The mirror wasn’t cruel. It was accurate. Same thing, really.

  Max stood in front of it, shirt half-buttoned, hair freshly damp from the shower and already curling in the pces they wished it wouldn’t. The room around them was caught in the half-chaos of pre-date preparation: the bed littered with outfit options, a towel draped over the desk chair, socks in mismatched pairs trying to stage a rebellion near the radiator. The window let in the ft grey of early evening. Rain was coming. Maybe already here.

  The weather was wrong for this much panic. And yet, their reflection had decred war.

  Three outfits had already been deemed ‘trying too hard’. The fourth, which they currently had half on, was walking the razor’s edge between “I got dressed today” and “I just emerged from an aesthetic crisis, and you can’t prove otherwise.”

  Max turned slightly. Side view. Frontal. Shoulders are too square. The chest is not ft enough. Their jaw is too sharp. Not sharp enough.

  They didn’t look bad.

  But they didn’t look right.

  And that wasn’t something clothes could fix.

  They adjusted the colr again, undid a button, redid it, stood straighter, slouched, and leaned closer to the mirror like that might reveal something the st twenty attempts hadn’t. Their face was their face, but tonight, every angle whispered doubt.

  They sighed. Swallowed it down.

  This wasn’t about Sophie. Not really.

  It was about the feeling creeping in at the edge of their stomach—a low, electric hum of anticipation.

  Because they liked her.

  Not in theory. Not as an aesthetic, flirtation, or even a story to be mythologized one day. They liked the way she made them ugh. The way she saw them was not like a puzzle to solve, but like a page she was already sketching on, with light, color, and sparkles in the margins.

  And the scary part?

  She liked them back.

  Which brought with it an entirely different question, one they’d been trying to ignore since yesterday, and now couldn’t avoid:

  What if we end up back here?

  Not tonight. Not necessarily. But... maybe. Someday.

  And if they did,

  What would they want?

  Max turned toward the dresser as if it held an answer.

  They opened the top drawer, fingers hesitant, movements deliberate. Inside, the options were id out like evidence.

  Boxers. Binder. Compression shorts. Neutrality incarnate.

  A bralette, soft and worn and rarely touched.

  And, at the very back, bck ce panties, delicate and quietly daring. The pair they had bought on a day when confidence had outshone anxiety, back when they’d still believed in the idea of preparing for something beautiful.

  They hadn’t worn them.

  Not once.

  They paused, fingertips brushing the ce, not quite ready to let go.

  The air shifted.

  Because it wasn’t just underwear, and it never had been. It was a choice. It was a decration. It was a whispered hope that maybe, just maybe, someone could want them like this, as they are, and not expect them to be more. Or less. Or something easier to understand.

  Max felt the thought bloom.

  What if I want to be pretty for her?

  Then the memory hit.

  Not with violence. But with precision.

  “Don’t dress up if you’re not going to put out.” “That’s what you’re wearing? What exactly are you trying to prove?” “You like being wanted, until you have to earn it.”

  His voice. Smooth. Cold. Still there, even after everything.

  Max’s hand snapped back.

  Their breath caught, not from the memory itself, but from how easy it was to believe again. How quickly his words slipped into the cracks of their confidence and bloomed like rot.

  The ce stayed in the drawer.

  They reached instead for the safe choice. Pin underwear. Compression. Nothing that might be mistaken for softness. Nothing that could be misunderstood.

  Because the truth was, they didn’t know what Sophie would do if they wore the ce.

  And worse, they didn’t know what to do if she liked it.

  The panic wasn’t about rejection.

  It was about being seen in a way they weren’t sure they could survive.

  Max shut the drawer a little too hard.

  Tugged on the rest of their outfit with practiced detachment. Made all the right decisions for someone who wanted to appear cool, casual, unshaken.

  None of it felt like armor.

  It felt like camoufge.

  Outside the door, one stair creaked. The weight of an old townhouse gave away the presence of someone who had learned how to be quiet in all the wrong ways.

