Lyla James was done.

She leaned down to give Flint—her Labrador retriever—one last pet before gripping the edge of the counter to stand up. "That was great," she said, her voice quiet. She wasn't speaking to Flint, though—no, Lyla had another guest.

"Yeah, it was." Haiden Lucas had driven a stony Kait home following their lunch at Iris's, and then he had followed Lyla to her house. They had both agreed that they had a few things to talk about. Now, they stood in her kitchen on opposite sides of her granite island. Haiden was not grinning, and for perhaps the first time, Lyla really wished he would.

"Why didn't you tell me about Kait?" she blurted—just as he was failing to smile, Haiden was also failing to look her in the eye. The air between them was tense and uneasy, empty of the million words and comments that Haiden would have unloaded by now had they not been in the middle of this.

"I—" he turned his head, and Lyla finally caught sight of that silver star. "It...it wasn't important."

Lyla scoffed. "You don't think your girlfriend is important?" If that was how Haiden thought of Kait—

"No!" Haiden said quickly. "That's not what I meant. I just didn't mention her because it never came up." He shrugged.

Lyla felt the need to look away. "I never asked you, you mean." Lyla was once again reminded of how selfish she'd been in their history. She'd never asked Haiden about himself, never asked about any part of his life, about his hopes and dreams, nothing that concerned him. What was worse was that she'd never felt like she needed to know. And didn't that say something about her? About them?

"What? Ly, that's not what I meant at all. You're twisting my words." He laughed cautiously, his eyes tightening as he stared at her.

Lyla fell silent. This was it; back at Iris's, she'd had a revelation—a new thought that changed things with Haiden. Not that their dynamic hadn't already been altered quite a few times in the past.

For one, where had she gone? Queen of intimidation nation. Loner extraordinaire. Where had Lyla James gone? Well, Haiden had swept her away, she realized. He'd pushed her to the side, revealing a part of Lyla that she had never known existed. Now, Lyla acted differently around Haiden...because she felt different around him.

"Ly?" he called to her, and as furious vibrations engulfed her body, Lyla's eyes flickered to his hand on hers. She immediately pulled away, falling back hard to lean against her gas stove. Shaking her head to clear it, Lyla locked eyes with Haiden.

"Do you have any siblings?" The question was abrupt and rash, but it needed to be asked. There were a lot of questions that needed to be asked if Lyla was ever going to feel alright.

He stared at her for a second, his expression wary, but he answered nonetheless. "Bree, my sister."

"Any pets?"

"We have a parakeet. But Ly—"

"What sports do you play?"

"Soccer. Water polo. That's it. Lyl—"

"I—I want to know about your parents. What do they do?"

"Ly—"

"Favorite subject? Favorite color? All your favori—"

"Lyla!" Haiden cried abruptly, jumping to his feet. "Would you please just stop and talk to me?!"

Weak, weak. She was weak.

"You always ask the questions; did you know that?" Lyla said quietly, her words hoarse.

"Because I want to know you. Call it being overly friendly. So what?" Haiden attempted to brush it off, but she frowned deeply.

"Overly friendly? Really?" Lyla knew that he knew what she meant, if only because his face went blank. He'd lied to his friends—or perhaps he'd lied to her—but either way, Haiden Lucas was not being entirely truthful.

He sat down slowly, his eyes still fixed on hers. A small smile came to his lips when he said, "You don't know how easy it is with you."

"What?"

"Easy," he whispered. "You were everything I was, and you didn't know me, so I took the opportunity to be someone different. To try something different. And I became someone that only existed when you were around."

"So you were pretending?" Lyla's face twisted into something harsh, and Haiden shook his head forcefully.

"I wasn't pretending," he swore. "I just—I felt different. I am different. You were...distant and just, closed off, and it wasn't going to work if I was the same. I wanted to know you." Haiden paused. "So, I did what I had to."

"Past tense." She blinked at him. "Were. Which means I've changed?" Amidst all that he had admitted, Lyla was painfully focused on that one word. The word that demonstrated just how much she had lost herself during the weeks she had known Haiden Lucas. He meant to recognize her change as a good thing—that she understood—but Lyla didn't see it that way.

Haiden laughed. "Well, of course. We're friends now, aren't we? We're comfortable with each other. We're close enough that you don't have to hide anything from me, right?"

"But we're not! We're not friends," Lyla erupted. "I don't know anything about you! Not a single thing."

Despite her points, he simply smiled wittingly as if he knew something she did not. "That's fine. We'll get to know each other. I'll tell you everything."

"Haiden," Lyla said lowly, her voice strained. "That's the thing. I should already know. Something, at least. I should have asked you."

