An alarm blared mercilessly at 5:00 AM. Tony grumbled, swatting the nightstand until the noise died. He lay there for a few minutes, bargaining with his own eyelids about the necessity of high school. By the time he actually dragged himself out of bed, the clock read 5:30 AM.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no!"
Panic set in. He bolted downstairs, uniform half-buttoned. His mother was already standing by the counter, holding out a wrapped breakfast. "Here you go, honey!"
Tony blinked, half-groggy. "How did you know I'd be running late?"
She giggled lovingly. "You're always predictable, sweetheart. Go, go! You're going to miss the bus!"
Sheepish and thoroughly embarrassed by how well his mom knew him, Tony mumbled a quick thanks and scurried out the door. He barely squeezed through the bus doors before they slammed shut.
At school, the reality of the day caught up to him. He opened his locker, and a heart-shaped box of chocolates shifted, plop-ping against his textbooks. Right. Today was the day. He wasn't ready. No, he was ready. Actually, he had no idea.
Pulling his jacket tight and clearing his throat, Tony walked out onto the quad toward the courtyard tables.
There she was. Alice. The school's perfect idol. She was laughing brightly at a joke someone next to her made. But Tony noticed something odd-the moment Alice looked down at her phone, her bright smile vanished instantly into a flat, completely neutral expression. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it shift, but it was there.
Taking a breath, Tony approached the table. The surrounding students looked up, completely blank-faced; most of them had never seen Tony before, or if they had, they didn't care enough to remember his name.
He cleared his throat. "Alice..."
Alice looked up from her screen, instantly snapping her flawless, sweet smile back into place. "Oh... uh, hey... Robert?"
Tony winced. "No, um... my name is Tony. We have history and science together? We did that project on plant cells a while back."
"Oh, right!" Alice blinked, her perfect mask unbothered. "You're... Tony."
Every instinct told him to abort the mission, but his hands moved on their own. He held out the heart-shaped box. "I was wondering if you'd like to maybe... go out with me?"
The entire table went wide-eyed. Alice stayed perfectly poised. She sighed softly, maintaining an apologetic, gentle smile. "Oh... I'm so sorry, but I just don't feel that way toward you. I barely know you, honestly... Sorry."
Tony froze. The rejection hung in the air. "Oh. Right. Of course. Sorry."
Mortified, he backed away so quickly he nearly tripped over a tree root, making the entire exit ten times worse.
As he retreated, Alice's smile vanished the moment she looked back at her phone. Ugh, she thought internally, screaming into the void of her own mind. Why can't people just leave me alone? I honestly just wish school was over already so I could go home and sleep.
Tony spent the rest of the day entirely on autopilot. He spaced out through every lecture, yet somehow his hands still took notes and finished his classwork out of sheer muscle memory.
When he got home, the comforting smell of dinner filled the kitchen. "Oh! Tony, you're back sweetheart!" his mom called out. "Can you set the table for me?"
He nodded dully, dumped his backpack and jacket onto his bed, and went to help. The scene on the quad replayed in his head over and over on a relentless loop. Of course she said no. She barely knows me. That's entirely reasonable, he reasoned with himself.
But as he set down the forks, a heavy, suffocating weight settled in his chest. I shouldn't even feel this horrible. What she said was true... so why does it hurt so much?
After dinner, he retreated to his room. He pulled out his textbooks, realized he had already finished his homework during his school trance, and sighed. Giving up, he crawled into bed early. He thought he would lie awake staring at the ceiling, but the emotional exhaustion caught up to him,
For the first time in years...
Tony dreamed in pink.