School let out with the halfhearted clang of the last-period bell, and the hallway flooded like someone kicked open a dam. Backpacks thumped, sneakers squeaked, laughter ricocheted. I moved through it all like a ghost trying to remember how to be a person. Somewhere between third period and now, my brain had turned into a hamster wheel labeled SEPTEMBER and spun itself stupid.

  She usually made my heart leap. Today it was more like… static. Confusion snapping at the edges of everything. Greg’s voice kept looping in my head—don’t just tell her, make yourself impossible to ignore—and every time it did, my stomach yanked tight.

  What if he was right?What if marching up to her and blurting out the truth wasn’t brave—just dumb?

  By the time I reached the end of our street, I’d chewed the inside of my cheek raw. Row after row of white suburban homes glared back at me in the late-afternoon sun, all bright and smug. Ours sat halfway down the block, a shade darker than the rest, like it wore gray the way other houses wore pearls. The sight of it usually calmed me. Today it just reminded me I had two lives and only one face.

  I went through the routine anyway. Up the walkway. Three knuckles on the door. Wait.

  Footsteps. Lock. Hinge. Mom.

  “Heya, Connor,” she said, proud like she’d invented me. It tugged a smile out of me even though my insides felt scrambled eggs.

  “Hey.”

  The tile felt cool under my shoes as I stepped inside. The house smelled like lemon cleaner and whatever herb Mom pretended cured everything. She drifted toward the kitchen, already reaching for a glass. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” I said, defaulting to the safest lie. “Same as always.”

  She laughed under her breath. “What is ‘always’? That tells me nothing.”

  “I wouldn’t think you’d care.” It came out too sharp, and I winced instantly.

  She turned, one eyebrow arched. “All I know from school is that your friend Greg exists. And that you joined that new chess club.” She gave me a look like she dared me to contradict her. “Meaning I expect new friends.”

  I swallowed. The chess-club cover story was something Dad and I had agreed on, the way other families agreed on bedtime. “Yeah. Sure. If that’s what you wanted to know.”

  Mom crossed the kitchen and set her hands on my shoulders. Her fingers were warm, sure in a way mine never were. “You can tell me anything. Anything.”

  “I know,” I said, meaning it, and also not. “There’s just not much to tell.”

  She searched my face, then patted my shoulder in surrender. “If that’s what you say. Your dad’s in his room.”

  “Okay.”

  The stairs creaked the way they always did, and I let the ordinary sound scrape some of the noise out of my head. Left at the landing, second door—my room, my mess, my dresser. The ritual was automatic now. Locker-click. Drawer-slide. Civilian Connor evaporated, folded and stowed. Out came the white jacket, black shirt, yellow utility belt. Spy mage cosplay, except the pretend had become the point.

  The belt’s red-button winked at me. “Be gentle,” I muttered, and pressed it.

  The floor fell out from under me.

  “AH—” I had just enough time to scream, tumble through cold air, and then the asphalt punked my face. The scent of tar and heat punched up my nose. I lay there in a starfish of indignity, groaning.

  A shadow crossed the sun. “Oh… sorry.” Mr. Drails’s voice had that polite, crisp tone that always made ‘sorry’ sound like ‘you’ll live.’ He didn’t even try to hide the smirk. “Hopefully, you’re all right…”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I peeled my cheek off the road. “Maybe open the portal above me next time,” I hissed. “I’d love one day where I don’t sandpaper my face.”

  “Welcome,” he said instead, like a hotel concierge who ignored complaints for sport. “Get set. It starts in ten minutes.”

  “Wait—what starts—?”

  A portal irised open behind him. He stepped backward into it like he was being swallowed by a polite black hole, and then he was gone. The golden-black facade of the YMPA gleamed beyond the gate, all art-deco authority and don’t-you-dare. I sighed, scraped dignity off the pavement, and crossed to the doors.

  The main hall fed me the usual: black marble veined like storm clouds, gold trim that caught the light like it was made for it, banners that fluttered without any wind at all. It shouldn’t have felt like home. It did anyway.

