Across the street:

Halewood was the kind of neighborhood that looked like a commercial. Every driveway was edged with trimmed hedges, every streetlamp perfectly spaced, and every sidewalk clean enough to eat off. The houses all smiled with their symmetrical windows and neutral colors, but none more than the two that sat directly across from one another - one belonging to the Carters, the other to the Mitchells.

From the outside, they looked nearly identical - big front yards, ivy climbing fences, two stories of domestic bliss. But inside, they were galaxies apart.

Daniel Carter was born into a house where control was king. Everything was polished: his shoes, his manners, his future. His parents spoke in tones that rarely rose above polite disagreement. To them, love was a demonstration of discipline, tradition, and legacy. Daniel had a plan, mapped out since grade school - college at Stanford, law school, then marriage to a woman who could charm at galas and bake in heels.

Noah Mitchell, by contrast, lived a house of warmth and unpredictability. His mother was a freelance designer who wore paint-splattered jeans and let music play during dinner. His dad, a former guitarist, taught music at the local high school and smelled like coffee and cinnamon. They argued openly, forgave quickly, and let Noah run barefoot through the grass until he was far too old to be doing so. His future was less of a plan and more of a hope - college somewhere, something in art or film, but mostly, to live a life that felt real.

Daniel and Noah had known each other since before memory. Their moms met in a mommy-and-me group, and by the time they could walk, the boys were inseparable. Daniel's rigid world was softened by Noah's chaos, and Noah's free-spirited ways found grounding in Daniel's structure. They balanced each other perfectly - until they didn't.

It was in high school that things shifted. Not all at once. It was in the way Daniel would sit closer to Noah than anyone else. In the quiet glances Noah caught between periods. In the way Daniel lingered in conversation long after everyone else had left the lunch table.

Noah noticed first. Of course he did. He was attuned to feelings, to moments, to silences. And Daniel? Daniel was good at pretending he didn't feel anything at all.

The first time it really happened - when something unmistakable broke through the surface - was on a summer night after junior year. They'd stayed up watching an old film on Noah's couch. The kind where the love story is unspoken but constant, where eyes say more than mouths ever do. As the credits rolled, the silence between them stretched.

Noah looked at Daniel, and for once, Daniel didn't look away.

Then Noah leaned in.

It was soft. Hesitant. The kind of kiss that ends in a breath, a question. But Daniel kissed him back. He didn't say anything. Just let it happen.

And then he left.

He didn't talk about it the next day. Or the day after that. When Noah asked him to hang out, Daniel said he was busy. That maybe they were too close, and people were starting to talk. That he didn't want to ruin anything.

And yet? Daniel couldn't stop looking at him.

Every glance Daniel gave Noah in the hallway said more than his mouth ever would. And it was torture - because Daniel wanted him, Noah knew it. But wanting wasn't the same as choosing.

Daniel chose safety. Chose silence.

And Noah stayed, waiting in the gaps between those choices.