A Change of Heart

Nacho had always been a walking contradiction, carrying his flaws as loudly and carelessly as he carried everything else in his life. He had issues—real ones—that didn’t vanish just because someone finally left him over them. Even after his girlfriend was gone, he still couldn't accept that maybe he was in the wrong. From the outside, he still looked like the perfect boy—tall, athletic, privileged,— not exactly trusted by teachers and approved by parents, but the kind of presence people mistook for stability. His perfection had always been performance, and Nacho was frighteningly good at pretending. What unsettled him now was where his attention drifted, not back to his ex or toward some replacement girl, but to another boy who didn’t match him exactly in size, but in presence. Nacho hated it—the way his eyes followed without permission, the way curiosity curdled into fixation, the way wanting someone who wasn’t supposed to matter stripped him of control—because for the first time in his life, he wasn’t the biggest thing in the room, and that realization terrified him.