"Are you sure this won't be weird?" Jace's voice crackled through the phone speaker, low with hesitation. "You and Michael probably want alone time. I don't want to third-wheel that."
Mira rolled her eyes, flopping back onto her bed. "You're not third-wheeling. I invited you, Jace. It's a chill hangout, not some candlelit date night."
Jace sighed. "Still. It feels like… a thing."
"It's only a thing if we make it one," Mira said. "Please? You haven't been out in weeks, and you love sulking over tragic love stories in dark rooms. This one even has subtitles."
That earned a soft laugh from Jace. "Fine. But I don't know what to wear."
"We're fixing that right now." Mira grinned and switched the call to video. "Show me your options."
What followed was a chaotic blur of outfit changes, lighting checks, and Mira vetoing anything remotely boring. They settled on a soft black turtleneck, loose jeans, and a pair of clean white sneakers—comfortably attractive, effortless in a way that made Jace look like she wasn't trying at all.
"You look good," Mira said, her voice softening as she stared at the screen. "Like... you."
Jace looked away quickly. "Thanks. I'll call a cab."
"Send me your live location. And don't ghost me halfway there, or I'm dragging you out myself."
By the time Jace's cab was on the way, Mira and Michael were already at the cinema. Their ride had arrived first, giving them time to settle into the crowd buzzing around the lobby.
Michael handed Mira her popcorn and drink before holding up Jace's, already balanced in a cup tray. "Are we officially the overprepared parents now?"
"She'll love it," Mira said, brushing invisible lint from his hoodie. "You remembered she likes strawberry Fanta, right?"
"Wasn't gonna forget that." Michael leaned in to steal a kiss, quick and warm. "You're really happy she's coming, huh?"
Mira nodded, watching the entrance. "Yeah. I just… want her to know she's still important. Even with us."
Michael didn't reply, but he laced his fingers through hers and squeezed gently.
They waited near the lobby's edge, tucked just beside the glowing movie posters, their drinks and popcorn stacked between them. The early evening light filtered in through the wide glass doors, casting soft gold over the floor tiles.
Then Jace walked in, scanning the crowd until her eyes landed on them. Mira waved, face lighting up, and Jace's tentative smile melted into something warmer.
"You two look like a romcom poster," she teased as she approached. "I'm clearly the awkward best friend who's secretly in love with someone."
Michael chuckled, holding out her drink and snacks. "Well, you've got the outfit for it."
They laughed, and for a second, it didn't feel weird at all.
The movie theater was dim and humming with quiet chatter, popcorn rustling, soda fizzing. Mira sat between Michael and Jace, trying to ignore how the leather seat felt like a pressure point between the past and present.
Michael's hand rested lightly on her knee, his thumb tracing absent patterns. His touch was familiar, grounding. On her other side, Jace sat unusually still, eyes locked on the previews playing across the giant screen—but Mira could sense the quiet tension radiating off her. Jace hadn't said much since they met up.
Mira regretted suggesting this—not because she didn't want them both there, but because now that they were, the atmosphere felt charged in a way she hadn't expected.
Michael leaned in close, his lips brushing her ear. "You okay?"
She nodded, a little too quickly. "Yeah. Just… movie mode."
Her fingers tightened briefly around his, an unspoken thank-you. He gave her a soft smile, then turned his attention to the screen.
Jace shifted beside her.
When the movie started, Mira tried to lose herself in the plot—a slow-burn romance between two broken people trying to figure each other out. Of course it was. She'd picked it for the irony. But every time the couple on screen touched, kissed, or confessed… her body tensed, not because of Jace, but because of Michael.
At some point, Jace leaned over, whispering, "I can see why you picked this."
Her voice was low, teasing—but there was something behind it, something almost wistful.
Mira didn't answer. Michael's hand squeezed hers again, grounding her in the moment.
