated, instinctively wanting to protect the page, then handing it over anyway. Trusting her with it. And Mary Anne’s hands—small, careful, like she was holding something precious.
She’d said it was beautiful. And maybe she meant the lamp. Maybe she meant something else.
Gabby rolled onto her side, fingers brushing the corner of the page. She could still feel where their shoulders almost touched—like gravity had tugged them closer, but they’d both held back just enough.
And then there was what Mary Anne had said. “But I feel like you’re my friend too.”
Gabby had gone completely blank at that. Nothing clever, nothing even remotely articulate had come to mind. She’d just stood there, blinking, heart too loud in her ears, cheeks going warm like someone had lit a match behind them.
She knew she wasn’t smooth. Not really. People assumed she was—because of the hair, the clothes, the half-smile she wore like armor—but when someone saw past all that? When someone said something real?
She crumbled. Quietly, but completely.
She replayed it again: the way she’d looked down, trying to hide the way her heart was definitely not behaving, how her throat had tightened around something unspeakable, how Mary Anne had smiled at her like she didn’t mind any of it.
And the end— “Bye, Mary Anne.” It had slipped out soft and slow, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to say her name until just then. Like it meant something. Like it was a key turning in a lock.
Mary Anne had smiled and said, “Bye, Gabby.” And then she’d walked away, and Gabby hadn’t been able to stop watching her go.
She hadn’t looked back. But Gabby could tell she’d felt her watching, just like earlier. That strange tether between them—something quiet and invisible and strong enough to pull.
Gabby dragged her pillow over her face and groaned into it.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered, voice muffled by cotton and frustration.
Because the truth was... she didn’t know what this was turning into. She didn’t do this. She didn’t obsess over conversations. She didn’t spend nights lying in bed analysing someone else’s handwriting or smile or posture. She didn’t let people get close enough to make her want anything more than space.
But Mary Anne had slipped under her defences without even trying.
It wasn’t even about liking her—at least, not in the way that made Gabby panic (yet). It was just... interest. Curiosity. Maybe a little wonder. Mary Anne was a walking contradiction: soft but not fragile, shy but sharp, gentle but so full of opinions she kept tucked into corners of herself. And Gabby wanted to know those corners.
She sat up slowly, rubbed at her eyes. The light outside had gone blue and heavy with early evening. Somewhere downstairs, she could hear the clatter of pans—her mom, probably, starting dinner.
She didn’t move.
Instead, she opened her sketchbook to a new page.
She didn’t know what she was drawing until she’d already started: the curve of a cheek, the slope of a nose, a pair of eyes she hadn’t quite memorized but could feel her way through anyway. They weren’t perfect—not yet. But they were familiar. They were Mary Anne’s.
Gabby drew slowly, carefully, the way she only ever did when something mattered.
And maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe this was just a phase—an unexpected connection in a town she didn’t ask to live in, with a girl she hadn’t planned on noticing.
But she had noticed her. And now she couldn’t stop.
Gabby didn’t move from her bed for a while. She just sat there, knees pulled up, blanket over her legs, the sounds of the house soft and far away. She kept thinking about the way Mary Anne had looked at her, about the weight of that gaze—not heavy, not intrusive. Just there. Like it saw something worth staying for.
Downstairs, a drawer slammed, followed by the low hum of a burner clicking on. A pan clattered. Garlic. Onion. Something warm. Her mom was home, starting dinner.
“Dinner’s ready!” her mom called eventually, voice trailing down the hall and up the stairs.
Gabby gave a soft sigh and dragged herself up. She tucked her hair behind her ears, checked her reflection in the mirror—not because she cared how she looked, but because it felt like something to do. A buffer before stepping back into the regular rhythm of the evening.
In the kitchen, Olivia was already seated, mid-story. Her hair was pulled back in a lopsided ponytail, one sock on and the other tossed haphazardly near the foot of the chair. She was grinning, waving her fork like a pointer stick.
