I tell myself I'm done this time. Standing in front of my locker, I repeat it like a prayer I don't quite believe. No more parties I only go to because he might be there. No more hallways I walk three extra laps to cross. No more watching him leave with other girls while I pretend my heart isn't dissolving in my chest. I deserve better than crumbs. I deserve better than the way he looks through me. I deserve—

The word dies before it finishes. Deserve. Like wanting makes something true.

I grab my bag and head to the library. It's the only place on campus I know he never goes. Football players don't study unless they're failing, and River's too smart for that. He's always in the weight room or the field house, never among the stacks of old books and the smell of dust and silence. Safe. I'll be safe here.

The library is almost empty when I push through the glass doors. A few freshmen huddle over a table near the window, laptops glowing. The old librarian looks up and nods. I nod back, let my heels click against the tile as I turn toward the quiet corner I claimed at the start of the year.

And then I see him.

River is sitting at a table against the far wall. Alone. His black hoodie is up, headphones in both ears, a textbook open in front of him. He's writing something, head down, the silver ring on his thumb catching the dim light. His jaw is tight, focused. He looks like he's in another world.

My feet stop. My breath stops. Everything in me screams to turn around, to walk out, to keep the promise I made this morning. But my body doesn't listen. My body never listens when it comes to him.

I stand at the edge of the aisle for what feels like forever. My heart is hammering. I can feel it in my throat, in my wrists, in the space behind my ribs where I keep all the things I never say. One conversation. Just one. To prove I can do it without falling apart. To prove I'm not afraid of him. To prove I can be normal.

I take a step. Then another.

He doesn't look up until I'm three feet away. His pen stops moving. His shoulders tense, a small shift that I know better than I know my own reflection. He pulls one headphone out and raises his eyes to mine. Light blue, cold, empty of anything I want to see.

"What."

Not a question. A wall.

"Hey." My voice comes out thin. I hate it. "I didn't know you studied here."

"I don't." He looks back down at his notebook. A dismissal so clean it should leave a mark.

I should leave. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to leave. But my body sits down in the chair across from him. The metal legs scrape against the floor. He doesn't look up. His pen starts moving again, fast and sharp, like he's trying to finish a sentence he never started.

"River."

Nothing.

"River, I just—"

"I'm busy." Two words. Flat. Final.

I watch his hand move across the page. The silver ring. The same one he's worn since freshman year. I've stared at it through a thousand parties, a thousand hallways, a thousand moments where I tried to catch his eye. It's the most familiar thing I know about him, and it means nothing. He doesn't even look at me when he's rejecting me now.

He closes the textbook. Shoves his notebook inside. Stands up. The chair scrapes back, loud in the quiet room.

"I have to go."

He doesn't say it like he's sorry. He says it like he's been waiting for an excuse.

I open my mouth. To say something. To beg. To ask why he hates me so much that he can't even sit in the same room. But the words stick. I watch him slide his bag over his shoulder, tuck his headphones into his pocket, and walk away. He doesn't look back. He doesn't hesitate. He leaves like I'm nothing—like I've always been nothing—and the door swings shut behind him with a soft click that sounds louder than any door has a right to.

I'm alone.

I sit there for a long time. The library hums around me. The freshmen whisper. The librarian pages through a magazine. None of it touches me.

My hands are on the table. I see them, but I don't feel them. My chest is hollow. Not the sharp ache I'm used to, not the burning that comes when I watch him leave with another girl. This is something else. Something worse. A cold, quiet emptiness that fills up every space I used to keep hope in.

There was no one else here. No football team to impress. No audience to perform for. No friends watching, no girls to ignore me in front of. It was just him and me and a quiet room, and he didn't want to be in it with me.

He left because I sat down.

I press my palm flat against the table. The wood is cold. I trace a groove in the surface, a line carved by someone else's boredom years ago. It's easier to focus on that than on the thing that's cracking open inside me.

I thought it was a game. Some stupid, cruel game he played to keep me wanting—to keep me chasing. I thought if I could just get him alone, if he could just see me without all the noise, he'd soften. I thought there was something underneath the cold. Something I could reach if I tried hard enough, if I wanted it badly enough, if I bled enough for it.