  Leif paused.

  He said nothing.

  He didn’t enter.

  But he knew. Of course, he did. The emotional atmosphere in the ft had shifted, gone from carbonated to heavy. And Leif had felt that particur strain before, the aching silence that follows a brush with vulnerability too sharp to hold.

  In another life, another evening, he might have interfered. He might have pressed, prodded, and rearranged the scene with myth and metaphor until the wound bled into meaning.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight, he stepped back.

  Because he understood this kind of narrative pressure, he knew that if he reached in now and ripped the thread out by force, the trauma wouldn’t disappear.

  It would simply reattach itself elsewhere.

  Maybe even to him.

  So, he let the story breathe.

  And let Max choose what version of themself they would wear into the world.

  The rain had begun exactly when the forecast said it would, which somehow made Max feel personally betrayed.

  “Great…” they muttered as they grabbed their hoodie and raincoat and put them on, hands moving automatically, like dressing a mannequin.

  It wasn’t dramatic; there was no downpour or thunder, just a fine mist that clung to the air and softened every edge of the city. The cobblestones beneath their boots were slick, whispering uncertainty with each step. Haarlem looked older in the rain, more secretive as though it had decided to keep something to itself today.

  Max kept their hood up, shoulders hunched against the chill, breath catching in the corners of their mouth. They didn’t mind getting wet. But something about the rain made them feel watched, as though even the clouds were paying attention to what they were about to do. And Max wasn’t sure they wanted to be perceived in this way.

  They passed the bakery with the crooked window and caught a trace of cinnamon on the breeze. It should’ve felt warm. Comforting. Instead, it reminded them of Sophie’s ugh, making their stomach twist with something almost like panic. They weren’t ready for her smile. They weren’t prepared for this softness to be real.

  As they crossed the street, a small frog sticker stuck to the back of a signpost caught their eye, its little crown slightly peeling from the damp. Max stared at it for a second longer than they should have, lips twitching into something close to a smile before they caught themselves.

  Then, finally, they reached the bookstore.

  Tucked between a florist and a shuttered tailor’s studio, the shop looked like it had grown there, bricks softened by age, a wooden sign above the door that read KLEIN & WAARACHTIG in faded gold leaf: Small & True. It wasn’t the kind of pce you found by accident. It was the kind of pce you were led to.

  The bell above the door chimed when Max stepped inside, its tone soft and a little mencholic, like it had witnessed more goodbyes than greetings. The air was thick with the scent of old paper and patchouli, tinged with the faintest hint of dried vender and ink.

  And then, as if by magic, she was there.

  Near the back of the shop, half-hidden behind a shelf beled Folklore & Other Inconvenient Truths, Sophie stood like she’d been waiting for them in the pages of an old book.

  Her coat was a shade of deep blue that matched the smudges beneath her eyes, rain-kissed at the sleeves, and her skirt fell just below the knee, revealing pink tights and a pair of boots that looked slightly too rge for her. A cardigan, of course, frogged. Her hair was braided on one side and loose on the other, half-accidental, half-perfect.

  When she saw Max, her face lit up with the kind of smile that felt like being let inside. Not loud. Not performative. Just real.

  “Hi,” she said, voice low, sweet, wrapped in warmth and parentheses.

  Max blinked. Took it slowly, like it might vanish if touched too fast. The weight suggested a book. Thin. Soft-bound. Worn around the edges.

  “You didn’t have to,” Max murmured, unsure where to look.

  “I know,” Sophie replied, her smile blooming again, this time ced with something shy. “But I wanted to.”

  They didn’t say anything else, not right away. Just stared down at the little parcel in their hands, thumbs brushing over the yellow ribbon like it might sing. After a breath, Max tugged the bow loose and peeled back the paper, carefully, reverently.

  Wrapped in the paper was a book. Old, but well-loved. The title had nearly rubbed off the cover, but Max recognized the author. One of their favorites. A collection of poems that had gone out of print years ago.

  Their throat tightened.

