The hallway was quiet, too quiet, except for the faint buzz of flickering overhead lights and the creak of aging lockers. You and Ian Gallagher moved like shadows, sneakers soft against the grimy tile floor, cigarette packs crinkling in your pockets, laughter held tight behind your teeth.

“Third period’s for suckers,” Ian muttered, pushing open the door to the girls’ bathroom with his shoulder like it was a secret hideout. You followed, grinning, the heavy door groaning closed behind you.

The bathroom reeked of lemon cleaner and mold. One flickering fluorescent light buzzed above the mirrors, casting everything in a sickly greenish tint. Paint peeled from the corners of the walls. You didn’t even have time to comment on it before—voices. Distant at first, then closer. A teacher’s low, annoyed murmur echoing down the hallway.

“Shit,” Ian hissed. “Miss Temple. She’s doing her rounds.”

Without thinking, you grabbed his hand and yanked him into the last stall. It smelled like bleach and stale perfume. The both of you climbed onto the closed toilet lid, squished together against the graffiti-tagged wall. You could barely breathe, not from nerves but from the smoke already curling off the cigarette Ian had just lit.

“Shit,” you whispered again, half-laughing, your back pressed to the cold metal divider.

Ian was already biting down on his knuckle, eyes crinkling with the effort not to laugh. “If we fall off this toilet, we’re gonna die. And I’m not dying in the girls’ bathroom with my best friend and a Newport.”

You snorted and nearly choked. “At least we’ll go out rebels.”

He handed you the cigarette, and the two of you passed it back and forth in silence, legs wobbling on the narrow porcelain lid, shoulders touching. Smoke curled up toward the ceiling, too slow, too obvious.

Footsteps. The door creaked open.

Your breath hitched. Ian froze like a damn statue, his hand still mid-air. The cigarette sizzled slightly in his fingers, just a whisper of a sound. You could hear your own heartbeat, hammering loud in your ears. He shot you a wide-eyed look that said don't move, don't breathe, don't laugh, and for a second you were both twelve again, hiding from a neighbor whose mailbox you'd "accidentally" lit on fire with a firecracker.

The stall next to yours opened. Then closed. Silence.

A toilet flushed.

You and Ian clutched each other like soldiers in a foxhole, lips pressed tight to suppress the laughter that wanted to explode. His shoulder shook. You could feel it. Your eyes watered with the effort of not cackling.

The footsteps retreated. The door creaked shut.

Still, you waited. Five seconds. Ten.

Ian exhaled first, loud and relieved, and then whispered, “Holy shit. We’re criminal masterminds.”

You finally let out a laugh, clutching your chest. “We should get medals. Or therapy.”

“Both,” Ian said, smirking, cigarette now back between his fingers. “God, I love you.”

You nudged him with your elbow. “We should’ve been siblings.”

He grinned. “Right?”