My Romance Life System

A week had passed since the bus ride back from the mountains, since the awkward silences and unspoken truths that followed Kofi's disastrous bonfire confession. The trip felt like a strange dream now, something that had somehow reset their group's dynamics. The truce held, everyone silently agreeing to pretend the emotional mess had never happened, and school had settled back into its usual boring rhythm.

Tuesday afternoon was quiet, the kind of day that felt like it was waiting for the week to end. Kofi walked home from the library with a stack of history books under his arm for a research paper. He'd spent two hours in a corner reading about the Peloponnesian War, a conflict that felt refreshingly simple compared to the social warfare of his own life.

Turning the corner onto his street, he saw her.

Thea sat on the front steps of their apartment building, sketchbook open on her knees, her pencil moving with slow deliberate care. She was so absorbed she didn't notice him until he was just a few feet away.

He stopped, not wanting to startle her, and watched for a moment. She wasn't drawing a bird this time. She was sketching the street, the row of identical boring apartment buildings, but in her drawing they looked different. Less boring. More lonely somehow.

He cleared his throat.

She jumped, head snapping up, and immediately closed the sketchbook in that familiar reflexive motion of hiding.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to sneak up on you."

"It's okay. You're home early."

"Library." He gestured with the books. "Research."

He sat down on the step next to her, leaving careful distance between them. "What are you doing out here? Getting kind of cold."

She shrugged, fingers tracing the sketchbook's cover. "It's too quiet inside sometimes."

He knew what she meant. The apartment's silence could be comforting, but sometimes it just reminded you how empty it was.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, watching the occasional car drive by.

"I went to the library yesterday. By myself."

He looked at her, surprised. "You did? That's great. Find any good books?"

She nodded, a faint blush on her cheeks. "I found one about birds of North America. Has good pictures. For reference."

"That's really good, Thea. I'm glad you went."

It was a small step but it felt huge. She'd gone out into the world alone and done something for herself. Progress.

She was quiet for another long moment, fingers worrying the edge of her sketchbook. He could tell there was something else.

"I saw her there."

He didn't have to ask who. The air between them suddenly felt colder.

"Jessica?"

She nodded, gaze fixed on the ground. "She was with her friends. They saw me. They walked by my table and one of them knocked my book on the floor. On purpose."

Kofi's hands clenched around the history books. Cold anger started simmering in his stomach. "Did they say anything?"

"No. They just laughed and kept walking."

He let out a slow breath. Classic pathetic bully move. A small cruelty designed to remind her of her place, make her feel powerless.

"I'm sorry that happened."

"It's okay. I'm used to it."

The words hit like a punch. 'I'm used to it.' No fourteen-year-old should be used to that.

"You shouldn't have to be."

She finally looked up at him, eyes wide with a desperate question. "What am I supposed to do? If I tell a teacher, they'll say it's not a big deal. They'll tell me to ignore her. But she won't leave me alone. She never has."

She took a shaky breath. "She used to be my best friend."

He knew this part from the teachers' gossip, but hearing it from her was different. Not just a fact but a wound.

"We grew up together. Our houses were on the same street. We did everything together. Then my dad died. And then my mom..."

She trailed off, gaze becoming distant. "After that, everything changed. People started looking at me different. Whispering. They called me the cursed girl. And Jessica started pulling away. She said her mom told her not to hang out with me anymore. That my family's sadness was contagious."

'Contagious sadness? What kind of parent tells their kid that?'

"Then she just turned on me. Like a switch flipped. One day she was my best friend, the next she was leading the whispers. It was easier for her to be the bully than be friends with the broken girl."

Kofi listened, the anger in his gut hardening into something solid. This wasn't just bullying. This was betrayal at the deepest level.

"She knows everything about me. She knows what scares me. And she uses it. Every time she looks at me, she's reminding me of everything I lost."

She looked at him, eyes full of raw helpless pain that made his chest ache.

"How do you fight someone who knows all your secrets?"

He didn't have an answer. Didn't know how to fix this. He was just a sixteen-year-old who was good at history and apparently making stir-fry.

