Before the playoffs

I shouldn't be surprised.
That's the part that stings the most-how none of this should hurt, and yet it does.

When I first met Adrian Knight, I didn't like him. I didn't want to. He was the kind of guy people warned girls like me about-too charming, too confident, too used to getting whatever he wanted. So I kept my distance. Or I tried to.

But somehow we kept getting pulled back into each other's orbit... the late-night project meetings he almost showed up for, the arguments that always sat too close to something else, the quiet moments where I caught him softening-even when he swore he didn't care.

And I felt it.
God, I felt it.

The warmth, the tension, the almost-ness of us. The way he looked at me like there was something between us he couldn't shake, even on the days he pretended I was nothing.

And maybe that's why this ache feels like betrayal, even if no promises were ever spoken. Even if we were "just friends," or whatever lie we told everyone, including ourselves.

Because deep down... there must have been a reason he came closer.
A reason he stayed.
A reason he touched me like he already knew the ending.

And lately, I can't stop wondering if I was the only one who thought any of it meant something.
If I was the only one who didn't know the whole story.

If maybe-right from the start-there was something he wasn't telling me.

Something I was never meant to find out.