The wall between us
The first thing Ethan Hale heard every morning wasn't his alarm. It was Leo Whitfield's shower running through the wall that separated their two brownstones—a wall so paper-thin and steeped in old grudges that some mornings, Ethan swore he could hear him humming through the drywall. Off-key and completely unbothered, as if the entire world existed solely to accommodate him. Eleven years of living beside Leo, and Ethan still hadn't figured out how to stop listening. He hated how intimately he knew the cadence of another person's life: the sharp creak of Leo’s window at midnight, the low bass of an overpriced playlist bleeding through the plaster, the specific, infuriating frequency of his laugh when he was pushing someone’s buttons. Ethan had spent a decade memorizing it all against his will—the way you memorize the shape of a scar you never wanted.
He rolled out of bed, dragged his sketchbook off the nightstand, and didn't bother closing the blinds. That was his first mistake of the day, and it wasn't even six-forty yet.
"Morning, sunshine."
Ethan didn't need to look up to know that voice—low, unhurried, dripping with the effortless arrogance of someone whose last name opened doors in boardrooms and courtrooms alike. He looked anyway, because apparently, self-preservation was a concept his body continually rejected.
Leo was leaning half out his window in an unbuttoned shirt, hair still wet, broad forearms braced on the sill like he owned the entire block. (Given that Whitfield Capital technically did own most of it now, it wasn't entirely a joke.) He was smirking—that exact, devastating smirk that made Ethan's stomach twist into a knot he refused to identify. The kind of look that said, I know exactly what I look like right now, and I know exactly what it's doing to you.
"Get a life, Whitfield."
"I have several," Leo purred. "Yours just happens to be the most entertaining to watch."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Didn't say it was."
Ethan flipped him off and yanked the blinds shut so hard the frame rattled. A second later, Leo’s laugh cut through the drywall—that same insufferable sound that had been grating on Ethan's nerves since they were seven years old, back when Leo had thrown a football through his mother's kitchen window and blamed it on a rogue raccoon with a straight face. They hadn't been friends since. Not really. Not since middle school, when whatever was between them had curdled into this—a quiet, vicious rivalry neither had ever bothered to name, built brick by brick out of years of petty comments, borrowed grudges, and the dangerous familiarity that comes from watching someone grow up two feet away from you. Ethan told himself he hated it. He told himself that every single day, usually right after moments like this, when his heart did something fast, treacherous, and entirely unrelated to hatred.
By the time he made it downstairs, his mother was already at the kitchen table, scrolling through her phone with the specific, icy frown she reserved for real estate emails and Whitfield family news—which had recently merged into the exact same category, ever since Whitfield Capital began quietly buying up the neighborhood through shell companies.
"They're renovating the community garden again," she said without looking up, her voice laced with heavy disdain.
"Let me guess. Leo's idea."
"Apparently he wants a 'modern aesthetic.'" She made air quotes with sharp, violent precision. "That boy wouldn't recognize aesthetic if it walked up and hit him."
Ethan grabbed a granola bar off the counter and stayed silent—mostly because he agreed, but mostly because arguing about Leo Whitfield before eight in the morning was an exhausting habit he tried to avoid, like touching a hot stove twice. He almost made it out the front door clean.
"Oh—Ethan." Her voice caught him right at the threshold, and something in her tone made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "Mrs. Whitfield mentioned something about a school project. She said Leo's unusually excited about it."
Ethan turned slowly, clutching his sketchbook to his chest. "Leo doesn't get excited about anything that isn't winning."
"Well." His mother finally looked up, an infuriatingly amused expression on her face—the look mothers give when they know a disaster is coming and you're the last one to realize it.
"Maybe he's excited about winning this one."
He should have known the moment he walked into third period and saw two bold words scrawled on the whiteboard like a direct threat: PARTNER PROJECT.
The classroom immediately erupted into chaos—best friends pulling desks together, couples trading desperate looks, the entire social hierarchy rearranging itself in real-time. Ethan sat completely still through it all. He already felt the crash coming, like the drop in air pressure right before a storm hits.
"Before anyone starts plotting," Mr. Bennett said, holding up a stack of index cards like a detonator, "partners are pre-assigned. No trading. No negotiating. Marcus, put your hand down."
A collective groan echoed through the room, but Ethan barely heard it. Three seats over, Leo was already staring at him. Not smirking. Just watching—intense, unblinking, and entirely unreadable in a way that made Ethan's skin feel suddenly, suffocatingly tight.
"Hale and Whitfield."
The room went dead silent. The kind of silence that happens when people can smell blood in the water.
Ethan closed his eyes tightly. "You have got to be kidding me."
"Is there a problem, Mr. Hale?"
"No," Ethan said flatly, opening his eyes only to find Leo already grinning at him across the aisle—slow, triumphant, like he had hand-written those index cards himself and was daring Ethan to prove it. "None at all."
"We're neighbors," Leo added, his voice dripping with false cheer. "Practically family, really, when you think about it."
"We are not family."
"Feels like it sometimes." Leo leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers behind his head. Ethan hated—viscerally hated—how effortless and good he looked doing something as simple as sitting. "You've seen me in a towel more times than my own mother has."
A wave of snickers rippled through the room. Ethan felt a sudden, burning heat flush up his neck, which he blamed entirely on rage.
"That happened once, it was an accident, and I have spent every single day since trying to bleach it from my brain."
"Sure you have."
"Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Hale."
Bennett's sharp voice sliced through the air. "Save the dynamic for the actual presentation. You have three weeks."
Three weeks. Twenty-one days of Leo Whitfield’s smug face across a table. Three weeks of his expensive cologne, his unbearable confidence, and his habit of turning every sentence into a contest Ethan never signed up for. Three weeks that were going to feel like three long years.
And it started tonight—because of course it did. Before Bennett even turned back to the board, Leo was already folding a sheet of paper and sliding it smoothly across the aisle.
Ethan unfolded it under his desk, his jaw set, bracing for impact.
My place, 6pm. Don't be late—I already ordered your favorite. Yes, I remember it. No, I'm not going to tell you how.
Ethan stared at the neat handwriting for a long, quiet second. Beneath the intense urge to rip the paper to shreds, his heart gave a hard, traitorous thud against his ribs.
It’s just anger, he told himself frantically. He was almost, almost sure that's all it was.
Across the room, Leo caught his eye one last time before the bell rang. This time, the smirk softened—just for a fraction of a second—into something deeper, something that lingered far too long to mean nothing.
Then Leo turned and disappeared into the crowded hallway, leaving Ethan sitting alone with a crushed note in his fist and the sickening, gut-deep realization that for the first time in eleven years, the wall between their houses wasn't going to be enough to keep him safe.
