People act like Ethan Carter is the easiest guy in the world to figure out.Grin plastered on his face, voice always carrying some cocky edge, posture so loose it’s almost lazy. The kind of guy who looks like he never carries anything heavier than his own ego.And the crowd eats it up.I watched it today, the way the cafeteria bent around him like gravity. He tossed another one of those ridiculous nicknames at Lila—loud enough for everyone to hear, casual enough to seem like he hadn’t planned it. The whole place rippled. People whispering, laughing, gawking.It was a performance, and they loved it.But I wasn’t watching the crowd.I was watching him.And maybe I imagined it—maybe I wanted to imagine it—but there was something there. Something in the half-second after the laugh, when the spotlight dimmed just enough for me to see it. A flicker in his eyes, quick and sharp. Not cocky. Not amused.Regret.Or maybe exhaustion.It was gone almost as soon as I caught it. Smothered under tha
Sometimes I wonder if anyone around here remembers how to breathe.All I did was walk into the cafeteria with a grin, toss out one stupid nickname, lean against a wall like I owned the place. That’s it. That’s all it took.And suddenly the air in the room shifted. Heads turned. Voices dropped into hushed whispers. Eyes tracked me like I’d strolled in carrying a lit match over a puddle of gasoline.It was glorious.Because that’s the thing about people—they love to react. They thrive on speculation, on gossip, on building mountains out of little scraps of nothing. Give them the smallest nudge, the tiniest flick of attention, and they’ll do the rest of the work for you.And me? I’ve always been good at nudging.So yeah, I smiled wider when I saw the ripple spread. Jason glaring at me from across the table, like he wanted to snap my neck. Lila stiffening in her seat, trying so damn hard not to show she noticed me. Ava—my Ava—sitting there like stone, her silence louder than any scream.A
Ethan Carter.Of course he had to show up now, just when things were finally starting to make sense.The cafeteria was buzzing the second he walked in yesterday, and I swear I could feel the ripple of attention shift. People hang onto his every word like he’s some kind of celebrity. He thrives on it. That grin, that lazy swagger, that too-cool-for-this-world act—it’s all a performance, and the audience eats it up.But me? I’m not clapping.Because I know better.Guys like Ethan? They don’t just stir chaos for fun. They do it because they need to. Because it’s the only way they know how to keep people from looking too close. And sure, he’s good—better than most. He’s quick with a joke, smooth with a smirk, and bold enough to throw nicknames across the room like he owns the place.And yeah, I saw Lila’s reaction when he did.She tried to play it off. Rolled her eyes, brushed it away. But I know her. I notice the details—the way her fingers curled tight around her tray, the way her shoul
I should be used to chaos by now.Between Alex’s stubbornness, Jason’s sharp edges, and Ava’s silence that hides more than it says, drama feels like the air we breathe.But Ethan showing up?That’s different.When he tossed that stupid nickname at me yesterday, I laughed on the outside. I rolled my eyes, played it off like it was just Ethan being Ethan. Everyone expected me to blush or snap or maybe even flirt back. I didn’t.What no one noticed was the way my chest tightened.Because the thing about Ethan is—he’s always been a storm. You can’t ignore him. You can’t stop watching, even when you know you should. And deep down, I’m terrified of storms.Not because of what they destroy.But because of what they reveal.He doesn’t look at me like Alex does, steady and unshaken. He doesn’t look at me like Jason, with that mix of defiance and challenge. Ethan’s gaze is sharper, like he’s peeling back the layers I keep so carefully stitched together. Like he knows what I’m hiding.And that s
Walking back into this place felt like slipping on an old jacket I thought I’d burned years ago.Everyone stared when I entered the cafeteria the first time. Some whispered, some gawked. I soaked it in, letting my trademark grin spread across my face like none of it mattered. That’s what they expected from Ethan—the charming troublemaker, the guy who never took life too seriously.And I delivered.Because if I didn’t, the cracks inside me would show.When I tossed that nickname at Lila yesterday and watched the entire cafeteria ripple with shock, part of me was doing it for the fun. I’d missed the thrill, the rush of shaking up a crowd.But another part of me—one I don’t admit out loud—was testing the waters.Because the truth is, I don’t like her that way anymore. Not the way I used to. That crush burned out a long time ago, scorched by time and distance. What’s left now isn’t desire, it’s loyalty. A promise I made silently to myself when I left: that I’d keep her safe, even from afa
I should’ve been happy.That’s what I kept telling myself, even as my stomach twisted into knots and my chest ached like someone had dropped a weight on it. Ethan was back. My twin. My other half. The person who was supposed to know me better than anyone else.And yet, standing in that cafeteria yesterday, staring at him like I was seeing a ghost, I hadn’t felt happy.I’d felt betrayed.Again.Because he didn’t just leave. He vanished. No phone call. No explanation. No warning. I woke up one day and my brother was simply gone.And now he was back, with that cocky grin, throwing out flirty nicknames at Lila like he hadn’t ripped our lives in half the moment he walked away.All day, people whispered about him. They whispered about me too, because of course they did. Twins always attract attention, and now they wanted to know how someone like Ethan could be my brother.I wanted to scream.I wanted to tell them all to shut up, to stop staring, to stop asking questions I didn’t have the en