Marco spots him almost instantly.

The library doors hush closed behind him, muffling the last murmurs of the dusky campus. Above, the sky drapes itself in a deepening violet-blue, the last sliver of sun clinging stubbornly to the horizon. Shadows stretch long and lean across the pavement, where just hours earlier, students bustled between classes or sprawled lazily on the green. Now, the quad is quieter—most have filtered into the cafeteria for dinner. That’s where Quynten should have been.

Instead, he’s holed up here, still at the same table since his meeting with Dr. Simmons. Four hours. Studying a subject he could practically recite in his sleep.

But time is never really free, not for him.

An essay looms—two weeks out—but Quynten prefers to work ahead, especially for Crowen. Mr. Crowen, the ever-smirking professor who teaches Ethics & Contemporary Theory like it’s a performance. Quynten tried not to take it personally, the way Crowen’s gaze lingered too long or his critiques teetered on the edge of condescension.

Still, it was hard not to notice the pattern.

Sure, the campus was a portrait of uniformity, pale tones and pressed collars—but Quynten wasn’t the only one who stood out. The only “chocolate chip in the batch,” as someone might joke. And Quynten never liked assuming race as the default explanation. His mother had always taught him to give people the benefit of the doubt—even when they didn’t deserve it.

Still… Crowen made that difficult.

Even so, the man taught one of Quynten’s favorite subjects, and that alone made enduring him tolerable. One semester, he reminded himself. Just one.

He repeats this like a mantra as he types, the click of keys breaking the library’s hush. The irony isn’t lost on him—despite Crowen’s smug demeanor and cryptic critiques, Quynten’s papers never dipped below a 98. Every assignment returned with a pristine “A” scrawled in red ink… followed by some bizarre, backhanded comment in the margins.

Quynten never understood if the professor disliked him, envied him, or was just intrigued. Either way, he wrote harder. Sharper. Smarter.

“So,” Marco’s voice cuts through the quiet, smooth and low, pulling Quynten’s attention up from his laptop just as the taller boy drops into the seat across from him. “How’d it go today?”

Quynten doesn’t need to ask what he means.

Of course Marco’s referring to the session with Dr. Simmons. He was the one who insisted Quynten stick with it—”Be persistent," he said, more than once. So naturally, he’d want to know how it went. But he never pressed for details, never asked more than this. Maybe he figured it wasn’t his place… or maybe he cared too much to overstep.

Either way, Quynten only rolls his eyes.

“Nice to see you too, friend,” he mutters, lacing the word with playful sarcasm and narrowing his eyes into a mock-smile.

Marco just smirks.

Quynten turns back to his screen, fingers tapping slowly at the keys. He’s down to the last two lines of his essay—lines he’s rewritten a dozen times, backspacing, rewording, backspacing again. The conclusion just wouldn’t settle right.

But now... maybe it’s there. The argument clicks into place in his mind like a gear locking into rhythm. He types, not rushing—deliberate, focused. Letting the words fall the way they should’ve from the start.

He doesn’t say anything else, but the air between them feels easier now. Familiar.

“Oh, c’mon,” Marco snorts, leaning back with a grin. “Don’t be sour with me. I’m just checking in. Wanna know how you’ve been.”

Quynten arches a brow, unimpressed. “You sure? Not that you’re fishing to hear whether you were right about Simmons being a ‘big help’ instead of, you know, a monumental pain in the ass?”

Marco laughs. “You’re such a tease, you know that?”

“Sue me.”

Marco’s laughter lingers, warm and full-bodied, the kind that makes people turn their heads. His smile follows—brilliant, effortless—and it lands hard. Too hard. Quynten’s chest tightens, heat crawling up his neck as he quickly looks back at his screen, pretending to proofread a line he already read three times.

Marco’s always been good-looking. That much Quynten could admit, objectively. But he never let himself think about him like that. Not seriously. Not in the more-than-a-friend way. That was dangerous territory.

