Rhaine's room was quiet, but not peaceful. The silence pressed against her ears, heavy and suffocating, like the walls themselves were leaning in. She had her desk lamp turned on, its pale glow spilling across her notebooks and half-finished assignments, but none of the words on the page made sense. Her pen lay untouched, and the longer she stared at the blank space where answers should be, the louder the noise inside her head became.
She pushed her chair back with a sharp scrape against the floor and stood. Pacing. Again. She had already circled the small space of her room so many times it felt like the floorboards should have memorized her footsteps. Yet her body wouldn't stay still.
Everywhere she turned, every thought that bubbled up, circled back to her.
Sam.
The name hit like a spark each time, even when she didn't want it to. Even when she told herself—again and again and again—that she wasn't like that. She wasn't someone who thought about girls at night, who let her mind linger on smiles and the way another girl's eyes lingered back. She wasn't—
Rhaine stopped herself, gripping the edge of her desk with white-knuckled hands. Her breathing had grown shallow, uneven, like she'd been running though she hadn't moved far at all.
"No," she muttered aloud, voice low, broken. "I'm not… I'm not like that."
The words didn't sound convincing, not even to herself. They floated uselessly into the air and died before they reached the corner of the room.
She shut her eyes, but the darkness behind her eyelids betrayed her. It only made Sam's face appear sharper, brighter. The memory of her laugh that afternoon, the way their shoulders brushed by accident, the warmth of her hand when they passed a notebook—all of it returned, playing on repeat like her mind was mocking her.
Stop. Stop thinking about her.
Her chest tightened. She pressed a hand against it as if she could push the ache back inside, force it down where it belonged. She hated this—this constant circling around the same feelings, like some cruel joke of destiny. Everywhere she went, Sam was there. Every class, every project, every moment that should have been random ended up pulling them together again. And Maya, Eli—they saw it too, didn't they? Their teasing, their knowing glances… it was as if the whole world had decided she belonged next to Sam.
Her. Of all people.
Rhaine let out a harsh, shaky laugh. "Why? Why does it always have to be her?"
Her voice cracked at the end. The sound startled her; she never let herself sound that fragile, not even when she was alone. But she was unraveling, thread by thread, and she didn't know how much longer she could keep pulling herself back together.
She turned to the mirror above her dresser. Her reflection stared back—tall, straight-backed, long hair falling around her face. The glasses she usually wore in class were off, set aside on the desk, and without them she looked… different. Younger. More vulnerable.
She hated it.
Because the girl in the mirror didn't look like the strong, untouchable person she wanted everyone to believe she was. She looked like someone lost. Someone afraid. Someone who didn't know who she was anymore.
Rhaine braced her hands on the dresser and leaned closer, whispering, "You're not a lesbian. You're not. You're not."
But the more she said it, the less real it felt. The words tasted bitter, false. Her reflection's eyes seemed to accuse her, shimmering with unshed tears she refused to let fall.
She broke away, stumbling back until her knees hit the bed and she collapsed onto it. Her hands pressed over her face, as if she could block out the world, but the darkness only grew heavier.
Memories surged unbidden, sharper than she wanted: Sam leaning across her desk to explain a line in their assignment, the way her hair brushed Rhaine's arm. The quiet concern in Sam's voice when she asked if Rhaine was okay, that little furrow in her brow that made her seem like she cared more than anyone else did. The softness of her smile—
"No!" Rhaine's voice rose, almost a scream, muffled by her hands. Her chest heaved with each breath. "I don't feel that way about her. I don't—I can't."
Her throat tightened, hot and raw. She rolled onto her side, curling into herself, trying to make the thoughts stop. It was too much. Too close.
Why Sam? Why now? Why at all?
She had spent years carefully shaping herself into someone quiet, untouchable, background enough to go unnoticed. It was safer that way. No one looked too closely. No one asked questions. She didn't have to explain why she never swooned over boys the way her classmates did, why she felt nothing when her friends pointed out crushes or celebrities. She could just nod, laugh along, keep her real self locked deep inside where no one could see.
But Sam—Sam broke all of that.
And what terrified Rhaine most was how easily she had let her.
Rhaine sat up again, gripping her hair in both hands, tugging hard enough to sting her scalp. Anything to distract from the storm in her chest. She needed to ground herself, to pull back before she said or thought something she couldn't take back.
But it was too late. The truth was there, pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird desperate to be freed.
She whispered into the dark, voice trembling, "Maybe I do… maybe I do—"
Her breath hitched. The words cut off before they fully formed, like admitting them would shatter her world completely. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, and this time she didn't stop them. She let them fall, hot streaks down her cheeks, soaking into her pillow.
"Why…" Her voice was so small she barely recognized it. "Why can't I just be normal?"
The question hung in the air, heavy, unanswered.
Outside her window, rain had begun to fall, a steady rhythm against the glass, echoing the storm inside her chest.
Rhaine curled tighter on the bed, clutching the pillow as if it could anchor her. But nothing could stop the cycle now. She was trapped, running in circles, each lap pulling her closer to the truth she feared most.
And deep down, in the quietest corner of her heart, she already knew: denial wouldn't hold forever.
But tonight, she would cling to it anyway, even as it cracked in her hands.
"Not a lesbian," she whispered one last time, voice shaking. "Not me… not me…"
Her reflection in the darkened window said otherwise.