“—so then Amber dared Jackie to touch the fence, even though it clearly had a high-voltage sign, which, hello, obvious danger? And he still did it! He screamed so loud I thought security was going to come running.”
Gabby slid into the chair opposite, her plate already set. Rice, beans, something her mom had shredded and pan-fried. It smelled good, familiar.
She stirred her food around with her fork, not really eating, just listening. Olivia kept going, hands moving with her words, her mom laughing every few sentences, chiming in with questions and amused uh-huhs .
“Anyway, I sat with Brittany today—she’s in my bio lab—and she complimented my notebook organization, which was weirdly validating? I think we might start studying together. She knows how to do those Dutch braids too, so I might finally learn something useful and pass the next quiz.”
Gabby smiled faintly but didn’t say anything.
Her mom noticed. She always did.
“Mija?” she said, setting her cup down. “What about you? Any new friends?” She tilted her head, eyes soft with concern. “You’ve been kind of quiet tonight. And you’re barely eating—are you okay?”
Gabby paused, her fork still. She looked up slowly, surprised for a second to realize that, yeah, she’d been quiet. The house had filled with voices without her in it. But something about that question— Any new friends? —it echoed in her head longer than it should’ve.
“I think…” she began, then stopped.
Her mom raised her eyebrows. Olivia was watching now too.
“I think one,” Gabby said finally.
Her mom’s face lit up with the kind of hope only a parent could pull off. “Yeah? What’s her name?”
Gabby shifted in her seat, then smiled without quite realizing it. “Mary Anne.”
The name felt good in her mouth. Like it belonged there.
She looked down at her plate, still mostly untouched. She thought about how to say the next part without sounding ridiculous. Or obvious. Or like she cared too much—which she absolutely didn’t. Probably. Maybe.
“She’s… different,” Gabby said slowly. “Not in a bad way. Just… she doesn’t talk a lot. I mean, she does. But not all at once. She kind of… sits with me. You know? Not pushing or anything. Just… being there.”
Her mom didn’t interrupt. That was the best thing about her—she listened first, even when she was teasing later.
Gabby went on, finding the words as they came.
“She doesn’t act like I’m weird for keeping to myself. She notices things, I think. Like how I don’t always want to talk, and that’s fine with her. It’s like… I don’t know. We both kind of respect each other’s space, I guess. And when we do talk, it’s… quiet, but it sticks. It stays with me.”
Her fingers toyed with the edge of her napkin.
“She said something nice about my drawing today,” Gabby added, voice quieter now. “I didn’t even show her at first. She just asked. And I let her. I don’t usually do that.”
There was a pause.
Then, her mom grinned. “Ooh,” she said, drawing the word out. “¡Suena como un flechazo!”
Gabby blinked. Her head snapped up. “¡No, mamá! No—what? No, it’s not like that.”
Her mom just laughed, loud and full of amusement, stirring her rice like she didn’t just drop a nuclear statement in the middle of dinner.
“I’m just messing with you,” she said in English this time, still smiling. “This Mary Anne seems like a sweet girl. You should invite her over sometime.”
Gabby stared at her for a second, trying to decide if the heat in her face was visible. Judging by Olivia’s smug little smirk, it absolutely was.
She looked back down at her plate and poked at a piece of chicken. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Her mom didn’t push. Just gave her a knowing smile and turned the conversation back to Olivia, who was happy to retake the spotlight.
But Gabby couldn’t stop thinking about that smile. The one that had tugged at the corners of her mouth when she said Mary Anne’s name. The way her mom had picked up on it instantly. A crush , she’d said. Like it was something simple. Obvious.
But it wasn’t. At least not to Gabby.
It was something soft. Slow. Like sunlight warming up the floorboards in the morning. Something you didn’t notice until it had already settled into your skin.
Gabby finished her dinner eventually, scraping her plate clean while the voices around her hummed on. But her mind stayed somewhere else entirely.
With Mary Anne.
And her quiet gaze.
And the way she made space just by being.