At the high school

The morning moves the way senior year mornings tend to, slow and familiar, with just enough going on to keep things from feeling completely pointless. Miles navigates the hallways on autopilot, nodding at faces he has known for four years, half listening to conversations that blur together before he even clears the doorway.

He finds Janice at her locker between first and second period. She is wearing something simple, a light blue top and jeans, and somehow making it look like she put considerable thought into it. She probably didn't. That was the thing about Janice. Everything landed well on her without apparent effort.

"Hey," Miles says, leaning against the adjacent locker with what he hopes reads as casual.

She looks up, and there it is. That smile. Small, genuine, like she was already expecting him but decided not to let on.

"Hey yourself."

For a moment they just exist in that comfortable space they had carved out over two years of almost-something. Then Miles decides to stop overthinking it.

"So. Prom."

Janice closes her locker and turns to face him fully, which he takes as a good sign.

"What about it?"

"I want to take you. I think you know that."

She holds his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, long enough that something in his chest does that thing it always does around her. Then she tilts her head slightly, the way she does when she is genuinely considering something rather than just being polite.

"Let me think about it," she says. Not unkindly. Not dismissively either. More like she is weighing something she hasn't quite finished weighing yet.

"That's not a no," Miles says.

The corner of her mouth lifts. "That's not a no," she agrees.

She heads off to class and Miles watches her go, replaying those four words on a loop for the better part of the next two periods.

The afternoon arrives slowly. The last bell is still twenty minutes out when Miles is cutting through the east corridor when he nearly walks straight into Aria.

She pulls back just in time, laughing at the near collision with the ease of someone who doesn't embarrass easily.

"Watch where you're going," she says, but her eyes are bright and the tone is anything but hostile.

"That was entirely your fault," Miles replies.

"Absolutely not." She falls into step beside him without being invited, which is very Aria. "You looked like you were somewhere else entirely."

"Long day."

"Tell me about it." She glances sideways at him. "You heading out soon?"

"Yeah, wrapping up."

She spins her keys once around her finger, a casual little move that somehow manages not to look rehearsed. "I'm parked out front. I can drop you."

It is a simple offer. Friendly. Practical even. Except that Miles catches something in his peripheral vision at exactly the wrong, or perhaps exactly the right, moment.

Janice. Standing maybe thirty feet down the hall near the water fountain, close enough to see everything and far enough to hear nothing. Her eyes move from Miles to Aria and back again. Her expression doesn't change much, but something shifts behind it. Something small and unreadable.

Miles processes this in about half a second.

Aria is watching him, still waiting, keys still in hand. Completely unaware she has just handed him something potentially useful.

The question is whether he uses it.