All Chapters of Before We Were US: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The drive back from the stadium was always the same. The car smelled like Noah’s expensive cologne, the lingering scent of stadium grass, and the faint, sweet trail of Madison’s vanilla body spray.Noah was driving, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel, though his knuckles were still a little scraped from the game. Madison sat in the passenger seat..my usual seat,with her legs tucked under her, scrolling through the photos she’d already posted."You look so good in this one, Noah," she murmured, leaning over to show him the screen. "The lighting under the goalposts was literally perfect. Everyone is losing it in the comments."Noah glanced at the phone for half a second before his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. His gaze met mine for a fleeting moment. "That’s cool, Mads. Glad the lighting worked out."His tone was polite, but I knew the "quarterback voice." It was the voice he used for reporters and teachers;smooth, agreeable, and entirely hollow.I leaned my head against the

Thursday nights were usually reserved for the math club’s peer-tutoring sessions, but the library was closed for renovations. That left me sitting on the floor of Noah’s bedroom, textbooks spread out like a minefield between us.Madison was at a "Captains Only" dinner across town, which meant the house was uncharacteristically quiet. Michael was at the station, and Elena had retreated to the den with a book, leaving us in a bubble of yellow lamplight and the faint hum of the central air."I don't get it," Noah muttered, shoving his fingers through his dark hair until it stood up in messy peaks. "If the limit approaches infinity, why does the slope stay constant? It feels like a lie.""It’s not a lie, Noah. It’s just logic." I reached over, pulling his notebook toward me. My fingers brushed his, and for a split second, neither of us moved. The air in the room felt suddenly charged, like the static before a lightning strike.I cleared my throat, focusing intensely on his messy handwriti

The drive home from Miller’s Lake was a blur of taillights and shadows, a high-speed escape from a reality I wasn't ready to face. I was behind the wheel of Noah’s truck, my hands gripping the leather so tightly my knuckles had turned a ghostly white. I felt like a passenger in my own life, watching the familiar scenery of North Hills flicker past the glass like a movie I hadn't auditioned for.The cabin of the truck was an altar to everything I was trying to outrun. It smelled like him;cedarwood, laundry detergent, and the faint metallic tang of a football helmet. Every time I reached for the gear shift, my hand brushed the center console where his arm usually rested, the phantom warmth of him still lingering in the air.In the rearview mirror, the orange glow of the bonfire was shrinking into a pinprick of light. I could still see the silhouette of the truck where I’d left them,the king and queen of North Hills standing in the ruins of their kingdom. Noah. Madison. The wreckage of a

The fluorescent lights of the competition hall hummed, a buzz that felt like it was vibrating inside my skull. It was a sterile, unforgiving sound, the kind that usually helped me focus, stripping away the noise of the world until only logic remained. But today, the silence of the hall felt heavy, a space that my thoughts were rushing to fill with images I couldn’t solve for.I stared at the booklet in front of me, my hands covered in pencil lead that looked just like the dark circles under my tired eyes.Solve for the unknown variable.The problem was a complex trigonometric identity, a tangled web of sines and cosines that should have been my sanctuary. Usually, when I looked at a page like this, the numbers sorted themselves into neat, orderly rows. I could see the path to the solution before my pen even touched the paper. But today, the ink seemed to bleed and shift. All I could see was the way Noah had looked in the dim light of my bedroom, the way he had handed me that hoodie a

Noah’s POVThe bark of the tree bit into my palm hard enough to sting. I welcomed it. Pain was easier than whatever the hell was happening inside my chest.I stood there alone in the dark, staring at the path Isla had disappeared down, like if I looked long enough she might come back and tell me none of it had happened.The cold air burned my lungs.My mouth still tasted like her.Cherry Gloss. Anger. Heat.Eight years of almosts detonated in one reckless second.I closed my eyes and swore under my breath.What had I done?No.What had I waited so long to do?My phone buzzed in my pocket loudly.Mads❤️: Where are you? Mad❤️: Noah. Seriously.I didn’t answer.I couldn’t.Because for the first time in my life, I had no idea how to explain myself.I started dating Madison because she made sense. She fit beside me in photos. Fit beside me at games. Fit beside me in every version of the future everyone else had already written for me.She was easy.Isla never was.Isla was late-night talks