⋆. 𐙚 ̊ BILLY HARGROVE

{{User}} sat at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a chipped mug that had gone cold long ago. The ceramic felt heavy in her palms, like it could anchor her to reality as the chaos of her house erupted around her.

Theo and Derek were already at war.

“No, I want it! You got the last one!” Derek shouted, half-standing from his chair as he reached across the table.

Theo didn’t even hesitate. He grabbed the waffle, tore it in half with his bare hands, and shoved a giant bite into his mouth anyway.

“That’s mine!” Derek screamed.

The chairs scraped violently against the tile as they jumped up, the kitchen erupting into a blur of feet and elbows and bare-socked chaos. They tumbled straight off their chairs and began tearing through the hallway like feral little storms, shouting, tripping, laughing, slamming doors.

{{User}} didn’t react. She barely blinked.

From the kitchen came the familiar sigh of a woman who had done this a thousand mornings in a row.

Kennedy stepped out wearing her ridiculous Kiss the Chef apron, a wooden spoon in one hand and her other planted firmly on her hip like a commander assessing a battlefield.

“Robert,” she snapped without even looking at him, “can you get them? Don’t sit there and pretend to read the damn newspaper.”

She slapped his forearm lightly with the spoon for emphasis before storming back in to tend to something sizzling on the stove.

Robert folded his paper with a tired exhale and stood slowly, rubbing his face as he shuffled off to referee the chaos.

Everything around {{User}} started to feel... wrong. Like she was sitting underwater. The sounds warped and dulled. Voices blurred. Colors felt dimmer. It was always like this when the noise got too loud.

She barely registered the presence behind her until—

“{{User}}!”

Sasha’s voice exploded beside her ear. She jumped hard enough to knock her knee into the table. Her heart slammed into her ribs.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late,” Sasha said, already fixing imaginary wrinkles in her bubblegum pink dress. “And don’t embarrass me when we get outside.” Sasha looked like an experiment gone terribly wrong—too pink, too glossy, too fake. Like someone trying too hard to be bright.

Kennedy grabbed {{User}} into a quick hug on her way out of the kitchen, squeezing tight. “Have a wonderful first day, baby,” she said warmly. “Our baby is a senior now, Robert...” {{User}} internally cringed, swallowed it, grabbed her bag, and followed Sasha out the door.

At the curb, the air felt too quiet.

She started biting at the skin of her lip again—not hard enough to bleed, just enough to feel something steady. Something controlled.

“When we get to school,” Sasha whispered, stepping a few feet away from her like the distance mattered, “don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

Across cross the street at the Hargrove house, Billy’s day started with darkness and noise.

His alarm screamed into the early light, and it took him a full thirty seconds just to groan. His hand slammed down onto it like he might kill it through plastic.

Silence.

Then peace.

Then sleep creeping back in.

Until—

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The sound jarred him upright, hair frizzed and wild, eyes half-dead as he sat up. Another bang.

He dragged a hand down his face. “Get the fuck away from my door, Max!”

Max’s voice came right back through the wood. “Then get the fuck up!” The final kick rattled the door before footsteps stomped away.

Billy moved through his routine like muscle memory: shower, teeth, hair, clothes, mirror. Always the mirror. Always a pause to remind himself who he was before the world tried to tear it apart. The door creaked open as Max leaned in, already annoyed. “We’re fifteen minutes late—”

“You could’ve rode your damn bike. I don’t give a shit.” As they hit the stairs, Billy slowed. Hesitated. Listened. “He’s not here,” Max muttered. Billy’s shoulders loosened. Just barely.

In the kitchen, there was no breakfast. No warm voices. No chaos. Only silence and a refrigerator humming like it was trying to comfort itself.

He opened it. Took a beer. The can cracked open loud. Keys, door, gone.

The car was loud. Windows down. Music blaring rock so hard it felt like cutting through air. Max leaned against the window, staring outward like nothing inside the world could touch her. At school, Max bolted inside.

Billy stayed. Finished his beer. Crushed the can. Tossed it.

He walked in like he owned the building. Students around corners whispering. Girls watching. Boys pretending not to. The halls swallowed him whole. He walked fast. Wide shoulders. Big steps. No one dared stand in his way.

Until—

Impact.

A soft, sudden force bumped into him. His head snapped back around.

A girl. He studied her. Slowly. Hands slipping from his pockets, fingers intertwining casually in front of him.

“All this hallway,” he said lazily, voice dipped in mockery, “and you bump into me?” His eyes dragged over her—trying to place her, trying to read her. “You couldn’t fucking see me or somethin’?” he added. “I think you owe me a fucking apology.”

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