Halfway through the movie, Mira leaned her head on Michael's shoulder. He tilted slightly toward her, steady and sure. But her mind wandered—thinking back to when it was Jace's shoulder she leaned on during late-night study sessions. Back then, nothing had happened between them. Mira didn't feel anything beyond friendship. But now, looking at Jace, she sensed an unspoken secret in her best friend's eyes.
After the credits rolled and the lights came back on, they stepped into the cool night air, blinking against the brightness.
"That was... intense," Jace said, stretching a little. "Kind of on the nose, huh?"
Michael chuckled. "You're saying Mira's not subtle?"
Mira elbowed him gently but smiled. "Maybe I'm not."
Jace's eyes held Mira's for a second too long before she looked away. "Thanks for inviting me. It was... good. Weird, but good."
Michael shrugged casually, his arm still around Mira's waist. "Anytime."
Jace nodded, shoving her hands into her pockets. "Alright. I should head out."
Mira hesitated, then stepped forward to give her a quick hug. "I'm glad you came."
Jace held on a beat longer than expected. When they pulled apart, she said quietly, "Take care, Mira."
Then she walked away, leaving Mira with a heart full of memories—and questions she didn't want to ask.
Michael looked at her. "You okay?"
She nodded, eyes still on Jace's retreating figure. "Yeah. Just... sorting through some echoes."
Michael didn't press. He just took her hand and held it tight.
But Jace was already moving, her footsteps quick and uneven as she pushed through the cinema doors and into the biting chill of the night. The warmth, the laughter, the gentle closeness she'd just witnessed inside—everything slipped away, leaving her alone with the cold and the ache in her chest.
The sight of Mira and Michael together, so perfectly aligned, carved through her like a jagged blade. It wasn't just jealousy. It was a furious, burning hunger—the kind that twists your insides into knots and leaves your lungs gasping for air. She had tried to bury it, deny it, convince herself it was nothing more than friendship. But tonight, the truth scorched her heart raw.
Why him? The question echoed in her mind, relentless and merciless. Why was it always Michael? Why did every smile he gave Mira feel like a knife twisting deeper into the part of her she tried to keep locked away? And most painfully of all—why wasn't she enough?
Her breath caught, ragged and shallow, as she stumbled forward, the cold air biting at her skin but failing to numb the fire that raged inside. Every flicker of Michael's touch, every soft glance he cast Mira's way, haunted her with unbearable clarity. She was a ghost in their story—seen but unseen, loved but unloved, always on the outside looking in.
The weight of her secret pressed down harder with every step. This love she'd hidden so deep, the love that made her heart ache with a desperate kind of longing that was both beautiful and devastating. It was a cruel torment—one she didn't want to feel but couldn't escape.
Her hands balled into fists, nails digging into her palms, trying to ground herself against the storm inside. The bitter truth burned hotter than the cold wind—she was falling apart, a prisoner to feelings that threatened to unravel everything.
One day, she whispered fiercely to the empty street, voice breaking like a fragile promise, someone will see me. Someone will want me like I want him. Someone will pull me back from this edge.
But tonight was not that night.
Tonight, she was just a girl swallowed by shadows—her heart ablaze, lungs tight with longing, walking away from the two people she loved most. Walking away from a love she could never claim, carrying a secret so heavy it threatened to crush her spirit.
She forced herself to keep moving, every step a quiet battle against the tears that burned behind her eyes. The city lights flickered cold and distant, mocking her loneliness. The world moved on, but she stood frozen in time—trapped in the silent agony of unspoken desire and impossible dreams.
And as the night swallowed her whole, Jace vanished into the darkness, a storm of love and heartbreak raging in the depths of her soul—alone, aching, and hopelessly undone.
She walked without knowing where she was going, only that she needed to keep moving. If she stopped, even for a second, the weight of it all might crush her. Her boots thudded against the pavement, steady but unsteady, like her heartbeat—racing and breaking in equal measure.
A part of her wanted to scream. Another part wanted to sob into the night. But mostly, she just wanted to feel something other than this terrible, burning silence inside. Because silence was where the truth lived. And the truth was unbearable.
She was in love with him. Fully. Recklessly. Irrevocably.
