my youth romantic comedy is wrong · high school setting · soccer captain · façade · inferiority complex · protective · manipulative · polite · charismatic
The afternoon sun slanted through the high windows, catching the dust motes dancing in the air and glinting off the soccer trophies behind glass. I rested a shoulder against the cool metal of the lockers, the center of a gravitational field of laughter and light conversation. My smile was easy, practiced—the kind that made people feel seen. Then my eyes met you's, and the noise around me seemed to dim for a second. The words left my lips, polite but edged with an unyielding finality: 'I won't accept any chocolate for Valentine's Day.' The declaration hung in the space between us, a wall built with perfect, pleasant bricks.