Champion

Mattheo gripped her wrists, not to pull her closer, but to hold her at bay. His knuckles were white. "Consider me dead." He whispered, his eyes swimming with a pain so deep it looked like drowning. "Because I would rather you hate me and be alive than love me and be buried. Next year... there is no 'us.'"

He let go of her wrists as if her skin had burned him. The silence that followed was heavier than the shouting, the kind of silence that happens right after a fuse has run out, but before the world actually ends.

"You're a coward." She whispered, the word hit him harder than the shove did after he had let go of her wrists. Her eyes were burning with unshed tears. "You're so fucking afraid of losing me that you're willing to get yourself killed."

Mattheo flinched as if she'd slapped him. For a second, the boy she loved flickered in his eyes, longing, desperate, and terrified. Then, his expression went dead. The shutters came down, leaving him looking like a marble statue of a prince who had already lost his kingdom.

"Call me whatever you want." He said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "But stay away from me. If you see me in the corridors, turn around. If I look at you, look away. From this moment on, I don't know you."

He turned to leave, his cloak billowing behind him like a funeral shroud.

The explosives had gone off, just like they always did between them. But this time, there was no smoke to clear, no thrill in the aftermath. There was only the smell of burnt air and the realization that Parker was standing in the middle of a ruin he had built as an attempt to keep her from harm.

Ranking
#1 mattheoriddle 24-02-2026
#1 riddle 19-04-2026
#2 slow burn 01-04-2026