Not when Marco had a girlfriend.

Abby Klarkson.

Quynten sighs inwardly. Abby was... polished. Loud. The kind of girl who held her head too high and spoke like everything was beneath her. A self-righteous opportunist—at least, that’s how Quynten saw her. But Marco? Marco loved her, head over heels. And Quynten, ever the outsider, never said a word. What could he say?

They’d been together since sophomore year. He was just the freshman who came late to the story.

His thoughts didn’t carry weight. Not here.

Besides, he’d never been in a relationship. Not once. What right did he have to judge? What did he know about love—what it should look like, who deserves who?

Still… Marco was good. Steady. Kind in a way that felt rare, unperformed. He deserved someone who saw that. Who matched it.

It doesn’t matter, Quynten tells himself.

And it didn’t. He let it go.

“Seriously though,” Marco says, his voice lowering, smoothing out. The smile fades slightly, not gone, just gentled—like the shift of light behind a cloud. His gaze settles on Quynten, warm and steady, a flicker of genuine concern threading through the curiosity in his eyes. “How did it really go?”

Quynten exhales through his nose, not quite a sigh but close. He saves his essay and shuts the laptop with a soft click before sliding it into his bag. He’ll revisit it later—polish the edges, tighten a line or two. But right now, his thoughts drift back to the session.

“It was…” He pauses, fumbling for the right word as the memory resurfaces—Dr. Simmons, his clipped tone, the sharp silences between questions. It wasn’t awful. But it wasn’t good either. The tension still sat in his gut, coiled like a knot that refused to unravel.

He zips up his bag and finally says, “Fine.”

He leans forward, forearms on the table, shoulders a little too tight for someone who claims things went fine.

Marco doesn’t say anything at first. He just raises an eyebrow, slow and skeptical.

Quynten groans and throws his head back with an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, come on. What more do you want from me? You asked. I answered.”

Marco only shrugs, amused, but that look in his eyes doesn’t waver—like he knows Quynten better than he’s letting on.

Marco lifts his hands in surrender, the corners of his mouth tilting. “Alright,” he says lightly. “Fair enough.”

A pause stretches between them.

Quynten stares down at his hands, fingers fidgeting slightly as if they’re trying to escape the weight in his chest. Marco doesn’t say anything. He just watches—and that’s the part Quynten hates. Not the silence, but the looking. The way Marco’s faint smile sits on his face like a promise, like he’s trying to reassure him without words. It makes Quynten’s skin itch.

Stop looking at me like that, he wants to say. Like you’re trying to figure me out.

Then, finally—“You planning on going back?”

Quynten blinks. “What?”

“To see Simmons,” Marco clarifies. “You doing another session?”

Quynten snorts and shrugs, half-hearted. “Not like I have a choice. It’s already in the books.” He exhales, slow. “Plus…”

The word hitches, heavy on his tongue. A ripple of dread washes through him, cold and cloying, but he swallows it back. He laces his fingers together to steady them.

“…he gave me homework.”

That gets a reaction. Marco perks up, brows rising like he’s just heard something mildly scandalous. “Oh?”

A soft, reluctant laugh escapes Quynten. “Yeah.”

Marco leans in a little, a spark returning to his eyes. “Do tell.”

Quynten hesitates. The warmth from before begins to slip away, like sunlight behind a storm cloud.

“It involves my dad.”

And just like that, Marco’s smile falters.

Gone is the teasing glint in his eyes—snuffed out by something quieter, darker. Sorrow? Pity? Quynten can’t tell. He only knows he hates it. Whatever it is, it doesn’t belong here. Not between them.

Marco leans back with a quiet breath. “Shit.”

Quynten looks down again, jaw tightening as a flush creeps up his neck. But the warmth doesn’t reach his heart. His chest feels tight. Knotted.

“Yeah,” he murmurs as if that’s all he can give.

