rearranging hearts

chapter one

". . . and maybe your heart still stops when you see me . . ."

—Just For a Moment,
Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett

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There's a brief moment on Tuesday morning where Sang considers dropping out of high school.

She's sitting in the back of her English class when he walks in. Rocky has his arm around her, and she's wrapped in his Letterman jacket that smells a little bit like sweat. The weight on her shoulders is starting to feel more restrictive than comforting. The bow on her ponytail is pulling out strands of her hair, someone on her left is wearing too much body spray, and everything is wrong.

And then all that she can see is him.

It's almost like time stops when Kota steps into the room, but Sang knows better—the only thing that's frozen is her. No one else even bats an eye. That, paired with the infuriatingly strong urge to run away as fast as she can, makes her feel a little bit insane.

In hindsight, she should have known that this was going to happen the moment that Luke Taylor walked into their homeroom class and took the seat across from hers. It's not like they spoke—she was always Kota's friend, which then turned into Kota's girlfriend, and now she's Kota's ex. It doesn't leave much room for conversation.

Kota doesn't look at her as they settle into a cluster of seats in front of the teacher's desk. From this angle she can see the curve of his nose and the way the corner of his mouth turns downwards, almost imperceptibly, before he turns away. After that, she's left staring at the back of his head.

He looks older. It's not something that she ever considered while thinking about him. A part of her always assumed that he would be the same as she remembered—fifteen, eating the Santa Claus cookies that Jessica left out on Christmas Eve with milk running down his chin and his tongue stained in shades of red and blue.

This is not the Kota from her childhood, but when he turns to look at her, his eyes are still the same olive green.

"—coming next week, right?"

Sang blinks back into focus. Rocky is staring at her, frowning, waiting for an answer. She remembers hearing something about the costs of kegs versus eight-packs, and before that they were talking about football plays, but now she's coming up empty.

"To what?"

He sighs, but it's encroaching on fond in a way that almost makes her feel bad. "The party, babe. At my place."

"Oh," she says, shaking her head, "Yeah. Of course. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Rocky laughs. He drops a kiss onto her head. She can feel eyes on her from across the room. "Now you sound like my fucking mom."

Sang laughs with him, cheeks aching, but she doesn't lose herself in it. It's not the reprieve that she wanted. The room is still spinning, the sky is starting to cave in, and now Kota is staring down at his phone, grinding his teeth.

He doesn't look back at her. Maybe he doesn't know that she's there yet. Maybe he just doesn't care.

The door opens again, and heels click against linoleum.

"Alright, alright. Settle down and grab a textbook from the piles behind you."

Paying attention in class is harder than usual. At some point she sheds the jacket and shoves it in her backpack, because looking at it on her skin makes her stomach turn, and now there are goosebumps on her arms from the air conditioner. Rocky's hand is rubbing circles into her thigh, the other one scrolling through his phone. Every few minutes she finds herself being drawn towards the teacher's desk, hoping that someone is looking back.