Chapter 1 – The Crush I Should've Left Alone
You’d think after three years of crushing on someone, I’d be over it by now. But no—my brain decided Lucas Park would be my entire personality.
There he was, center of the rink, gliding across the ice like he was born on it. Even from this far up in the bleachers, I could hear the crowd chanting his name every time he touched the puck. Lucas Park. Hockey god. Golden boy of Crescent High. Too perfect for someone like me.
“Rae, you’re literally drooling,” said Minjee, waving a half-eaten hot dog in front of my face.
I swatted her arm and pretended to focus on the game, but I wasn’t fooling anyone. Not her. Not myself. Definitely not the sketchbook I had stuffed in my bag, filled with a hundred unfinished drawings of Lucas I would never let him see.
“I’m not drooling,” I mumbled. “I’m… observing.”
“Observing his jawline?” she teased. “Or the way his hair somehow stays perfect even after two periods of sweating and body-slamming?”
My cheeks burned. “Shut up.”
Minjee grinned. “Just saying. You should tell him.”
I froze. “Tell him what?”
“That you’ve been obsessed with him since sophomore year. That you sketch him in every possible angle like you're training to be his court illustrator.”
I groaned. “Do you have to expose me in public?”
“Better me than your own brain,” she said, biting into the hot dog.
Minjee had been my best friend since fifth grade, which meant she’d earned the right to mock me to my face. She also happened to be one of the only people who knew about my hopeless crush on Lucas Park—a crush I had no business nurturing.
He was the kind of guy who had fans. Literal fans. Like the junior girls sitting two rows down wearing his jersey numbers on their cheeks and screaming every time he so much as blinked.
Meanwhile, I was Rae Min. Art club wallflower. Quiet girl who spoke mostly in sarcasm and colored pencils. The kind of person you accidentally bumped into in the hallway and apologized to without ever looking up.
The buzzer blared. Final score: 4–2. Crescent High wins. Lucas had scored two of those goals, of course.
As the crowd erupted, I watched him skate toward the bench, high-fiving his teammates, grinning in that cool, reserved way that somehow made him even more magnetic. My heart thudded like it always did when he smiled.
Minjee nudged me again. “You could do it now.”
“Do what?”
“Tell him. You brought the stupid letter, didn’t you?”
My hand instinctively touched the inside pocket of my jacket. The letter. Four paragraphs of me spilling my guts like a tragic drama heroine, complete with, ‘I know you probably don’t know who I am’ and ‘but I just had to tell you.’ I wrote it last night in a haze of insomnia and teen delusion.
“I wasn’t actually going to give it to him,” I whispered.
Minjee rolled her eyes. “Then what’s the point?”
Good question.
We waited by the railing as students filed out of the bleachers, buzzing with excitement. The players were exiting through the side tunnel, toward the locker rooms, but the hallway wrapped around. Minjee knew this. I knew this. Which is probably why she grabbed my wrist and dragged me down the stairs before I could come up with a decent excuse.
“Minjee, no—”
“Just listen. You’ve liked him forever. He’s single. You’re talented and adorable and have actual substance, unlike half the girls throwing themselves at him. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“He rejects me and I dissolve into the floor?”
She grinned. “Exactly.”
Before I could respond, she gave me a little shove around the corner—and there he was.
Lucas Park. Leaning against the tiled wall with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, scrolling through his phone like the game hadn’t just ended minutes ago. His hair was damp, pushed back, a little messy. There was a faint bruise forming on his cheekbone, probably from an earlier hit. Even slightly roughed up, he looked annoyingly cool.
I stood there like an idiot.
Say something. Say anything.
“Lucas,” I said, voice cracking like a preteen boy’s.
He glanced up. His eyes were dark, unreadable.
“Yeah?”
I felt my heart drop to my ankles. Why was he so pretty up close? And why did I think this was a good idea?
“I, um.” I swallowed. My hand went to the letter inside my pocket. I should just give it to him and run. Drop and dash. That was the plan. “I just wanted to say… good game.”
He nodded once. “Thanks.”
Wow. That was it. He was already looking back at his phone.
Abort mission. Abort.
But something inside me—the ghost of my future therapist, maybe—pushed me forward. I pulled the letter out and handed it to him with trembling fingers.
“I wrote this. For you. I mean, it’s not weird or anything. I just… wanted you to know.”
Lucas looked at the envelope. Then at me.
“What is this?”
I laughed nervously. “A confession, I guess.”
A long pause. He didn’t open it. Didn’t smile. His face was unreadable, cool, distant.
Then he said, “I don’t need to read it.”
My heart stuttered.
“I’m sorry?”
He met my eyes, and his were like glass—pretty, but empty. “I’m flattered, but I’m not interested. You didn’t have to write anything.”
My brain scrambled for a response, but none came. It was like my lungs stopped working. Like I was frozen in front of him, watching my fantasy implode in real time.
“Oh,” I said. That’s all I could manage.
Lucas shifted his duffel higher on his shoulder. “Take care.”
And with that, he walked past me like I was just another wall in the hallway.
I stood there, letter still in my hand, face burning. The background noise of the hallway blurred into static. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my heartbeat echoing in my ears.
Minjee rounded the corner a few seconds later. Her face fell the moment she saw me.
“Rae…”
I shook my head. “Let’s just go.”
I didn’t cry, not until I got home. Not until I curled up in bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about how pathetic I must’ve looked standing there like a rejected extra in his movie.
I didn’t cry until I realized he hadn’t even read the letter.
The worst part was—I still didn’t hate him. I hated that I didn’t.
Around 2 a.m., I finally stopped staring at the ceiling and turned to face the window. The moonlight spilled across my sketchbook on the desk, open to a half-finished drawing of him. I wanted to tear it. Burn it. Pretend none of it ever happened.
But I didn’t. I just stared and whispered to the dark room, “I wish you could see what it’s like to be me for once.”
I don’t remember falling asleep.
All I know is, the next morning, everything felt… off.
The pillow smelled different. My arms were too long. My room looked unfamiliar.
And when I sat up and caught my reflection in the mirror across the bed—
I screamed.
Because I wasn’t looking at me.
I was looking at him.
Lucas Park.
And that’s when I realized—
This wasn’t my life anymore.