~Quinn~

I force myself out of the car on shaking legs. My sister Harper's Toyota is parked in the driveway, which means she's home from college for winter break. Good. I need her. I need someone to tell me I'm not crazy for feeling like my heart has been ripped out of my chest over something that shouldn't hurt this much.

He's just a friend, after all.

Just a friend.

I find Harper in the kitchen making her famous hot chocolate—the kind with real melted chocolate, cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla that she swears makes all the difference. She takes one look at my face and sets down her wooden spoon.

"What happened?"

"Noah's leaving." The words feel foreign on my tongue, like I'm speaking a language I don't understand. "London. January second."

Harper's green eyes—the same shade as mine—widened. "What?"

"He got into some fancy architecture program." I sink into a chair at the kitchen table, suddenly exhausted down to my bones. "Full scholarship. He's been accepted for weeks and never told me. I found the letter in his closet while I was looking for Christmas decorations."

"Oh, Quinn." Harper abandons the hot chocolate completely and sits beside me, pulling me into a hug.

I let myself lean into her, breathing in her familiar lavender shampoo, and something inside me breaks open. I cry into her shoulder like I'm twelve years old again, sobbing over my first real heartbreak, except this is so much worse because Noah isn't just some boy.

He's the boy.

The only boy who's ever really mattered.

"I should be happy for him," I mumble into Harper's sweater. "This is what he's always wanted. Architecture abroad. This is his dream."

"You're allowed to be sad about losing your best friend," Harper says softly, rubbing circles on my back the way Mom used to when we were little.

Best friend.

The label feels inadequate, like calling the ocean a puddle. Noah isn't just my best friend. He's the person who brought me soup when I had the flu freshman year and read to me for three hours because I was too sick to hold a book. He's the one who taught me to drive in an empty parking lot, patient and encouraging even when I nearly hit a light post. He's the first person I text when something good happens and the last person I talk to before bed most nights.

He's the boy who held my hand at my grandmother's funeral and didn't let go for three solid hours.

He's the boy I fell in love with when I was fifteen and stupid enough to think that maybe, someday, he might feel the same way.

"It's more than that," I whisper into Harper's shoulder.

She pulls back to look at me, and her expression is knowing, gentle. "I know."

"You know?"

"Quinn." She gives me a sad smile, tucking a strand of my brown hair behind my ear. "Everyone knows. Everyone except Noah, apparently."

Heat floods my cheeks. I've been that obvious? "I didn't—I never said anything."

"You didn't have to." Harper's voice is kind, but the truth in her words stings anyway. "The way you look at him... God, Quinn. You look at him like he hung the moon and personally arranged the stars just for you."

I close my eyes, mortification washing over me. "That's pathetic."

"That's love."

"He doesn't feel the same way," I say flatly, opening my eyes. "And now he's leaving, so it doesn't matter anyway. It never mattered."

Harper is quiet for a long moment, studying me with that expression she gets when she's working through something complicated in her head.

"Did he actually say he doesn't feel the same way?" she asks carefully.

"He didn't have to." I stand up, needing to move, needing to do something other than sit still with this crushing weight on my chest. "We've been best friends for eleven years, Harper. If he wanted more, he would have said something by now. He's had plenty of opportunities."

"Or maybe he's just as scared as you are."

I shake my head, pacing across the kitchen tiles. "Noah dated Madison for eight months. He's had other girlfriends. If he wanted to be with me, he could have—he's had so many chances."

"Maybe he didn't think you felt the same way."

The suggestion is so absurd I almost laugh. Except... when was the last time I actually told Noah how much he means to me? When was the last time I was honest instead of hiding behind jokes and casual touches and the safe boundaries of friendship?

Never.

The answer is never.

"It doesn't matter now," I say, more to convince myself than Harper. "He's leaving in fifteen days. There's nothing left to say."

Harper stands and walks over to me, placing both hands on my shoulders to stop my pacing. "Quinn. What if there is?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if you told him how you feel?" Her eyes are intense, serious. "What if you laid it all out there before he leaves? What if you were finally, completely honest?"

My stomach twists into knots. "And what? Make our last weeks together awkward as hell? Ruin our friendship right before he moves to another country? That's insane."

"What if you don't ruin it?" Harper counters. "What if he feels the same way and you've both been too scared to say anything?"

I want to believe her. God, I want to believe that there's some universe where Noah Hayes looks at me and sees more than his childhood best friend. Where all those times I caught him staring at me meant something. Where the way he holds me just a little too long when we hug isn't just my imagination.

But wanting something doesn't make it true.

"I can't," I whisper, my voice breaking. "I can't risk losing him completely. If I tell him and he doesn't feel the same way, everything will be ruined. At least this way I get to keep him as a friend. At least this way—"

"You're losing him anyway," Harper says gently, and the truth of it hits me like a physical blow. "At least this way, you'd know. At least this way, you wouldn't spend the rest of your life wondering what if."

My phone buzzes on the table. Three more messages from Noah.

Noah: Please talk to me

Noah: I know you're upset

Noah: I miss you

I miss you.

He's been gone for less than an hour and he already misses me.

My chest aches with the weight of everything I want to say and everything I never will.

"I need to think," I tell Harper, my voice hollow. "I need to figure out what to do."

"Whatever you decide, I'm here," she promises, squeezing my shoulders. "But Quinn? Don't let fear make you regret this for the rest of your life. Don't let him get on that plane without knowing the truth."