Matt was sixteen, which is an age where your body grows faster than your dignity and no one bothers to warn you. He was tall in the way that suggested poor architectural planning, all limbs and angles, like someone had tried to assemble an adult from spare teenage parts and given up halfway through. His mop of brown hair flopped into his eyes no matter what he did, as if it, too, was tired of being involved.

He sat in Spanish class in a hard plastic chair clearly designed to discourage comfort, staring into the middle distance and actively not learning a second language. Señora Alvarez was at the board conjugating verbs with the practiced resignation of a woman who knew none of this would matter. Yo hablo. Tú hablas. Él habla. Matt did not speak. Matt barely functioned.

This was largely because Jamie existed.

Jamie sat two rows over, close enough to ruin his concentration and far enough away to remain unattainable. She was short, blonde, adorable, and a cheerleader, which meant she lived in a different ecosystem entirely. Matt imagined her environment to be warmer, with better lighting and background music that wasn’t sad punk rock recorded in someone’s basement.

The sunlight hit her hair just right, turning it into some kind of glowing beacon, like God Himself was trying to get Matt’s attention and had chosen the most humiliating method possible. Her ponytail swayed slightly when she laughed, which she did easily, generously, and without the burden of constant self-awareness. This felt personal.

Matt was aware, in a vague and academic sense, that staring was bad. He knew this the way people know smoking is bad. Still, he stared. His brain had fully clocked out, leaving his eyes on autopilot and his heart doing something frantic and unproductive.

He imagined talking to her. In these fantasies, he was calm. He was funny, but not in a try-hard way. He didn’t trip or sweat. In reality, he once dropped his binder in the hallway and apologized to a trash can. So the odds were not in his favor.

Jamie shifted in her seat.

Matt did not stop staring.

Jamie turned around.

Eye contact happened. Brief. Devastating. Jamie’s expression was neutral, maybe even kind, which somehow made it worse. She wasn’t disgusted. She wasn’t annoyed. She was just aware of him. Seen. Perceived. Observed like a weird bug under a microscope.

Matt panicked in the way only sixteen-year-olds can, which is to say completely and without strategy. He snapped his head forward, knocked his pencil off the desk, tried to retrieve it, and slammed his knee into the metal support underneath. The pain shot up his leg, sharp and deserved. The universe was consistent, if nothing else.

The bell rang.

This should have saved him. Instead, it triggered something primal. Matt stood up too fast, his chair shrieking across the floor like it was begging for mercy. Several students turned. Jamie turned again. Matt’s face went hot, his brain emptied, and he made the executive decision to flee the scene entirely.

He ran out of Spanish class.

Not a brisk walk. Not a dignified exit. A run. Like the building was collapsing or he’d committed a crime involving verbs. The hallway swallowed him whole, lockers blurring past as he sprinted until his lungs burned and his backpack slapped against his spine like it was also disappointed in him.

He stopped near the trophy case, bent over, hands on his knees, breathing like he’d just finished a marathon instead of humiliating himself academically.

“Dude.”

Matt looked up. Ryan stood there, entirely too calm for someone witnessing this level of public embarrassment. Ryan was shorter, with spiky blonde hair that looked like it had been styled using a combination of gel and poor judgment. He wore the same ripped band hoodie he always wore, the one from their band—if you could call it that.

“What,” Matt gasped, “did that look like from the outside?”

“Honestly?” Ryan said. “Like you forgot you left the oven on.”

“I stared at her,” Matt said. “Jamie. She saw. I panicked. I ran.”

Ryan nodded solemnly, as if this fit neatly into an existing psychological profile. “Classic.”

“I think I injured myself emotionally and physically.”

“Also classic.”

Matt slid down against the lockers and sat on the floor, pressing his head back against the cold metal. His reflection stared at him from the trophy case glass: tall, red-faced, and deeply uncool. Somewhere behind that glass were trophies from sports he did not play and pep rallies he did not enjoy.

“You know,” Ryan said, crouching next to him, “for a guy who writes angry lyrics about society, you really crumble under eye contact.”

“Those lyrics are theoretical,” Matt said.

They were in a band together, which felt relevant. Calling it a band was generous. They were an awful high school punk band, the kind that practiced in Ryan’s parents’ basement and had exactly one song that everyone agreed was “almost good.” Matt played guitar poorly but with feeling. Ryan played drums loudly but inconsistently. Their bassist had quit to focus on lacrosse, which felt like a betrayal on multiple levels.

Their band was called Youth Control, a name Matt thought sounded deep and Ryan thought sounded loud. They had played exactly two shows: one at a friend’s birthday party where the power went out, and one at a VFW hall where no one listened and an elderly man asked them to turn it down during the bridge.

“Jamie doesn’t even know I exist,” Matt said.

“She definitely knows now,” Ryan said.

“That’s worse.”

“Not necessarily,” Ryan said. “Some girls like mysterious guys.”

“I wasn’t mysterious. I was awkward.”

“Mystery is just fear with better branding.”

Matt sighed. Down the hall, the sound of lockers slamming and voices rose as students poured out of classrooms. High school continued, indifferent to his suffering. Somewhere in that crowd, Jamie existed normally, probably not replaying the moment in her head like a crime scene.

“You should write a song about it,” Ryan said.

“No.”

“Come on. We need material. All our songs are about how school sucks and adults are fake.”

“Because they do.”

“Yeah, but this is personal pain. Punk loves personal pain.”

Matt considered this. A song about staring too long in Spanish class and running away. It would probably be their most honest work. It would also guarantee he never spoke to Jamie ever.

“She laughed,” Matt said quietly.

“At you?”

“I don’t know. But it felt like it.”

Ryan winced sympathetically, which was about as good as his consoling got. “If it helps, she laughed when I tripped over a mic cord at the VFW.”

“That does not help.”

The bell rang again, signaling the next class. Matt stood slowly, testing his knee. It hurt, but not badly enough to justify a limp, which felt like a missed opportunity.

As they walked down the hallway, Matt kept his eyes forward. He thought about Spanish verbs, about punk chords he couldn’t quite play right, about how unfair it felt that confidence seemed to come so easily to other people. He thought about Jamie’s hair glowing in the sunlight and how his instinct had been to run instead of stay.

Maybe one day he’d look back on this and laugh. Maybe it would become a story he told before shows, the way older guys did, pretending they’d always been cool. For now, it was just another awkward moment in a long line of them.

“Practice after school?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “I’ll bring the new amp.”

“Perfect,” Ryan said. “Maybe we won’t sound terrible.”

Matt almost smiled.