  Sophie had already turned, walking deeper into the shop with the kind of energy that suggested she was trying not to bounce. Max watched her go for a second, noticing how her hand traced the edge of a shelf, and how her steps seemed just slightly out of sync with the world, as if she was always dancing to a rhythm only she could hear.

  “Come on,” she called back, gncing over her shoulder. “Let’s find you something strange and wonderful. We can work our way up to peppermint vengeance.”

  Max followed.

  The weight of the package was still warm in their hands.

  They didn’t feel ready.

  They didn’t feel safe.

  But they went anyway.

  Because even if they didn’t believe they deserved this moment, part of them, quiet, stubborn, and new, wanted to find out what it meant to try.

  The bookstore was warmer than it looked from the outside. It was lit with quiet mps and yellowed bulbs that made the shelves feel like alcoves in a cathedral. It smelled not just of books but of stories that had been waiting a long time to be touched again—dust and ink, paper and longing.

  Max trailed after Sophie down an aisle marked Specutive Realities and let their fingers skim the spines like Braille. Most titles were in Dutch, a few in English, and one or two in nguages Max only recognized by shape. A few had no titles at all, just bindings that felt like secrets.

  They clutched the parcel she gave them a little too tightly, as if it might ground them or shatter. It was the first time in a long time that someone had handed them something wrapped in ribbon, rather than just an expectation.

  Sophie spoke again, softly this time, without looking back. “You like words, right?”

  Max blinked. “Yeah. I mean... kind of what I do.”

  Sophie nodded, her hands trailing along the shelf as if she were waiting for a book to call her name. “I like the ones that don’t behave. The Misfits. The ones that pretend they’re about one thing and then punch you in the ribs halfway through.”

  Max made a soft noise, half a ugh, half an exhale. “Sounds like you’re talking about people.”

  Sophie turned, grinning over her shoulder. “Maybe I am.”

  Max smiled, but something in their chest twisted tight. They didn’t know how to be flirted with when it wasn’t a setup for something worse. Their stomach flipped in a way that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with fear dressed in hopeful colors.

  Sophie paused beside a low table stacked with hand-bound journals and gently picked one up. “You know, I almost didn’t come today,” she said, like she was speaking to the air between them. “I thought maybe you were just being nice. That it was a moment and nothing else.”

  Max swallowed the truth down before it could rise. “I almost didn’t either,” they said, keeping their voice low. It wasn’t a confession, exactly. More like a defensive truth. An offering tossed from behind a barricade. Sophie turned, a soft thunk as she pced the journal down. Her smile flickered, not gone, but pausing. Recalcuting.

  “Really?”

  Max didn’t meet her eyes. “Yeah. I suppose I thought you might have been being polite. Like it was a cute moment, and now it’s over, and I was the only one still thinking about it.”

  There was a silence that bloomed open between them. Not heavy. Not cold. Just tentative, like a spark waiting to decide whether it would catch or fizzle.

  Sophie stared at him for a second too long, then blinked, shook her head, and muttered under her breath,” Okay, no. We are not doing that.”

  She turned fully to face Max now, hands on her hips, voice pitched with that brand of fierce vulnerability that always came right before she said something ridiculous.

  “I wore tights and this raincoat,” she said, gesturing vaguely at herself. “How many frogs did I pass that judged me for this aesthetic today? Like, at least five. One of them had eye contact.”

  Max blinked.

  “And that muffin,” she continued,” which is apparently not how real people flirt, but here we are. And I showed up knowing you might be too cool for bookstores, too busy for tea, or too mysterious ever to text back. And I came anyway. Because I like the way you talk. And the way you listen. And the way you look like someone who’s not just in a story but is one.”

  She stopped.

  The words hung there, catching their breath.

  Then, softly, with a sheepish slight wince:

  “…Was that too much?”

  Max stared at her. The ache behind their ribs didn’t vanish. But it shifted. It leaned toward something warmer.