And he would never be hers.
Worse, he was Mira's—her best friend, the one person she would never betray, never hurt. The girl who laughed with her through every heartbreak, who showed up with food and comfort during every disappointment. Mira didn't know, couldn't know. Jace would rather swallow glass than make Mira doubt her happiness. That was the kind of love she had for her, too.
It would've been easier if Michael was cruel. Or distant. But no—he was kind, thoughtful, warm. He remembered her favorite drinks. He laughed at her stupid jokes. He looked at Mira like she was the only person in the room, and somehow, that made Jace love him more and hate herself for it.
She turned down a side street and leaned against the nearest wall, sucking in sharp breaths of cold air. Her chest ached. Not the kind of ache that fades with time, but the deep, splintering kind that roots itself into your bones. The kind that changes you.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that her heart had chosen him. That all her quiet hopes had curled themselves around someone who already belonged to someone else. That she had to carry this love like a secret sin, with nowhere to put it, no one to give it to.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket—Mira, probably. Checking in. Caring, the way she always did. Jace didn't look. She couldn't. Not tonight. Not when the sound of Mira's voice would only remind her of what she was losing, and what she could never have.
Tears finally spilled over, hot and silent, trailing down her cheeks. She didn't bother wiping them away.
She let herself feel it all. The jealousy, the grief, the fierce devotion. The helplessness of loving someone who would never look back at her that way. She let it pour out under the indifferent sky, her soul unraveling in pieces beneath flickering streetlights.
This was what unrequited love looked like—not dramatic or poetic, but quiet and devastating. A slow bleed.
And when the tears slowed and the cold began to settle into her skin, Jace pushed off the wall and kept walking. Because what else could she do?
She would survive this. Somehow. She would carry this heartbreak with grace, bury the longing, and show up for Mira like nothing had changed.
Because some love stories were never meant to be written.
And hers would remain untold.
Jace didn't cry in the cab. She didn't let herself. The driver made small talk, cracked a joke about couples at cinemas, and she laughed—hollow and polite. It was only when the cab pulled into the familiar street of her childhood that the weight of it all pressed in.
She stepped out into the cool night, silence clinging to her like fog. The porch light was on. Her mother always left it on when Jace was out late, a small, consistent kindness she never acknowledged aloud. She slipped in the front door, careful not to make a sound. The house was still—TV off, hallway dark, the hush of a sleeping home she had never really outgrown.
Her room was exactly as she'd left it—too small for her aching heart, too pink in some corners, too safe in others. A stack of notebooks cluttered her desk. Old posters clung to the walls like ghosts from another time. She locked the door behind her, then sat down on the edge of her bed and let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding since the cinema.
The tears didn't come in a storm. They slipped down quietly, trailing over her cheeks in thin, invisible lines, like ink from a pen too scared to write.
She lay back, eyes tracing the ceiling as if it held answers. It didn't. Nothing did.
Her phone buzzed with a message from Mira: "Thanks again for coming. It meant a lot. Sleep tight 💛"
Jace stared at it for a long time before she put the phone face down on the nightstand.
It wasn't Mira's fault.
It wasn't Michael's either.
It was just... life. Cruel and complicated.
In another life, she might've said something. Admitted the way her heart clenched every time he laughed. How it felt to sit beside them in the dark and wish she could trade places with Mira just for a second—just to know what it was like to be loved like that.
But here, in this life, she was the girl who came home to her childhood bedroom, alone. The girl who wiped her tears before her mom could knock on the door and ask if she'd eaten. The girl who loved too quietly and broke too beautifully.
She curled under the covers fully dressed, her sneakers still on. The warmth of the bed only made her feel colder.
Her heart was a fragile thing tonight—raw, silent, and bruised.
She whispered to the dark, "You'll forget him. You will."
But she didn't believe it. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
And as the house settled into its late-night stillness, so did she—heart aching, soul tired, and dreams fractured.
Because some heartbreaks don't scream.
They just sit beside you in the dark,
and wait for morning.