Hi. Yeah. Uh, hi.
Dear readers? That sounds dumb. Friends? Strangers? People-who-might-judge-me-when-this-goes-live? Whatever—Maya would've started this with something poetic like "to the stars that never made it home" or "to whoever finds pieces of me between the lines."
Me? I'm Damon. The cooler, hotter Thompson brother. Eddie's older brother. Future CEO. Full-time disappointment. Part-time emotional mess.
So. Maya forced me to write this.
I'm not joking—she literally shoved her phone in my hand, scrolled to this weird little blog she created, and said, "You're writing something. No arguing." You can't argue with Maya. You can think you're arguing, but really, you're just losing in a more creative way.
Apparently, she set this blog up as some kind of legacy thing? A digital time capsule. A final memory vault for our class. She dropped the password in the school group chat and said, "Whoever has the guts to log in, write whatever the hell you want." Some wrote memories. Some wrote regrets. Some just wanted one last scream before the doors of high school slammed shut forever.
She gave me the password in private, though. Special access, like I was part of some secret club. Maybe because I'm not a classmate. I'm the plus-one in your story. The extra. The observer. The background noise to the real drama. But even shadows get their moments under the sun, right?
So here I am, writing about the girl I was never supposed to love.
The first time I met Maya Sinclair was at Eddie's birthday party. She walked in wearing red. Not a shy red. Not a polite red. The kind of red that grabs you by the collar and demands your full attention. And she had this laugh—God, that laugh. Like breaking rules with a smile. She was chaos in heels and lip gloss.
The kind of chaos that makes you forget you were supposed to behave.
I remember thinking, "There's no way this girl is real."
And maybe she wasn't. Not fully. She was a hundred versions of herself, switching masks with terrifying grace. She flirted like it was war, lived like she was chasing fire, and every man in that room thought he had a chance. But Maya wasn't someone you had. She was someone you survived.
And somehow, I started falling. Quietly. Pathetically. Completely.
I don't know if it's the Thompson blood or just the fact that the Sinclair girls are built different, but I was screwed from day one. She belonged to Eddie, though. Not officially. But unofficially in the kind of way that makes your lungs burn when you think about touching what isn't yours.
So I stayed silent.
I played the part. I was her fake date once. To mess with Eddie. We were pretending to be all couple-y. She curled her arm around mine and whispered things in my ear that made my brain glitch. And the whole time, I smiled like it was nothing. Like I wasn't hoping she'd forget it was a game.
That night, I let myself pretend.
And then I let it go.
Because Eddie wanted her. And when you're the big brother, you learn how to step aside. You learn to lose quietly. You learn that some things you love aren't yours to keep.
But losing her didn't make me stop looking.
I told myself I was fine. That I was happy just knowing her. Watching her throw her head back when she laughed. Seeing her argue like her life depended on it. Listening to her rant about people who "romanticize sadness without ever feeling it." She called them "aesthetic vampires."
She had words for everything.
She was a poem pretending to be a person.
But then the shooting happened.
And I realized I might never get to see her again. And I panicked. Because the thought of her disappearing without knowing how much she meant to me—it was unbearable. So I told her. Everything. The truth. The secrets. Eddie's role. My silence. My guilt.
And she looked at me like I was a stranger who had set her house on fire.
That look—God. That look gutted me.
It was the worst thing I've ever seen. The hatred. The betrayal. Like I was just another man who took something from her.
I would've rather been punched.
But then, the second time… she let me sit next to her.
She didn't say much. Just sat there, watching the wind. But she didn't leave.
And that's when it started again.
It was subtle. Slow. Dangerous. She'd smile at me differently. Lean a little closer. Laugh a little softer. And I—like the idiot I am—fell right back in.
One smile. One damn smile from Maya Sinclair, and I was back in the same hell.
The kind where you love someone who doesn't love you—not the way you want. The kind where you're close enough to feel everything but far enough to touch nothing. The kind where the heart beats for someone who will never be yours.
But she started trusting me.
She'd wait for me outside my office just so we could grab lunch. She'd barge into meetings like she owned the company. She stole my hoodies. Mocked my Spotify playlists. She'd sit on my desk and swing her legs while telling me about her day.
I never hid anything from her.
Not my past. Not my pain.
Not even the way I looked at her when she wasn't watching.
She made me believe she was healing.
Made me believe I could heal.
Some days, I'd find sticky notes on my car. "Damon, you better not skip lunch." "Damon, don't be an asshole today." "Damon, I saw what you did with your hair. Never do it again."
I kept them all. Even the rude ones.
She started trusting people again.
Started laughing more.
Sleeping better.
Breathing deeper.
The night at the movies was the worst .
She'd barely slept in days, looked like she was running on black coffee and trauma. But she wanted to go see some dumb romcom, so I drove. We didn't even finish the first half. She knocked out fifteen minutes in, head tipping right onto my arm.
She didn't know.
She didn't know I sat there frozen, afraid that if I moved I'd break the moment. She didn't know that her sleeping on me felt like an entire symphony was playing under my skin. That I memorized the exact way her breath hit my neck.
She doesn't know that I love her.
And maybe she never will.
Sometimes I wonder—does she miss him? Or does she like me? Does she smile when she's with me because I'm the reason, or because I remind her of the one person she lost and can't bring back?
It's hell.
Every time she gets close, my body goes to war with itself. My heart's screaming her name, and my mind's telling it to shut up. I don't know what we are. I don't know what I am to her.
But I know what she is to me.
She's everything.
And she doesn't even know it.
But even then—I knew.
I wasn't her ending.
I was just the safe place she rested in before finding herself again.
That's the curse of being the third person in a story meant for two. You love hard. You stay loyal. You give your all. And in the end, you're the goodbye in someone else's love story.
Still—if I could go back and choose not to love her?
I'd still choose her. A thousand times. Even knowing I'd lose.
Because loving Maya Sinclair wasn't a mistake.
It was the only honest thing I've ever done.
And if you're reading this, Maya—I hope you know…
You were worth it.
Even in silence.
Even from a distance.
Even when it broke me.
—Damon