????????? ???? ????? ???//kirstein jean

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⚠️ mentions of family issues, drugs, alcohol

listening to jeff buckley while writing get ready for just the start of the pure agony and yearning you'll be reading later on<3

remember to vote and comment!!!

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Tuesday and Wednesday had gone by quickly. Boring, mundane, normal schedule. Which, honestly, was a blessing.

After Saturday night, literally all of Sunday, and whatever the hell Monday was, you needed the kind of silence only routine could bring. The kind that wasn't loaded with subtext or quiet grief. You needed lectures you could half-listen to and labs where the lights were too bright to let your brain wander too far. You needed to fold laundry while Sasha narrated a true crime podcast in the living room. You needed clean notebooks and the smell of highlighters and other people's drama that had nothing to do with you.

What was even more of a blessing was how Zeke didn't text or call you after Monday. You didn't know what he wanted really, everything that happened with you two was months ago. You thought it to be over. Sure, here and there you thought about him. Not in a way where you missed him.. just, confused. Confused with yourself on why you stayed with that for a while. Why you wasted so much time. But was it really a waste?

Did you love him?

Maybe.

So you thought maybe loving someone is never a waste, even if that love is unspoken on both sides.

God, you needed a break from yourself.

Even still, you kept catching yourself doing it. Looking up from your laptop screen in the library and thinking about the way Jean had looked at you that night. The weight of it. The way he didn't flinch when you gave him the worst parts. Like they didn't make you less.

Like they made you more.

Now it was Thursday. And somehow, Thursday always made the campus feel heavier. The weight of a week coming to a close, but still dragging its heels. The kind of day where people ran out of energy and patience at the same time.

And today? Today was the first football game of the season.

Which meant the campus was buzzing in a way you hadn't seen since orientation week. People in face paint, sweatshirts with the school crest half-peeled from years of being over-washed. Tables set up on the quad with cheap speakers blaring mixes no one asked for. The dining halls packed. Professors either canceling classes early or ending them fifteen minutes late, forgetting that anyone had somewhere to be.

Sasha had been vibrating with excitement since 8 a.m. You'd woken up to her practically bouncing in the kitchen, hoodie two sizes too big, flipping eggs while humming the school chant off-key.

"Do you think if I paint my face and flash security, they'll let me on the field?" she asked, holding up two paint sticks—blue and white—and waving them like glow sticks at a rave.

"I think if you flash security you'll get arrested," you mumbled from the couch, where you'd curled under a throw blanket with your coffee.

"Small price to pay," she grinned. "Come on, it's the first game! I already RSVP'd for the tailgate at noon. Armin's bringing chili. Connie's bringing shame. We gotta show up."

You had planned to go. You had told yourself this week you'd go. That you'd be normal. Supportive. Friendly. That you could stand in the bleachers and scream until your voice cracked like everyone else. That you wouldn't spend the entire game wondering what Jean was thinking under his helmet. Why? Well.. you didn't know why.