But he knew one thing. He couldn't let this go.

"You don't fight her. Not her way. That's a game you can't win."

She looked confused.

"You fight her by not being what she expects. She expects you to be scared. Expects you to be alone. Expects you to be a victim. So don't be any of those things."

"How?"

The question came out desperate, pleading.

He looked at her, this small girl carrying so much grief. And for the first time, he felt like he might have a real answer.

"You find your own secrets. Your own strengths. Build a wall so high her stupid petty words can't get over it."

He gestured to her sketchbook. "That's a strength. You're a good artist. Really good. That's yours. She can't touch that."

She looked down at her drawing, fingers tracing a bird's wing outline.

"And you're not alone. Not anymore."

She looked up at him, and for the first time since she'd started talking, the helpless despair in her eyes thinned just a little.

It wasn't a solution. Wasn't a plan. But it was something. A start. And for now, it had to be enough.

They sat there a while longer, the late afternoon sun starting to dip behind the buildings. A few kids from their school walked by on the other side of the street, glancing at them curiously but not stopping.

"Want to go inside? I can make dinner early."

"Okay."

They stood up together, Thea clutching her sketchbook tight against her chest. As they walked up the stairs, she spoke again, so quiet he almost missed it.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not telling me it'll get better. Everyone always says that. But you didn't."

He held the door open for her. "Because I don't know if it will. But I know you don't have to deal with it alone."

Inside the apartment, the quiet didn't feel as heavy. Thea went to the couch and opened her sketchbook again, continuing her drawing of the street. Kofi went to the kitchen and started pulling out ingredients for dinner, moving around the familiar space with practiced ease.

"Kofi?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think she remembers? When we were friends?"

He thought about it, chopping vegetables with steady movements. "Probably. That might be why she's so mean. It's easier to hurt someone than remember you cared about them."

Thea was quiet, her pencil scratching softly against paper.

"My mom used to say that hurt people hurt people."

"Your mom sounds smart."

"She was."

The past tense hung in the air between them, another weight added to all the others. Kofi kept chopping, the rhythm steady and calming.

"What happened to her?"

The question slipped out before he could stop it. He immediately wanted to take it back, but Thea answered, her voice steady and matter-of-fact.

"Car accident. Six months after my dad died. The police said she fell asleep at the wheel."

She paused, her pencil stopping.

"But I don't think she was asleep."

The implication settled heavy in the room. Kofi set down the knife, turning to look at her. She wasn't crying. Just staring at her drawing with that distant look she got sometimes.

"I'm sorry."

"Everyone's sorry. But sorry doesn't bring them back."

"No. It doesn't."

They stayed like that for a moment, him in the kitchen, her on the couch, the space between them full of things that couldn't be fixed with words.

His phone buzzed. Nina.

Nina: Emergency student council meeting Nina: They're debating whether to allow energy drinks in vending machines Nina: This is what democracy looks like apparently Nina: Death by bureaucracy

He smiled despite the heavy moment.

Kofi: Sounds thrilling

Nina: You have no idea Nina: Someone just used the phrase "caffeinated beverage policy framework" Nina: I might throw myself out a window

Kofi: Please don't. Who would complain to me about everything?

Nina: Good point. My suffering must continue for your entertainment

He put the phone down and went back to cooking. Thea had returned to her drawing, adding details to the empty street, making it less empty somehow. Birds on power lines. A cat in a window. Small signs of life that weren't there in reality but made the picture better.

"That looks good."

She glanced up at him, then back at her drawing. "It's not finished."

"Still looks good."

A tiny smile touched her lips, barely there but real.

Dinner was quiet but not uncomfortable. They'd found a rhythm, the two of them. Not quite family, not quite friends, but something in between. Something that worked.

After dinner, Thea helped with dishes without being asked, their movements coordinated without words. When they finished, she went back to the couch with her sketchbook and he grabbed his history books, settling into the chair across from her.

They worked in silence, but it was a good silence. The kind that felt full instead of empty.

'This is working,' he thought, reading about ancient battles while she drew modern streets. 'Somehow, this strange life we're building is actually working.'