But there's no game. There's no hidden door. There's no version of me he wants.

He's just not interested.

The thought lands like a stone in my chest. It doesn't shatter. It sinks. It settles into the bottom of me, heavy and real, and I realize I've known it for a long time. I just never let myself feel it.

I think about all the mornings I spent picking the perfect transparent top, the one that showed every curve, the one that made the hallways part. I think about the parties where I turned down every guy who looked at me, holding out for one glance from him. I think about the tears in my car, the way I told myself tomorrow would be different. As if wanting something hard enough could change the shape of it.

I don't cry now. I don't have the energy. I just sit in the quiet and let the truth settle.

Loving him has become a habit I don't know how to break. That's all it is. A habit. A rhythm I've been dancing to for two years, even though the music stopped a long time ago. I don't know who I am without it. I don't know what I do with all this wanting if I don't point it at him.

The library door opens. A group of students walks in, laughing. They don't look at me. I'm just a girl sitting alone at a table with a see-through shirt she wore for someone who's already gone.

I stand up. My legs feel shaky. I grab my bag and walk out, and I don't look back at the empty chair where he was sitting. I don't need to. It's burned into me. The image of him standing, packing, leaving. The sound of the door clicking shut. The quiet that filled the space where he used to be.

I walk through the hallway. My heels click against the floor. I don't know where I'm going. I just know I can't stay in a room that still smells like him.

The afternoon light is pale through the windows. Students pass me, talking, laughing, living their ordinary lives. I don't see any of them. I see River's cold blue eyes. I see the way he didn't even hesitate. I see the shape of his back as he walked away.

And for the first time, I wonder if I'll ever stop chasing the ghost of a boy who was never really there.

I press my hand to my chest. My heart is still beating. Steady. Stubborn. Like it doesn't know it's done.

The next morning, I wake up different. It's not a dramatic thing—no sudden clarity, no epiphany in the dark. It's just that when I open my eyes, I don't immediately reach for my phone to check if he's posted anything. I don't scroll through Instagram looking for a glimpse of his face. I just lie there and stare at the ceiling and let the hollow feeling settle into a new shape.

I don't wear a transparent top. I pick a black sweater instead, thick and oversized, and I pull it over my head without thinking about how it hides my curves. It feels strange. Like I'm showing up to a battle in civilian clothes. But I'm not going to battle anymore. I'm just going to school.

The hallway feels different when I walk through it. The same eyes find me—they always do. The football guys nod. The freshmen stare. A boy I don't know whistles low and I ignore him the way I've always ignored them. But I don't look toward River's locker. I don't slow down. I keep walking with my chin up and my eyes forward, and it takes everything I have not to check if he's watching.

I make it to first period without seeing him. That's a win. A small one, but I'll take it.

At lunch, I sit with my friends like I always do. They talk about parties and drama and who hooked up with who over the weekend. I laugh at the right moments and nod at the right moments and no one notices that I'm not really there. I pick at my food. I drink my water. I don't let my eyes wander toward the football table even though every nerve in my body is pulling in that direction like a magnet I can't turn off.

It's fine. I'm fine. I can do this.

Practice comes and I'm grateful for the distraction. The cheer mat is the one place where my body knows what to do without my brain having to think about it. I tumble. I stunt. I hit every formation like I'm made of muscle memory and nothing else. My girls cheer me on. I smile. I keep moving. I don't stop.

But when practice ends and I'm walking back to the locker room, I see him.

River is standing at the edge of the field, talking to Coach. His helmet is tucked under his arm, his hair damp with sweat, his jaw sharp in the late afternoon light. I stop breathing for a second. Just one. Then I keep walking. I don't slow down. I don't stare. I walk past him like he's just another person on this campus, like my heart isn't slamming against my ribs like a caged animal trying to get out.

I feel his eyes on me. I feel them like a weight. Like a hand reaching for me that never quite touches.

I don't look back.

It happens again the next day. And the next. I start to notice patterns I never saw before because I was too busy chasing. He's at the water fountain outside the English wing every morning at the same time. He takes the long way to fourth period, the one that passes by the courtyard where I sit with my friends. He's always at the edge of whatever space I'm in—never in it, never close, but always there.

