Elise's POV
It happened so gradually, I could hardly tell when I stopped resisting.
At first, it was just small gestures—fleeting moments in between class and counselling sessions. A brief touch on the hand when he handed me a paper, a soft brush of his shoulder as we passed in the hallway. Things I convinced myself didn't mean anything.
But then came the looks he'd give me when no one else was watching. The silence filled with something unspoken, stronger than either of us could name. After weeks of trying to outlast it, the truth settled in quietly: my walls, the ones I'd built so carefully, had finally broken down.
I didn't flinch anymore when he reached for my hand while we were alone. I didn't pull away when he found excuses to hug me, or when his face came close enough that I could feel his breath warm against my cheek. Instead, I let it happen.
I let him happen.
Somewhere along the line, the boundaries blurred. I stopped keeping count of how many times he lingered after class, how often we exchanged glances across the room. The nights grew longer, too—our conversations no longer confined to school hours.
We exchanged numbers. At first, it was for "school updates," but it quickly turned into late-night calls and morning texts. I'd wake to the soft vibration of my phone and find a simple message waiting: Good morning, Elise.
Sometimes, I'd catch myself smiling before I even replied.
At school, it became a quiet game—finding places the world couldn't see us. A corner behind the library, a stretch of hallway no one used, the shade of an old tree by the field. Every moment stolen, every glance shared, felt like ours and ours alone. The fear of being caught lurked constantly, yet somehow, that made it more intoxicating.
I told myself that as long as it stopped there—touches, glances, nothing deeper—it would be okay. But love has a way of sneaking past logic, especially when you're pretending not to feel it.
Mason's POV
To anyone else, I was just another student. But to her, I liked to think I was something different.
No one had caught on, and honestly, that surprised me. The only one who knew was Luke. He found out early on, mostly because I'm a terrible liar when I'm happy. He'd noticed the late-night calls, the excuses, the way I slipped out after class.
At first, he tried to talk me out of it, his usual joking tone gone serious. "Mason, you're walking on a wire with no safety net," he said. But even though he worried, part of him couldn't help but smile when I told him how I felt.
He'd say, "You always chase what you're not supposed to," shaking his head, but he never really stopped me either.
When I wasn't with her at school, I was finding ways to be. Sometimes I'd convince her to meet me at the quiet beach, the one near Silver Lake. We'd sit by the water with drinks from the vending machine, watching the sunset paint the waves in gold. She always looked more relaxed there, like all the rules keeping her tense were momentarily washed away by the sea air.
Other times, I'd take her to small arcades on the edge of town, or to tucked-away cafés where no one from school ever went. It wasn't much, but it was freedom—our kind of freedom. I didn't even care what we did, as long as it was with her.
Then one day, she invited me to her small studio apartment.
"I think it's safer here," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Less chance of anyone recognizing us."
Her apartment was tiny but warm—a single couch by the window, a small dining table, a stack of books by her bed. We ordered takeout, watched old movies, and laughed over nothing. The air between us was more relaxed than it ever was at school.
That was the night of our first kiss.
It wasn't planned—it never is. We were sitting on the couch, a movie forgotten on the TV screen. She said something about how this had gone far enough, how we were "walking a dangerous path." Then she looked at me with that hesitant expression—half fear, half longing—and before I could think, I leaned in.
It was short, barely a whisper against her lips, soft and unsure but real.
When I pulled away, she didn't speak. She just looked at me, eyes wide, confusion and tenderness fighting for control. It was the kind of silence that said everything words couldn't.
Elise's POV
That night, I sat silently beside him for a long time, thinking of the line we'd just crossed. My heart screamed to let it happen again, to stop caring about the rules, about the world beyond that apartment. But my mind—the teacher, the adult in me—knew better.
So I set boundaries.
"We can't go further than this," I told him quietly. "We're both already on thin ice. Please… don't make me forget why this is wrong."
He didn't argue. He nodded, and maybe that made me trust him even more.
And for a while, we kept that unspoken promise. Our days fell into a rhythm: class, conversations, hidden smiles. Evenings at my apartment, quiet dinners, silly debates over movies, and embraces that lasted just a little too long. Sometimes, he'd surprise me with small things—flowers drawn in sketchbooks, notes tucked inside folders, a chocolate on my desk.
I told myself we were careful. That we could stop whenever we needed to. But every passing day made that truth feel thinner, weaker, closer to breaking.
Every time he held me, every time his laughter filled my tiny apartment, I felt the part of me that used to resist slipping further away.
What scared me most wasn't the risk of being caught.
It was the realization that I didn't want to stop anymore.