The door creaked again.

Tina didn't look up. "I'll be out in a minute," she said, her voice thick and raw.

A pause. Then footsteps. Slow and hesitant.

"Tina."

His voice. Soft and stuttering and absolutely unmistakable.

Her head snapped up. Tyler was standing in the doorway, his hands shoved into his hoodie pockets, his face pale and his eyes fixed on her with an intensity she'd never seen before. His gaze dropped to her smeared mascara, her swollen eyes, the paper towels balled in the trash, and something in his expression crumbled.

"I've been l-looking for you." His stutter was worse than usual, each word fought for and won. "I—Kelly s-said—" He shook his head. "She said s-she talked to you."

Tina's heart splintered. "Yeah. She talked to me." Her voice came out flat and hollow, stripped of all the warmth she usually carried for him. "She told me everything."

Tyler flinched like she'd hit him. He took a step into the bathroom, then stopped, hovering just inside the door like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to be there. "Tina, I—I can e-explain."

"Explain what?" She turned to face him, and she saw him see her—really see her, for the first time maybe. Not the crop top. Not the jeans. Not the body he never looked at. Her. The girl crying in a bathroom. "Explain that you have a girlfriend you never mentioned? Explain that I've been making a complete fool of myself for weeks?"

"She's n-not my—" He ran his hand through his hair, a gesture of pure frustration. "She w-was. A long t-time ago. But we're n-not—"

"She touched you." Tina's voice cracked. "She sat next to you. She had her hand on your arm like she owned you, and you didn't pull away."

Tyler's mouth opened and closed. He looked down at his hands, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. "I d-didn't know how. She j-just—showed up. At lunch. And I d-didn't know what to do."

"You could have told her to leave." Tina's voice was shaking now. "You could have told me. You could have done literally anything except sit there while I made a fool of myself."

"You d-didn't—" He looked up, and there was something raw and desperate in his eyes. "You d-didn't make a fool of yourself. I was s-so happy you c-came. I was looking f-for you."

Tina's breath caught. She stared at him, searching his face for the lie, for the pity, for anything that would let her keep her walls up.

But all she saw was him. Stuttering and scared and standing in a girls' bathroom because he'd been looking for her.

"Kelly and I," he said slowly, carefully, each word a battle, "we d-dated. In middle school. For, like, t-two months. She m-moved away, and I didn't t-talk to her again until she t-texted me last week." He swallowed. "She said she w-wanted to see me. And I d-didn't know how to say no."

Tina's tears had stopped. She was just watching him now, her heart hanging in the balance, waiting for the next word to tip it one way or the other.

"I d-don't want her," he said, and the words came out stronger, less broken. "I d-don't. I want—" He stopped. His jaw tightened. He looked at her, and she saw something flicker in his eyes—the same something she'd seen in the cafeteria, right before she'd walked away. "I want you."

The words hung in the air between them, fragile and impossible and terrifying.

Tina's heart stopped. Then started again, harder than before.