As Friends

SLOANE

“This was supposed to happen after school,” he said, shooting a glare over his shoulder. “Privately. Without Jake committing active emotional vandalism.”

“I accept full responsibility,” Jake offered from the wall.

“No one invited you to.”

“I still accept it.”

Ethan turned back to me, his voice dropping a register, losing some of the flustered embarrassment. “Winter formal is Saturday. I know you hate themes, decorations, school dances, social expectations, and quite possibly joy itself.”

“Only *organized* joy,” I corrected automatically.

His mouth twitched. “Right. Organized joy. But I thought maybe you could use a night where you weren’t thinking about article deadlines or college applications or whatever else you’re pretending isn’t currently eating you alive.”

The words landed a little too close to the bone.

Riley looked at me. So did Priya. I kept my face brutally blank through sheer, unadulterated spite.

Ethan held the flowers out. “Go with me?”

My throat tightened.

He added quickly, “As friends.”

The entire room seemed to inhale at once.

*As friends.*

Two safe, uncomplicated little words. Two words that should have made the entire equation perfectly simple. A normal, decent boy asking me to a normal, mundane dance in a normal high school newsroom while my friends watched with badly concealed excitement. No massive secrets. No messy stepfamily complications. No three-hour geographical distance. No late-night texts that made my chest physically ache. No boy in a Dalton hockey hoodie who said things like *you’re mine* without having earned the right to say them.

Ethan was kind. Ethan was undeniably decent. Ethan had driven me all the way to Dalton and back alone without once making me feel small or demanding an explanation. Ethan noticed when I was exhausted without using it as ammunition against me. Ethan asked permission instead of just taking. Ethan made things easier.

And maybe that was the most dangerous thing in the world.

Because *easy* looked incredibly tempting when your life had become a locked door with Chase Hartley standing on the other side.

I reached out and took the flowers.

“Okay,” I said.

Ethan blinked, as if he hadn't fully prepared for a yes. “Okay?”

“As friends,” I clarified, my voice firm.

His smile broke open—relieved, warm, and genuine. “As friends. Completely.”

Riley made a tiny, high-pitched squealing sound and immediately tried to disguise it as a coughing fit.

Leah didn’t bother disguising a thing. “This is legitimately adorable.”

“It is logistical,” I insisted.

“Taking flowers from a cute boy is not logistical.”

“It can be if one possesses discipline.”

Jake leaned toward Priya, stage-whispering, “She has successfully weaponized denial.”

Priya nodded solemnly. “Professionally.”

Ethan laughed, and the sound made something tight in the room finally loosen.

Except for Ava.

Ava set her red pen down.

Carefully.

*Too* carefully.

Then, she gathered the uncorrected proofs into a perfectly neat stack. Her face was calm. Flawlessly calm. It was the specific kind of calm that looked less like inner peace and more like a highly controlled burn.

“I need to check the final caption list with Mr. Castillo,” she said, her voice completely devoid of inflection.

Ethan turned toward her, his smile dropping. “Ava—”

“I’ll be back.”

She walked out before he could finish his sentence. The heavy newsroom door swung shut behind her with a definitive click.

Nobody spoke.

The white carnations in my hand suddenly felt like they weighed ten pounds.

Ethan stared at the closed door, then back at me, and a flash of raw guilt moved across his face before he quickly buried it. Riley’s bright smile faded around the edges. Priya’s expression shifted into something completely unreadable. Leah suddenly found the ribbons in her lap deeply, intensely fascinating.

Jake, for once in his life, said absolutely nothing.

I should have gone after Ava. I knew that. But my legs refused to move. Maybe because part of me was still clutching the flowers. Maybe because part of me was terrified of what I would find if I followed her out there. Maybe because I already knew the truth, and knowing it made me feel like a terrible person before I had technically even done anything wrong.

Ethan cleared his throat, the sound loud in the quiet room. “I didn’t mean to make that weird.”

Riley gave him a painfully sympathetic look. “You didn’t.”

Which was a lie. Not his fault, maybe. But still a lie.

I set the flowers gently onto my desk. “It’s fine.”

Priya looked at me.

I hated that look. It explicitly said: *No, it is not.*

The warning bell rang before anyone had to decide whether to be honest. Students immediately flooded the hallway outside, loud, relieved, and entirely oblivious to the tension in our room. Leah started frantically stuffing ribbons back into her tote bag. Priya collected the formal folder. Jake picked up the tripod again, realized he was actually supposed to have returned it, and set it back down in confusion.

Riley leaned in close to me while everyone else moved around us.

“You okay?”

“I said yes to a high school dance, Riley. I didn’t enlist in ground combat.”

“Historically, with you, those two things have very similar outcomes.”

I gave her a withering look.

She held up both hands in surrender. “I’m just saying. Ethan is nice.”

“Yes.”

“And Ava is…”

“Don’t.”

Riley pressed her lips together.

I hated that she actually obeyed.

After school, the sky was already dimming, the pale, washed-out winter light sinking behind the student parking lot. I stayed late in the newsroom under the flimsy excuse of fixing the formal announcement copy, but in reality, I was actively avoiding three things: the flowers sitting on my desk, the devastated look on Ethan’s face when Ava had left, and my cell phone.

Because Chase hadn’t texted.

That should have been a good thing. That should have made the day easier.

It didn’t.

When I finally shut down my laptop and stepped out into the hallway, the building had mostly emptied out. The last yellow buses were pulling away from the curb. The trophy case glittered under the harsh fluorescent lights, the fake plastic icicles trembling slightly every time the heavy front doors opened.

I saw Ava through the glass doors before she saw me.

She was standing at the edge of the parking lot with her bag slung over one shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around herself against the biting cold. She wasn’t crying. Ava didn’t look like the kind of person who cried where other people could see. She looked composed.

That was so much worse.

A car pulled up to the curb next to her.

Red. Sleek. Noticeably too expensive for the Eastlake High parking lot.

My footsteps slowed.

The passenger window rolled down smoothly, and for one strange, disorienting second, I thought I was hallucinating. Then the driver leaned slightly into view—blonde hair spilling over one shoulder, her mouth curved into a smile I recognized instantly from photographs, old social media posts, and the poisonous, shadowed little corners of Chase’s past.

Brittany.

Chase’s Brittany.

My stomach completely dropped.

Ava reached out and opened the passenger door, got in, and they drove off.

My phone buzzed heavily in my coat pocket.

For one stupid, pathetic, awful second, my heart leaped, thinking it was Chase.

It wasn’t. It was Ethan.

**ETHAN:** *Thank you for saying yes. Saturday will be fun. As friends. Promise.*

I stared down at the glowing screen while the freezing air pressed in from all sides.

*As friends.* Ava riding in Brittany’s car.

Winter formal barreling toward me.

And me, somehow standing dead center in the middle of yet another massive mess I had never intended to make.

Riley suddenly appeared before me, her voice quiet. “Sloane?”

I clicked the screen dark and shoved the phone deep into my pocket.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Riley let out a long, slow sigh. “You know, that word is really starting to sound like a threat.”

Maybe it was.

Maybe I was.