For a moment, he paused, and stale silence stretched between them. But then Haiden took a step toward her, the look in his eyes shifting. "My dad is an accountant," he began, his words level at first but quickly picking up pace. "My mom works as a temp in some law office. My favorite subject is science—biology. My favorite colo—"

Haiden reached a crescendo before Lyla cut him off, his words peaking in both pitch and speed, as though he was in a rush to catch up on lost time. "Haiden."

His eyes flickered away from hers, but he stopped.

"I'm not a good person, Haiden. And I know that. I accept that." She waited until his gaze truly met hers, until she knew he was really hearing her. "But if we become friends, that changes. I become a little bit like you, and you become a little bit like me. And you're good, Haiden. You're good." And with those words, she stepped back, away from him.

Haiden's face fell. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

It was. Not for him, not really...but it was for her, because she didn't want to change.

The truth was Lyla was selfish. She always had been, and it worked for her. She only ever had to look out for number one. Her own feelings and thoughts were her first priority, and she'd always kept herself happy. Safe.

But Haiden? Lyla had come to understand that all bets were off when it came to Haiden. With a smile, he could change her mind. With a touch, he could make her do something she would never have done before, like willingly meeting his group of friends. And from the outside, it didn't seem too bad. After all, Haiden's moral compass was firmly intact; he only ever wanted her to do what was right, and Lyla knew it.

Haiden was a shining light in her world of darkness—the most unselfish person she'd ever met—and being with him made her want to be better. Being with Haiden made her want to make him happy and proud. Haiden made Lyla care—he made her want to care—about someone other than herself for once, and that...

That wasn't safe.

As things were now, there was simply no way they could continue without someone getting hurt. Lyla knew this in certainty, if merely because she already was.

At Iris's, Lyla had realized that the thought of Haiden's messy dark hair and supernova fleck made her feel something that crossed the line from friendship into something more. Her heart was not supposed to pause at the beat of Haiden's left hand and then match that slow rhythm. Surely, his crooked grin was not meant to reveal the endless possibilities of their future before her eyes.

Because, after all, none of it could ever be. It wasn't just the fact that Haiden had Kait, although that should have been enough on its own. It was that even if given the opportunity, Lyla knew that she would never be enough as she was. She was expected to be somebody else, to alter what she had always known of the world—what she had always expected to give and receive—and that was not what she wanted. She didn't want to change, and she didn't want to care. She simply wanted to be the same Lyla she had been, distant and closed off, but that Lyla was not what the world wished of her. That Lyla was not what Haiden wished of her, and it all boiled down to Haiden, didn't it?

"You know you talk too much, right?" she said then, for she had begun the process of severing the connection that tied Haiden and her together.

"What? Ly, of cou—"

She cut him off. "Don't call me that."

"You've let me call you that for weeks now." His brows furrowed as he stared at her. "I don't understand."

"Exactly," she whispered, a sad sort of grin coming to her face.

It was as if it all dawned on him in the next instant. He'd always been able to sense her emotions, and this time was no different. Maybe he knew what she did, or maybe he could just see it in her eyes—the way things were coming to an end. The way they were coming to an end. Regardless, Haiden laughed; it was a fragile, tortured thing. "I said I'd make you smile, but this was not what I meant."

She let her eyes flicker closed. She let herself imagine him as he had been earlier that afternoon, smiling and laughing, warming her from the inside out. However, when Lyla opened her eyes, the boy that stood before her was no more than a stranger. She was cold, and it wasn't his fault.

Haiden was still Haiden—warm and kind and good. But Lyla's wall had been rebuilt, and the yard that spanned the space between them might as well have been an ocean.

Haiden? She didn't know him anymore.

Lyla sighed. Not angrily, not sad. She just sighed as she said, "Haiden, I think you should leave."

His smile is crooked.

And so he did.

***

It was 11:47 p.m. on a Friday night when Haiden called Lyla.

The bold letters of his name seemed to burn their way through her screen. For the past few weeks, Lyla had been avoiding him as best as she could. When he texted, she didn't text back. When he called, she didn't pick up. She ignored him in biology and attempted (in vain) not to be acutely aware of the vibrations he induced within her with his every movement. Eventually, after two long weeks, Haiden stopped trying. He didn't smile, and he didn't tap.

But now, at 11:47 p.m. on a Friday night, Haiden was calling her. She considered ignoring it. She knew she could simply swipe left and end the call before it even started. But Lyla was an addict in the difficult process of withdrawal, and she convinced herself it wouldn't hurt to talk with him just once. She was certain that the rift between her and Haiden had hurt her more than it had him.

So Lyla swiped right and brought the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"Ly." Haiden's voice sounded strange to her. Of course, she knew she wasn't exactly the best judge, as she hadn't heard that voice for about a month.

"Haiden," she whispered.

"Ly, I-I'm driving to your house. I know that you wanted me to leave you alone, but just meet me outside. I'll be there in twenty minutes." And then Haiden hung up.