  My stomach argued for the cafeteria out of habit. I wasn’t hungry, just… restless. The cafeteria was a good place to pretend you belonged, even if you sat alone. When I pushed through the doors, noise hit me like a wall—forks clinking, trays sliding, a hundred conversations trying to drown each other out. Long tables ribbed the space. Most people queued for something that smelled vaguely like curry. I cut across the tide, scanning for one face.

  Found him. Same beat-up grin. Same energy like he’d swallowed a can of soda and never stopped fizzing. Tisiah sat at a scuffed wooden table with a few others, waving both arms like he was trying to land a plane.

  “What’s up, bro,” he said, and we slid into our handshake—slap, twist, snap—his invention after a weeklong rabbit hole of handshake videos.

  Gray checkered shirt, blue jeans, black Vans. He looked like a catalog page for “regular guy who secretly blocks spells.” He tipped his chin at me. “Anything interesting happen?”

  “Not… really.” I dropped into the chair opposite him. The metal shrieked like I’d offended it. “But I do have something to tell you.”

  His eyes lit up. He planted his elbows on the table and laced his fingers like a therapist who didn’t charge insurance. “Proceed. Speak unto my ears something I must process and interpret, and in that way—”

  “I’m going to tell September I like her,” I blurted.

  He froze mid-speech. Blinked. “Oh.” A beat. “Figures.” Then, more sincerely: “That’s brave.”

  “Greg says I shouldn’t.”

  Tisiah tilted his head, inviting the rest.

  “He says I’m not… popular enough. That there’s nothing interesting about me. Not in the way she is.”

  “That’s not the same thing as ‘popular enough,’” Tisiah said immediately, frowning. “What he means is, she’s high-visibility. Why would she—his words, not mine—‘stoop down’ to someone at your visibility. She’d probably go with someone more… known.”

  I squinted. “So what am I supposed to do? Buy a billboard?”

  “You have a Perk,” he said plainly. “Catch her attention with that.”

  I stared. “I did not expect that from you.”

  He shrugged. “I’m realistic.” His gaze flicked over my shoulder then, and a small, conspiratorial smile tugged at his mouth. “Also? Don’t freak out.”

  I turned.

  My whole body forgot how to be a skeleton.

  September stood there like someone had put sunlight in a person. She had her hair half-blond, half-black today—sharp middle part, glossy like ink and honey—and it somehow made her eyes brighter. She lifted a hand in a small wave, and I swear the air changed temperature.

  “Connor?” she said, teasing like she already knew I’d been staring.

  “Oh—uh—yeah,” I said, which was a lie because no, absolutely not okay. “Hey.”

  “How’ve you been?” she asked.

  “Good. Fine. Totally average. Normal.” Nailed it. My mouth had abandoned me for a different life. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tisiah’s face widen in a silent for the love of all things, breathe.

  “You’re kind of stuttering.” September leaned in, mischief warming her voice. “Do you need the nurse? Or did someone plant chips on you again? Hold up.”

  Before I could protest, her hands were on my shoulders. The contact sent my nervous system to Defcon One. She spun me gently and lifted a piece of my hair like she was checking for a tracking device. Her perfume—something light and clean—filled my head.

  “Nothing there… or—” She paused, leaned closer like she’d found a fascinating butterfly.

  “No, no, nothing’s wrong,” I said, pivoting back fast enough to get whiplash. My mouth moved before my courage could back out. “It’s just that—”

  Tisiah’s eyebrows were climbing the Himalayas. He nodded like a bobblehead—Do it do it do it—and I shut my eyes for half a second to commit treason against fear.

  “I wanted to tell you—”

  September’s attention snagged on something over my shoulder. Her face shifted in that tiny, involuntary way that always tells the truth first.

  “Well, look at that…” Tisiah murmured, which didn’t help.

  I turned.

  Malachi floated through the doorway like someone had ironed reality for him. New haircut—shorter on the sides, soft on top. Brown shirt tucked halfheartedly into black pants. Converse that somehow looked intentional. The whole effect made him look like he’d wandered out of a magazine and decided to bless the YMPA with his presence. Three different people tilted to watch him pass.

  “He looks… cute,” September said, almost under her breath.

  My courage, which had been precariously stacked like Jenga blocks, slid into a neat, humiliating pile.