  Sophie’s mouth pulled into a sheepish smile, still caught somewhere between sparkle and self-deprecation. “Okay,” she said lightly,” I’m gonna backtrack now before I propose in the fantasy section. Want to find a weird old book and pretend none of this was slightly unhinged?”

  It wasn’t the words that did it.

  It was the way she said them.

  With that uncanny Sophie blend of anxious glitter and steady-eyed truth. A joke used not to deflect, but to invite. A nervous half-step into something more profound. She was standing there like an open door, awkward, unfiltered, and still offering herself anyway.

  She wasn’t demanding anything. She wasn’t pying a game.

  She was showing up.

  And Max,

  Max felt the tectonic shift happen deep inside their chest. A lurch. A tilt. A blooming heat that unspooled beneath their ribs and made their pulse thrum in strange pces.

  They hadn’t felt it in years.

  Not like this.

  Not clean. Not safe. Not wanted.

  Max tucked Sophie’s gift in the pouch of their hoodie. It seemed like a good pn, but now…there was an additional hand that didn’t know what to do. Another hand started fidgeting as that ache built and snitched on Max’s nervousness.

  The ache that had been humming in their bones wasn’t fear anymore. It wasn’t His voice twisting their worth into barter. It wasn’t the old instinct to pull back, disappear, and make themselves easier to love by becoming smaller.

  It was something else.

  It was hope. Raw and clumsy and terrifying.

  And in that breathless second, before the fear could reassert itself, before their brain could spiral into warnings and rehearsed retreats,

  Max reached out, took her wrist, and—Kissed her.

  It wasn’t pnned. It wasn’t careful. It just… happened.

  Their lips met hers in a rush, quick, uncertain, trembling. Not a polished kind of kiss. Not something scripted or cinematic. Just real. Just a spark caught mid-colpse.

  Their hand brushed her wrist, hesitant but reaching, just gd to have a task. Their heart was in their throat, thudding like it had forgotten how to do anything gently.

  And Sophie froze,

  She didn’t move.

  She didn’t flinch.

  She didn’t kiss back, not right away, but she didn’t pull away either. Her breath caught somewhere between her ribs, caught between confusion and some unnamed thing blooming in her chest.

  Then Max broke it.

  Pulled back like they’d just touched something sacred and realized too te they might’ve damaged it.

  Their eyes were wide. Not with joy. Not even regret.

  Just shock.

  They stared at her for a heartbeat too long, like they couldn’t believe what they’d just done. Like they were watching the ripple of an impossible choice they hadn’t meant to make.

  “I, I shouldn’t have,” Max stammered, voice breaking mid-sentence, hands trembling around the book they hadn’t opened.

  Sophie opened her mouth to respond.

  But Max was already moving.

  One step back, then another, and then gone, past the reading table, past the door, through the too-loud chime of the bell above the entrance, before the rain took them.

  Sophie stood there in the wake of it, motionless.

  She didn’t chase.

  Not because she didn’t want to, but because everything had just changed, and she wasn’t sure what version of herself she was supposed to be next.

  She reached up and touched her lips, fingertips brushing gently, as if the kiss might still be there in the air.

  Quietly, blinking hard, she whispered into the space he’d left behind:

  “…What the hell just happened?”

  Sophie didn’t leave the bookstore right away.

  She didn’t move at all, in fact, for a full minute and a half. Not even to breathe correctly.

  She was still standing in the aisle, as if she'd been struck by lightning, but instead of being charred and smoldering, she felt… bright. Like her whole nervous system had turned to sparkles, and her knees had politely given up their job in protest.

  Max kissed me.Her hand floated to her lips, fingertips brushing her mouth like the kiss might still be there, echoing.

  They had kissed her. And then they had run.

  Full-on, panic-mode, vapor-trail-level retreat.

  It was, honestly? Kind of iconic.And terrifying. And awesome. And not at all what she’d expected.

  She wandered down the nearest aisle without registering a single title, shoes scuffing softly across the wooden floor. Her brain was still buffering.

