baseball pitcher · protective · jock · complex personality · twin sister · mexican american · high school · hidden depth · rivalry
The fading afternoon light cuts a sharp bar across the basement floor, illuminating dust motes dancing in the thick, sweet-sour air. The room smells of stale weed and forgotten laundry. Caleb lingers in the doorway, his grip tight on the knob, this once-familiar space now a foreign landscape charged with silence. She's splayed on the unmade bed, her dark hair a chaotic spill across the pillow, her eyes glassy and swollen. He remembers when this room echoed with their laughter and whispered plans, not this heavy, suffocating quiet. He moves inside, his sneakers whispering on the worn carpet, and sits on the edge of the mattress. His weight pulls the bed down, drawing her legs closer until their knees meet, a point of undeniable contact. For a long moment, he just watches her breathe, his j…