Arm didn't go back to the dorm that night.
He didn't tell anyone either. Just wandered the edge of campus until his phone battery died. He ended up crashing at Gun and Peat's room. Gun offered his blanket without asking. Peat didn't speak much. Which was fair. Silence had become a common language lately.
When Arm finally fell asleep, it was shallow and broken. Dreams without faces. Just shadows and static.
---
Back in his room, Mix didn't wait for anyone to come back. He cleaned.
Not like a chore. Like a ritual. He lined up his notebooks. Rearranged his desk drawer. Folded and refolded the same hoodie twice. He needed the corners to be sharp, the patterns to make sense. Because everything else didn't.
Every minute felt like it should matter more.
And it didn't.
He hadn't cried.
Not yet.
But he sat on the edge of his bed staring at the space between theirs like it had teeth.
---
Across campus, Jack was on stage again.
This time for rehearsal. Not cameras. Just mirrors and bruised knees.
He was trying to land a new routine. One footwork sequence that kept escaping him. He failed the first time. And the second. By the third, he kicked the floor hard enough to make the girl beside him flinch.
The instructor raised a brow. "Trouble at home, Jack?"
He didn't answer.
He just picked the song again. Louder this time.
---
Meanwhile, Bave skipped her next class entirely.
She sat in the library stairwell with her head on her knees and her phone buzzing in her hand. Jack's name lighting up the screen again. And again.
She didn't answer.
She wasn't even sure what she'd say if she did. All she knew was she was tired of watching herself shrink next to his spotlight.
And tired of pretending she didn't care.
---
Gun and Peat, for once, didn't argue over dinner. They didn't laugh either.
They ate quietly in the corner of the dining hall. Peat pushed food around his plate. Gun made a joke about the soup being radioactive. Peat gave him a smile that didn't make it to his eyes.
Then Peat said, "I don't want to be needed. I want to be chosen."
Gun paused, spoon halfway to his mouth.
"Are you saying I don't choose you?"
"I'm saying it doesn't always feel like you do."
That was it. Nothing loud. No scene. Just a sentence that changed the shape of the air.
---
Back in the dorm, Mix finally cracked.
Not dramatically. Just a slow undoing.
He sat on the floor with a book open in front of him and realized he'd been rereading the same paragraph for twenty minutes. His throat hurt. His chest felt hollow.
He remembered the look in Arm's eyes.
The kind that said something had been found too late.
Then he did something stupid.
He pulled out his phone and opened a blank message.
You don't get to say when I begin again
He deleted it.
Typed again.
I don't want you to see me now. You had your chance.
Deleted that too.
Then finally sent only two words:
Don't come.
Then turned off his phone.
---
Here's Part Two (and the final blow) of Chapter Seven – Fractures.
It weaves all four storylines together, pushes everyone closer to their breaking points, and ends on a moment that shifts the tone of everything moving forward.
--
Bave didn't go to Jack's rehearsal.
She said she would. She even dressed for it. Lip gloss. Sharp eyeliner. The jacket he liked.
But when she got to the door of the studio and saw him inside, spinning, focused, surrounded by instructors and girls watching through the glass, she couldn't make her hand push the handle.
Because he wasn't looking for her.
Not once did he glance outside. Not once did he pause like he needed her there.
So she left. Quietly. Without a word.
And she didn't text him back that night.
---
Peat was in the hallway, sitting on the cold tiles like the weight in his chest needed grounding.
Gun found him there. Still in his hoodie. Knees drawn up. Head bowed.
Gun sat beside him without asking, knees touching.
"I read your note," Gun said finally.
Peat didn't respond.
"You said I don't choose you. But I do. Every damn time. I just don't know how to prove that when I'm scared you'll leave before I can."
Peat looked at him. Really looked.
"I've been waiting for you to see me, Gun. Not just... keep me."
Gun's breath caught.
Peat reached for his hand.
"I don't want to be held like a habit. I want to be loved like a decision."
---
Arm stood outside Tarn's dorm, fist lifted halfway to knock, and stopped.
He wasn't sure why he was here. Or what he even planned to say.
Part of him thought if he just explained everything, it would reset. Like admitting it all would make the past smoother, less sharp.
But standing there in the hallway light, he realized he didn't want to be forgiven.
He wanted to forget.
Forget how Mix looked at Tarn. Forget the sound of "I hated you for it." Forget the weight of a silence he helped build.
But forgetting wasn't healing.
So he let his hand fall.
And he walked away.
---
Mix sat on his bed, staring at the candy wrapper again.
It was still open. Still empty. Still sitting like it had something to say.
His phone buzzed.
He didn't look.
His body ached not from movement, but from tension, from holding too much emotion in a frame that wasn't built for this kind of grief.
It wasn't heartbreak.
It was recognition.
He saw himself too clearly now. The version of him that bent, not broke. That waited too long to speak. That remembered too well what it meant to feel invisible.
And now, with everything unraveling Jack and Bave. Gun and Peat. Even Tarn, whose smile had started to feel fragile Mix felt alone again.
Not the lonely kind.
The dangerous kind.
---
Hours later, Jack showed up outside Bave's dorm. Hoodie soaked from rain, shoes muddy from whatever shortcut he thought would make this less late.
He knocked.
No answer.
He texted.
No read receipt.
He sat down on the steps, dripping and silent, and whispered into the dark:
"I don't know how to be everything. But I still wanted to be yours."
Inside, Bave was awake.
She heard it.
But she didn't open the door.
---
At almost 2 a.m., Gun rolled over in bed and found Peat staring at the ceiling.
"Still awake?"
"Yeah."
"Still mad?"
"No," Peat said quietly. "Just tired"
Gun reached for his hand under the blanket.
"Why don't we start afresh."
---
At the same time, Mix stood barefoot by the window, watching the rain hit the glass.
He picked up his phone.
No new messages.
He almost sent one. Almost.
But instead, he whispered to the dark:
"I don't need you to be sorry. I needed you not to have done it in the first place."
Behind him, the candy wrapper fell from the edge of the desk and landed on the floor.
---