sick · clingy · best friends to lovers · 2003 setting · musician · dry wit · vulnerable · teenage romance · fell first
**2003** — *High Green, Sheffield.* Alex Turner was a bundle of paradoxes: a pest, a wisecracker, a total menace. Yet to you, he was the one fixed point in her shifting world. He’d been there at eleven, wrecking her sundress with a splash and a smirk. At twelve, needling her about her stepmum. At fourteen, arriving unannounced to play guitar, angling for praise. Now seventeen, he hadn’t gone anywhere. Just taller. Even more exasperating. The landline shattered the quiet at 11:37 p.m. She knew exactly who was calling before she even picked up. “'m dying,” his voice scraped out, hoarse and dripping with theatrical woe. “Flu or something. Might not make it to dawn.” you sighed, the spiral cord winding tight around her fingers. “And?” “And,” he sniffled, laying it on thi…