It should have unsettled Quynten—how much Marco seemed to know about his relationship with his father. Not the full truth, no. Just the surface-level fragments: the distance, the chill in the man’s presence, the way Quynten flinched whenever his father’s name came up. That alone was already too much. And still, Marco only ever skimmed the edge.

The rest—everything else—Quynten kept locked away.

Especially the basement.

The things that happened down there weren’t just memories; they were sealed shut in a mental vault so tightly bound that even if someone cracked the code, they’d never truly understand what was inside. Not Marco. Not Dr. Simmons. No one.

There had been a session once—weeks ago—where the image of it slipped through. Uninvited. The last time his father had dragged him down the basement steps. He wasn’t sure what he’d said to trigger it—maybe he spoke out of turn? That was usually enough. That alone could light the fuse.

He’d tried to run. Always did. But his father was faster. Stronger. And no matter how loud Quynten screamed, kicked, or begged—it never stopped anything.

Once the door closed, that was it.

There was no mercy on the other side.

That part—the pleading, the silence that followed, the bruises that bloomed where sleeves and pants couldn’t always hide—Quynten never told anyone. Not even Simmons, who had glanced once too long at the forming discoloration along Quynten’s wrist and said nothing when Quynten said nothing first.

He’d sat through the rest of that session in silence. An entire hour. Still. Mute.

And Marco?

Marco would sometimes notice too. A limp. A wince. A bruise too big to be clumsy.

“I fell,” Quynten would say with a shrug.

Or, “Tried this new recipe. Let’s just say it didn’t end well.”

Lies. All of them.

And Marco knew. Of course he knew.

But he never pushed. Never pried.

And maybe that’s what made it harder.

Because silence, in the end, could be more suffocating than any question.

Quynten finally clears his throat, brushing off the thoughts crowding his head. “This is your fault, you know.”

Marco blinks, his eyes widening in mock horror. The expression is so over-the-top it should be comical—cartoonish, even—but Quynten just snorts and rolls his eyes.

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Marco asks, voice pitched in exaggerated confusion.

“Because,” Quynten leans in slightly, lowering his voice to a sharp whisper, mindful of where they are—wedged in the quiet study section of the library, where even breathing too loudly earns glares. But his words are still crisp, unmistakable. “You’re the one who put me up to this. Told me it’d be ‘good for me.’” He scoffs. “Traitor. No—con artist is more accurate.”

He crosses his arms and huffs, unaware of the childish scrunch in his nose or the way his brows pull together like storm clouds. But Marco sees it—of course he does—and he chuckles softly, amused. Without warning, he reaches over and pinches the bridge of Quynten’s nose.

Quynten jerks back, blinking in surprise. “What the hell was that for?” He clutches his nose like it’s been personally offended.

Marco only grins. “For being a big baby. I said talk to Simmons because you dodge your problems like it’s a sport. And you barely talk to me about any of it, so I figured, hey—might as well unload on a professional, yeah?”

Quynten scowls. “I do not run from anything.”

Marco bites back a laugh, his grin twitching wider. He knows better than to burst out here—too many eyes, too many rules—but the temptation is real. “You trying stand-up now? Quynten the comedian? Damn. The world’s not ready.”

Deadpan, Quynten raises a middle finger and holds it between them like punctuation. “Fuck you,” he mouths, without sound.

Marco just presses his hands into a heart over his chest. “Love you too.”

Asshole, Quynten thinks, a reluctant chuckle caught in his throat.

“Seriously though,” he sighs, tilting his head, “how does Abby even deal with you? You get more unbearable the longer I know you.”

Marco props his chin in his palms and flashes his most dazzling smile. “I’m an angel,” he drawls.

Quynten snorts. “Right.”

“You love me.”

“Do I?”

“Absolutely.”

“Since when?”

Marco leans forward, eyes gleaming, already crafting the next line.

“Since—”

RIING! RIING!