flightless ━ kevin day

VI. When It Breaks

six                               when it breaks

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May came and went in a blur, lost between the long afternoons spent at Abby's and the restless nights when sleep refused to settle. The days were indistinct, bleeding into one another, until suddenly, June crept up with its sticky heat and the undeniable reality that it was time to move back into the dorms. Ali could hardly remember when the shift had happened, when the calm of May had twisted into this knot of unease in her chest.

Ali stood in the middle of her dorm room, the silence pressing in from every direction. The bags she'd brought from Abby's sat untouched against the wall, still zipped shut as if they too were unwilling to commit to being here. Her fingers itched to unpack, to sort her things into their neat little places, but something kept her frozen. She didn't want to be here. Not alone.

For all of her standoffish attitude, for all the ways she pretended not to care, Ali had always had a hard time being alone. It was easier to exist in someone else's orbit, to lose herself in their noise. Alone, the thoughts became too loud, too heavy. They pressed in like the walls of this room, closing her in.

She grabbed her phone, checking it even though she hadn't received a text. No one was expecting her to check in — not yet, anyway. But the need to escape this room, this isolation, was too much. Ali turned on her heel, not bothering with the bags, and made her way out of the Vixens' floor and toward her cousins' dorm. She didn't need an invitation. Nicky always left the door unlocked, the room perpetually chaotic.

When she walked in, Nicky was halfway through a purposeless unpacking process, in the middle of telling a story about someone that Ali didn't know while his stuff ended up all over the place, a tornado of clothes, snacks, and random bits of tech strewn across the floor.

The room was alive with the familiar mess of their chaos, the static hum of dorm life resuming. Ali slipped into the space like a ghost herself, wanting only to disappear among the noise.

She dropped onto the couch without a word. Nicky grinned up at her, not missing a beat.

"Couldn't stay away, huh?"

Ali shrugged. "Didn't feel like being alone."

They talked, filled the space with the kind of inconsequential conversation that didn't demand anything from her. She could almost forget the restless knot twisting in her chest.

She wasn't sure how long they'd been talking when the door burst open. Neil stormed in, looking like a live wire about to snap, and the room's easy energy evaporated. Kevin, sitting at his desk, looked up sharply.

Ali watched the way Neil's eyes cut to Kevin, hard and sharp, as if they were the only two people in the room. Neil barked something in French, his voice low and full of tension. Kevin responded in kind, his voice like a flint striking stone. There was no teasing in the exchange, only something simmering and raw.

She couldn't understand the words, but she could feel the weight of them. She didn't need to understand what they were saying to know the rhythm of a fight about to happen.

Kevin's anger simmered just below the surface, and Ali could see the way his hands twitched, like he was barely keeping himself in check.

And then, he simply wasn't. Kevin moved, a flash of muscle and intent, grabbing Neil by the collar and slamming him into the wall with a force that reverberated through the hall. The sound of Neil's body hitting the plaster was a dull thud, like the world had hiccupped and skipped a beat.