And he watches.

Not the way he used to ignore me. Not the cold, dismissive glances that felt like slaps. Something different. Something I don't trust myself to name.

On Thursday, I laugh at something Marcus says—loud, real, my head thrown back. I don't think about it. It just happens. And when I open my eyes, I catch River staring. His jaw is tight. His hand is wrapped around his water bottle so hard his knuckles are white. He looks away the second I notice, but the image is already burned into me. The tension in his shoulders. The way his mouth pressed into a thin line.

He looked irritated.

Why would he be irritated?

I shake it off. I tell myself I imagined it. I tell myself it doesn't matter. He doesn't want me. He's made that clear a hundred times. A thousand. Whatever I think I'm seeing is just my brain playing tricks on me, feeding me hope because it doesn't know how to stop.

Friday afternoon, I'm sitting in the bleachers watching the football team run drills. This is normal—cheerleaders always watch. It's not about him. It's about supporting the team. I tell myself that even as my eyes track his number across the field, even as I watch him move with that effortless power that makes my chest ache.

He scores a touchdown. The crowd cheers. I clap with everyone else, measured and polite, and I don't let my face show anything.

He looks up at the bleachers. Straight at me.

Just for a second. Just long enough for our eyes to meet. And then he turns away and jogs back to the huddle like nothing happened.

My heart is a war drum in my chest. I press my hand to my sternum like I can hold it in place. No. No, I'm not doing this. I'm not reading into a single look. I'm not building a fantasy out of crumbs. I'm done with crumbs.

But the look stays with me. It stays through the rest of practice. It stays through the ride home. It stays through dinner and homework and the long stretch of night before sleep finally comes. It stays like a splinter I can't dig out.

Saturday, I go to the mall with my friends. I try on clothes I can't afford and laugh at jokes I don't really hear. Chloe asks if I'm okay. I say I'm fine. She doesn't look convinced, but she doesn't push. I love her for that.

We're walking past the food court when I see him again.

River is sitting at a table with some of his teammates. He's not eating. He's just sitting there, scrolling through his phone, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. I freeze for half a second. Chloe grabs my arm and tries to steer me away, but I pull free.

"No." The word comes out steadier than I feel. "I'm not running. I'm not hiding. He's just a guy sitting at a table."

Chloe raises an eyebrow but doesn't argue. We walk past. I don't look at him. I keep my head up and my pace steady and I pretend like my heart isn't trying to claw its way out of my chest.

But I feel his eyes on my back the whole way. I feel them like heat. Like a question I'm too scared to answer.

When we're out of sight, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. My hands are shaking. I shove them in my pockets so Chloe won't see.

"You okay?" she asks.

"Yeah." I force a smile. "Never better."

She doesn't believe me. I don't believe me either.

That night, I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and replay every moment. The way he looked at me on the field. The way he watched me at the mall. The way his jaw tightens every time he sees me laugh with someone else. It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense.

He doesn't want me. He's never wanted me. So why does he look at me like I'm the one who walked away?

I squeeze my eyes shut and press my palms against them until I see stars. I'm not doing this. I'm not going to torture myself with maybes and what-ifs. I made a decision. I'm sticking to it. I'm not chasing him. I'm not waiting for him. I'm not letting him live in my head rent-free when he's given me nothing but empty rooms and closed doors.

But the question follows me into sleep. It follows me into Sunday. It follows me into Monday morning when I walk through the front doors of school and see him standing at his locker, alone for once.

I hesitate. Just for a second. My feet slow. My heart stutters.

Then I keep walking. I walk past him like I don't see him, like I don't feel the weight of his gaze, like I'm not counting every step it takes to get to the other end of the hallway. I don't look back. I don't slow down. I just keep moving forward, even though every cell in my body is screaming at me to turn around.

Behind me, I hear his locker slam shut.

I don't know what it means. I don't let myself wonder. But my hands are shaking again, and my chest is tight with something that feels like hope and terror all tangled together, and I hate how much I still want him even after everything.

I hate it. But I don't know how to stop.