Lena's POV
My phone buzzes as I'm walking up the driveway, and I pull it out hoping it's Priya finally responding to one of my seventeen calls.
Instead, it's Mom: "Can you grab groceries before I close from work? List on the fridge. Love you."
The message is so normal, so domestic, so completely unaware of the fact that my life is falling apart, that I almost laugh. Almost.
I've called Priya six more times since the library. Six times of ringing until it goes to voicemail, six times of leaving increasingly desperate messages that start with "please just let me explain" and devolve into incoherent apologies.
She hasn't responded to a single one. The silence from her hurts worse than anything she could have said, and I'm still reeling from it as I unlock the front door and step inside.
The house is empty and quiet. I have the place to myself, which should feel freeing but instead just amplifies how alone I am right now. I grab the grocery list from the fridge—milk, bread, eggs, the usual staples—and head upstairs to change out of my school clothes.
My uniform comes off and I pull on jeans and a sweater, moving on autopilot. My reflection in the mirror looks tired, eyes red-rimmed from crying in the library bathroom after Priya left.
I look like someone who made terrible choices and is paying for them. I grab the reusable grocery bag from the hook by the door and head back downstairs, trying to shake off the weight sitting on my chest.
The store is only a few blocks away, an easy walk. I'm mentally running through the list, calculating how much everything will cost, when I step outside and freeze completely.
Evan Mercer is standing at the end of my driveway holding a bouquet of flowers. Not just any flowers—roses, red and perfect, wrapped in that expensive-looking paper they use at the nice florist downtown.
He's wearing jeans and a hoodie, looking nothing like the polished football star who sits with his friends at lunch, and he's staring at my house like he's trying to work up the courage to knock.
Panic shoots through me like electricity. I look around frantically, checking windows, scanning the street for any sign that my neighbors might be watching.
Mrs. Kingsley next door is always home, always watching, and if she sees Evan Mercer at my house with flowers, the whole neighborhood will know by dinner, and mom will know too.
Which means I will be asked and I'm not ready to tell her anything about what I did with Evan and Noah.
I close the distance between us in three quick steps, grab his arm, and practically drag him through my front door.
"What are you doing here?" I hiss, closing the door behind us and pressing my back against it. "How do you even know where I live?"
"School directory," he says, and he doesn't sound apologetic. "Lena, I needed to see you. You won't talk to us at school, you won't look at me, and I—" He stops, seeming to realize he's still holding the flowers. He offers them to me awkwardly. "These are for you."
I don't take them. "You can't be here. If my mom comes home and sees you—"
"Then I'll leave before she gets here," Evan says, and he takes a step closer. "But first I need to talk to you. Please."
I turn to face him fully, ready to tell him again that he needs to leave, but before I can get the words out his mouth is on mine.
The kiss is sudden and desperate, his free hand coming up to cup the back of my head, the flowers forgotten between us. I should push him away. I should be angry that he didn't ask, that he just assumed.
But instead I find myself kissing him back, my hands fisting in the front of his hoodie, and when his tongue slides against mine I make a sound that's half gasp, half surrender.
When we finally pull apart, we're both breathless.
His forehead rests against mine, and I can feel his heart racing, or maybe that's my own.
"I'm sorry," he says, his voice rough. "I'm sorry for kissing you without permission. I shouldn't have done that."
I want to tell him it's fine. I want to say I wanted it too, that I've been thinking about kissing him again since that night in the hotel.
But the words stick in my throat, trapped behind shame and confusion and the crushing weight of everything I've done wrong.
"Why have you been avoiding us?" Evan asks, and the 'us' makes my chest tight. "Was it something we said? Something we did?"
"It's nothing," I say, but my voice is barely above a whisper. "I just—I needed space."
"Do you regret what happened between us?" The question comes out small, vulnerable, so different from his usual confidence. "That night in the hotel. Do you wish it never happened?"
I can't bring myself to look at him. My eyes are fixed on the floor, on the space between our feet, anywhere but his face.
But Evan doesn't let me hide.
He reaches out, his fingers gentle on my jaw, and tilts my head up until I have no choice but to meet his eyes.
"Look at me," he says softly. "Look at me and tell me you didn't like it. Tell me you didn't want it. Because if you can say that and mean it, I'll walk out right now and never bother you again."
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Because I can't say it. I can't lie to his face when he's looking at me like that, like I matter, like my answer matters.
"Leave," I say instead, but the word has no force behind it.
Evan doesn't move. Instead, he does something I never expected.
He drops to his knees in front of me, still holding my hand, looking up at me with an expression that makes my heart crack.
"I truly like you, Lena," he says, and his voice breaks on my name. "If there is anything I did to hurt you, please forgive me. I like you so much it's making me go crazy. I can't focus in class, I can't play football right, I can't think about anything except the fact that you won't even look at me anymore."
Tears spring to my eyes without warning. The first one falls before I can stop it, then another, and suddenly I'm crying in my entryway while Evan Mercer kneels at my feet apologizing for liking me.
I don't know what to say. I can't process this, can't reconcile the image I had of myself—invisible, forgettable, the uncool girl—with the reality of this boy on his knees saying he's going crazy because of me.
And then another thought hits, sharp and painful. He said "I" not "we." He's talking about himself, his feelings, his regret.
Not Noah's.
The question rises in my throat—what about your brother, but I swallow it back down. I can't ask that. I can't open that door.
I open my mouth to say something, anything, but the words rearrange themselves before they can escape.
"Can you please leave?" I ask, and my voice is small and broken and not at all what I meant to say.
Evan's face falls, but he nods. He stands up slowly, sets the flowers on the table by the door, and heads for the exit. His hand is on the doorknob when he turns back one last time.
"I meant what I said," he tells me. "Every word."
Then he's gone, and I'm alone again with a bouquet of roses and tears on my face and absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do next.