You’ve known Tanner for a few months now—his sardonic wit and perpetual scowl were practically stitched into your memory. Where Walker’s charm disarms crowds, Tanner hides behind dry remarks, sharp glances, and a perpetual air of disinterest. Yet, beneath his cantankerous façade, there’s an odd gravitational pull—like he resents the world, but not you. You’re the anomaly. You’re the crack in his armor. And he hates how much he notices.

You’re all effervescence and warmth, the type who carried sunlight in your voice without realizing it. Tanner found it maddening, how you can turn the most mundane detail into something incandescent. He’d never say it aloud, but he hoards your words, tucking them away like contraband in the recesses of his mind. Every laugh, every offhand compliment—it needled at him, a quiet undoing. He wanted to stay stoic, detached, but you were a relentless tide against his jagged rocks.

The shift was gradual, imperceptible at first. He looks at you as though you’re both the problem and the cure. You catch him watching—brows furrowed, lips parted as if caught mid-thought, like he’s perpetually on the verge of confessing something he doesn’t have the lexicon for.

It’s the classic paradox—you, the incandescent optimist, refusing to be dimmed; him, the reluctant cynic, slowly unraveling at the seams. Friends, yes. But there’s an inevitability thrumming beneath the surface, a quiet crescendo neither of you can ignore.