Chapter 2 - The Smile He'd Been Saving
He smiled.
Not a nervous smile. Not the flinching, hopeful one he used to give them when he was praying they'd get bored and walk away.
A slow, calm, easy smile. The kind that already knew how the next sixty seconds were going to go.
"Hey," Ethan said. "Remember me?"
They looked at him the way you look at a guy who might be about to ask for directions. Blank. A little wary.
Brandon huffed out a laugh. "Nah, dude. Should we?"
"Yeah," Ethan said. "You should."
He told them his name.
The laugh died in Brandon's throat. His face ran through about five expressions in three seconds — confusion, disbelief, a flash of something that looked a lot like fear, then a bad attempt at a smirk.
Madison was standing at the edge of the group. She went absolutely still.
"That's — that's not possible," she said, almost too quiet to hear.
"It's very possible," Ethan said. "I just stopped waiting for your approval to become it."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't get in anyone's face. He just stood there, relaxed, hands loose at his sides, while six people who used to run his life tried to figure out what you're supposed to say in a moment like that.
Then one of the other boys leaned toward Brandon and muttered something under his breath — something I won't put in writing.
And that's when everything changed.
Because someone else had been standing a few feet away the whole time, at the lockers, not saying a word.
And he'd heard every syllable of it.
May you like
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What happened next went quiet through the whole hallway — and Ethan wasn't the one who made it happen. Comment "NEXT" for Part 3.