  She had imagined this moment before.

  Of course, she had.

  Ever since the muffin. Ever since the spark. She had repyed half a dozen potential first kisses in her mind, some under rain, some mid-sentence, some against the back wall of a club while someone else’s terrible band pyed a power bald.

  None of them involved Max kissing her like they were about to shatter if they didn’t.

  She finally slumped down against the bookshelf in a narrow aisle marked Obsolete Astrology and Miscelneous Prophecies. It was not exactly romantic, but at least quiet. She pulled out her phone, thumbs trembling, and opened the group chat.

  Sophie:

  HELP. URGENT. THEY KISSED ME. LIKE ACTUAL LIPS. THEIRS. MINE. THEY TOUCHED. A LOT. FOR ONE (1) SECOND. THEN THEY RAN AWAY AND I THINK I JUST GOT HIT BY A METAPHOR.

  She hit send, hands still buzzing. The typing bubbles appeared within seconds, chaotic little oracles.

  Juno:

  WAIT. WTF BACK UP. YOU WERE AT A BOOKSTORE I THOUGHT THIS WAS A BOOK DATE WHY ARE THERE LIPS INVOLVED

  Neen:

  Oh my god I leave you unsupervised for ONE AFTERNOON. is this A gay panic moment A romantic gesture A breakdown or yes

  Sophie stared at the screen, eyes prickling. Her chest ached in that weird fizzy way it did when too many feelings tried to use the same exit at once.

  She wiped her palm against her tights and tapped out a reply.

  Sophie:

  I don’t think it was just panic. They looked… like it meant something. But also like it scared the hell out of them. Like maybe even they didn’t expect it.

  Juno:

  Babe. You ARE scary. like, in a good way You have “I will draw fan art of your soul” energy. That’s intense. Also, you’re adorable. They probably just combusted. Give them time.

  Neen:

  They’re not running from you They’re running from whatever that kiss just cracked open. (Also, this is so romantic, I’m going to scream into my cat.)

  Sophie smiled, shaky, genuine.

  She hadn’t even realized how hard her heart was pounding until she stopped to read their words. Her friends were ridiculous. And brilliant. And probably right. But also…

  She let her fingers drift across the screen again, slower now.

  Sophie:

  I think I really like them.

  Like more than I expected to.

  But I don’t want to chase someone who’s running.I’ve done that before. It sucks.

  Juno:

  Then don’t chase. Just orbit. Stay bright. They’ll come back when they realize they miss the gravity.

  Neen:

  That was weirdly poetic I’m saving that for my sad pylist notes

  But also: yeah. Stay Sophie. If they felt that kiss the way you did? They’re already on their way back.

  Maybe not today maybe not clean But they’ll find their way.

  Sophie stared at the screen.

  Then whispered, soft to herself,” I can do that. I can stay, Sophie.”

  She stood, spine straightening as she brushed imaginary dust from her tights. She tucked her phone into her pocket, cradled the book Max had left behind against her chest, and walked to the front counter.

  No frogs today.

  Just gravity, sparkle, and patience.

  The rain had picked up just enough to matter.

  It wasn’t a storm, not the cinematic kind, but the sort that seemed explicitly designed to soak into clothing and thoughts alike. A steady mist that turned the world grey and made everything feel like it had been pressed beneath a damp cloth. The kind of rain that didn’t fall on you, it clung.

  Max didn’t notice it at first. They were already drenched from the inside out.

  Their boots hit the cobblestones too hard, soles slipping just slightly with each step as they moved without direction, turning corners they barely registered, their head down, their hood up, their heartbeat thundering. The city was blurring around them. Haarlem’s quiet charm had vanished, repced by dripping eaves and the occasional flicker of golden light through shop windows that reminded them too much of warmth they couldn’t accept.

  They didn’t want to go home. Not yet. That space felt too enclosed. Too echoing. Too full of Leif’s myth-saturated silence and all the reflections Max wasn’t ready to face. They didn’t want mirrors at the moment. Or questions. Or that moment, Leif would know.