Lyla brought the phone from her ear slowly. Something was definitely wrong. Haiden's voice was breathless and filled with some unnamed emotion that Lyla couldn't place. The only thing Lyla was certain of was that Haiden needed her, and she was weak, weak, weak.

She sat outside on the concrete sidewalk, her feet placed over the curb and onto the asphalt road. It had been twenty-five minutes, but Lyla wasn't worried. Haiden must have just forgotten to account for traffic.

So Lyla waited.

And waited.

She sat still on the sidewalk, legs folded in front of her. It neared forty-five minutes.

Lyla waited.

And waited.

She was lying down, her knees propped up and her hands by her sides, when it happened. It was five past an hour when Lyla bolted straight up, pain searing through her chest. Her heart pounded against her rib cage, and she cried out. It felt as if her heart was being mutilated—physically torn apart. Lyla thought that maybe this was what it felt like to have a heart attack. Yet as soon as it struck, the pain dulled. Still, she was winded and felt slightly empty, for a piece of her was gone. She closed her eyes, lying down once again, before calling Haiden. Voicemail.

Lyla waited.

And waited.

She turned over, her legs stretched out, her cheek against the cold concrete. Flint lay by her, his quiet breathing Lyla's only companion. Her father stepped out of their home for the fifth time, urging her to come back in, but Lyla refused, though it had been two hours since she first emerged to wait for Haiden.

She called him over fifty times—she'd been counting—but every single one went straight to voicemail. After a total of 135 minutes and over one hundred calls, Lyla gave up and went inside. That night, though, she couldn't sleep.

***

The day after, Lyla was told that Haiden Lucas was dead.

According to the news, he'd been at a house party. Around 11:30 p.m., Haiden Lucas had strapped himself into his silver sedan. Sources had reported that he'd been upset; he'd been aggravated. Haiden Lucas had taken a series of roads through the downtown area of Trellis. Cameras had shown his impeccable driving, his purposeful speed—directly on the limit.

Then, at exactly 12:05 p.m. on October 2nd, a black truck had disregarded the yield sign at an intersection and drove right smack into the left side of the silver sedan. Haiden Lucas had died on impact. The toxicology results came back clean. Haiden Lucas had not been drunk when he'd perished. The other driver, however, had been.

His smile is crooked.

His smile was crooked.

For it would never be is again.

Lyla James now walked through the halls of Trellis High. Her eyes bore into the cold linoleum tiles as she placed one foot in front of the other.

Through the seniors of Trellis, through the grapevine, she'd heard the background story. The house party had been at the residence of Carver Finley. Haiden Lucas and his group of friends had been in attendance. At around 11:00 p.m., Haiden had walked in on Carver and his now ex-girlfriend Kait in a compromising position.

After punching Carver across the face and announcing that he and Kait were done, Haiden had left without much conflict. He'd sat in his car until 11:47 p.m., when he'd made the call to one Lyla James before driving out from the curb and continuing on his way.

Now, that same Lyla James wondered if it was a bad sign that she'd wept a total of zero tears for the fallen Haiden Lucas. But then again, it might have been impossible for her to feel sad when she wasn't really feeling much of anything these days.

The school building harbored a depressing aura. Haiden's group of friends had split in half—Amil and Remi choosing not to associate themselves with the others. The counselor had her work cut out for her with the rush of students that needed to pour out their hearts. The entire community of Trellis was reeling.

Still, Lyla thought it was not enough. If this was her story—if Lyla was the author, with a black-inked pen tucked behind her ear, tangling with the copper strands of her hair—she would have had the sky weeping. She would have disallowed the sun to shine or the clouds to lull by on the bright sunny day it was but should not have been. Lyla would have had the clouds as stormy as her gray eyes, rumbling away. She would have had lightning strikes over and over and over. She would have had the lightning hit twice in one place, especially if that place was Trellis.

She would have had the entire world feel the loss of Haiden Lucas, because they no longer had the privilege of witnessing his amber eyes and that frustratingly crooked smile. They no longer had the privilege of staring at that silver speck, having their hearts beat in time to the 1, 2, 3, 4 of his fingers. They no longer had the privilege of wanting to run a brush through his mousy and messy brown hair or hearing his soft voice as he asked a question. Lyla would have had the world stop spinning, so even time itself would be forced to mourn the loss of Haiden.

However, she was not meant to feel his passing this way. Lyla had only known him for a few months; surely, her pain shouldn't have been so great. And besides, Lyla was not the author of this story, and the world did not feel the loss of Haiden Lucas as she knew it should have. The sky did not weep and drown Trellis in its sorrow. The clouds did not darken and rumble. Lightning did not strike at all. It remained the bright and sunny day that it was but should not have been.

And though October 2nd was the day that Haiden Lucas died and Lyla James had a piece of her heart ripped away, it was only one day. It was merely the first day.

But it would not be the last.