The hallway of St. Jude's High was a kaleidoscope of adolescent noise and color, a place where reputations were minted and shattered between the ringing of bells. For the longest time, Tesse had been a vivid, frantic splash of paint against the canvas of Valor's life—a persistent, undeniable shade of devotion that he had tried, with increasing frustration, to scrub away.
Everyone knew the script. It was as worn and dog-eared as the textbooks in the library. Valor was the Class President, a boy carved from golden light and easy charm, the kind of person gravity seemed to favor. He was the sun around which the social solar system orbited. And, like any tragic hero in a high school melodrama, his heart belonged to Tia. Tia, with her effortless grace and the kind of smile that could launch a thousand rumors, was his childhood friend, his equal, and the third point in a triangle that everyone respected.
Then there was Tesse.
Tesse was the anomaly. She was the glitch in the system. She had confessed to him months ago, standing behind the gymnasium with trembling hands and eyes wide with a terrifying amount of hope. He had turned her down, of course. He did it with the practiced politeness of a politician, citing his busy schedule, his duties, the vague notion of "not looking for anyone right now." It was a lie, and they both knew it. He was looking for Tia. He was waiting for Tia.
But Tesse didn't adhere to the script. She didn't cry and fade into the background. She persisted. It wasn't a stalking obsession, but a stubborn, quiet offering of presence. She brought him energy drinks when he stayed late for council meetings. She volunteered for committees she had no interest in, just to be in his orbit. She offered to proofread his speeches. She was always *there*, a safety net he hadn't asked for, a constant reminder of a love he didn't want.
For Valor, stuck in the agonizing limbo of unrequited love for Tia, Tesse's devotion became a mirror he couldn't stand to look at. It reflected his own desperation. It highlighted his own pathetic longing for Tia by showing him what it looked like from the outside.
The snap happened on a rainy Tuesday. The humidity was suffocating, and the student council budget was in shambles. Valor was rubbing his temples, the headache behind his eyes pulsing in time with the rain against the windows. Tesse had approached his desk, holding a meticulously organized binder of notes she'd taken for him, trying to make his life easier. Trying to be useful.
He had looked at her, and instead of gratitude, he felt a surge of irrational, bubbling anger. She was so open, so available, so *easy*. It offended him.
"Stop relying on me," he had snapped, his voice cutting through the humid air like a lash. He stood up, knocking the binder from her hands. Papers scattered across the floor like dead leaves. "I will never like you. Do you understand? You're wasting your time. Just stop."
The silence that followed was louder than the thunder rolling outside. The entire room froze. Tesse stood there, her hands still suspended in the air where the binder had been. For a moment, Valor expected her to cry. He braced himself for tears, for the guilt that would surely follow.
But Tesse didn't cry. She slowly lowered her hands. Her eyes, usually warm and shimmering with that annoying hope, went flat. It was as if a light switch had been flicked off inside a house, leaving the windows dark and hollow.
"Okay," she whispered.
She didn't pick up the papers. She didn't apologize. She simply turned around and walked out of the room, leaving Valor standing amidst the scattered notes, breathing hard, victorious and utterly alone.
***
The weeks that followed were a study in absence.
Nobody knew if Valor regretted what he said immediately, but everybody noticed the shift in the ecosystem. Tesse had distanced herself. It wasn't a dramatic exit; she didn't transfer schools or make a scene. She simply excised him from her reality. She stopped looking at him in the halls. She resigned from the committees. When he entered a room, she didn't perk up; she didn't react at all. She treated him with the same bland, unfocused courtesy she gave to the janitorial staff or the lockers lining the wall.
And then, the second blow fell.
The love triangle collapsed, but not in the way Valor had dreamed. Tia chose the other guy—the captain of the swim team, a boy with broad shoulders and a laugh that didn't carry the weight of the world. Valor watched from the sidelines at the spring dance as Tia rested her head on the other guy's shoulder, looking happier than she ever had with him.
He was supposed to be devastated. He had rehearsed this heartbreak for years. He told himself he was crushed. He drank too much punch and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the agony to consume him.
But the agony was dull. It was a distant ache, like a bruise pressing on a nerve, rather than a stab wound.
The real torture came in the quiet moments. When he sat at the student council desk, the silence was deafening. There was no rustle of paper, no soft voice asking if he needed water, no admiring gaze burning into the side of his face.
Every time he was alone, the face that lingered in his mind wasn't Tia's radiant smile. It was Tesse's flat, dead eyes from that rainy Tuesday.
He found himself unconsciously staring at her in class. He watched the way she took notes, her posture rigid and perfect. He watched her laugh with her friends—a sound he hadn't heard in weeks—and felt a pang of jealousy so sharp it nearly doubled him over. He wondered, with a sickening churning in his gut, how things would be if he hadn't pushed her away. If he had accepted the binder. If he had let himself be loved.
He realized, with a creeping horror, that he hadn't just rejected a girl. He had rejected his own sanctuary. He had burned down the only house that had ever kept a light on for hi
m, assuming he could always rebuild it later.