  They needed to keep moving. Needed to outrun the moment.

  They turned into a narrow alley between two buildings, more instinct than choice, and braced themselves against the wall, breath catching on the ragged edge of something that felt like grief but wasn’t. Not quite.

  Rain slicked down the back of their neck, soaking into the colr of their hoodie, but they barely felt it. Their hands were fists in their pockets, their teeth clenched like it might keep everything from spilling out.

  What the fuck did I just do?

  The question looped again. And again. And again.

  Not like a panic thought, more like a siren.

  They had kissed her, kissed Sophie. In a bookstore. After telling themselves it wasn’t that kind of connection. After revealing themselves, she probably just wanted friendship. Or a project. Or a story to tell her roommates.

  And they had done it anyway.

  They hadn’t pnned it, hadn’t even decided to do it. It had just happened like their mouth had moved faster than their fear, just this once. A reflex. A fsh of unedited truth. One second of being fully themselves, and everything else, walls, scripts, defenses, had been too slow to stop it.

  And now?

  Now Max felt like they’d lit a match in a library.

  They slid down the wall, crouching until their back hit damp brick and their hands covered their face.

  It hadn’t been a bad kiss. It hadn’t been messy or clumsy or off-key.

  It had just been real.

  Because real leaves bruises.

  Because real meant Sophie had felt it too.

  Real meant there was something there.

  Real meant she could change her mind.

  Max pulled out their phone, unlocking it without looking. Sophie’s contact lit up at the top of their recent list, her name followed by three frog emojis and a pink sparkle she’d added herself.

  It stared at them.

  So did the blinking cursor in the message window.

  They typed:

  hey

  Backspaced.

  sorry

  Deleted.

  Typed again:

  I didn’t mean to make it weird

  Nope.

  Gone.

  They locked the screen and shoved the phone back into their pocket, as if just holding it was dangerous. Their breath misted in front of them. Their hoodie was soaked through. Their thighs were starting to go numb from crouching on wet stone.

  They knew they should move.

  But their legs weren’t listening yet.

  Their brain was still whispering that Sophie would regret it. That she’d go home and tell her friends, and it would turn into a joke. Or a cautionary tale. That someone like her, soft, steady, real, couldn’t possibly want someone like Max once the glitter wore off.

  Because Max knew what it was like to be adored one day and managed the next.

  That’s what He had taught them.

  That desire always came with terms and fine print. That being wanted meant knowing how to be wanted. That softness was a currency you spent until someone asked for change.

  Max pressed the heels of their hands into their eyes until stars bloomed. Then exhaled, long and shaky, and finally stood.

  They didn’t walk home.

  Not yet.

  They just walked.

  Let the rain baptize whatever version of them had kissed Sophie and run.

  Let the city swallow their steps.

  Let the silence stretch, because if they opened their mouth, they didn’t trust what might come out.

  But deep in their pocket, the phone still buzzed faintly.And somewhere beneath the static,They hoped she was still holding that book.

  And that’s when the voice came.

  Soft.Not from the street.Not from the world.From somewhere deeper. Older. Bruised into the walls of their ribs.

  “There it is.”

  Max stopped walking.

  No sound but the patter of rain, and yet,

  “That quiet little hope. The one that makes you easy.”

  Their fingers curled tighter in their pockets.

  “You always do this, Maxine. Lead with longing. Call it love. Pretend it wasn’t a transaction the moment you gave too much.”

  Max didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe. Not properly. The sound of it—Maxine—curled like acid through the memory.

  He wasn’t there. He couldn’t be.

  But that didn’t matter.

  His voice lived in them like old circuitry, rerouting instinct, repcing memory with doubt.

  “You want her to see you.” “But what happens when she does?”

  The streetlight above them flickered.

  Max clenched their jaw. Took one step forward. Then another.

  They wouldn’t answer Him.Not tonight.Not yet.

  But the echo stayed.

  Trailing them like wet footprints.