We leave the library just as the sun starts dipping low, turning everything gold and quiet.

Eli’s hoodie is up again, but he doesn’t seem closed off—more like it’s armor he wears out of habit, not fear. We’re walking in the same direction. I don’t ask if he wants company. I just match his pace.

“You draw everyone?” I ask, trying to keep it casual.

“No,” he says.

“Have you drawn me?”

His silence tells me everything.

I grin. “So I’m in the sketchbook.”

He shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is to me.”

He glances over, like he’s checking to see if I’m mocking him. When he realizes I’m not, he looks away fast.

“It’s not flattering,” he mutters. “You fidget a lot. And your nose is weird to draw.”

I burst out laughing. “My nose?”

He smirks. Smirks. Like he’s secretly pleased he got a reaction out of me.

“You know what,” I say, “I’m demanding artistic compensation. I want to see it.”

“Nope.”

“Come on.”

“Nope.”

“Fine. I’ll write your character into a tragic love triangle and kill him off dramatically.”

“You already did that in the last version.”

I blink. “You read that one?”

“Yeah.” He kicks a pebble. “Didn’t hate it.”

We walk a little farther. The silence this time is warm, stretched between us like something we’re both getting used to.

“Hey,” I say, before we part ways at the corner, “you’re not as invisible as you think.”

He looks at me.

For a second, I think he’s going to disappear behind his hoodie again.

But he doesn’t.

“Neither are you,” he says.

And then he turns and walks away.