Rocco-s Pov 17 🆕 Fresh

His mother’s knock came. Two soft raps.

His phone buzzed. Leo. “Party at the point. Be there or be square, old man.”

She looked up, startled.

Her face did something complicated. Relief. Worry. A flicker of the woman she used to be before life made her careful. “Okay, Roo. Be safe.” rocco-s pov 17

“Okay,” he said. His voice came out steady. That was another skill: the steady voice. The one that said I’m fine when his insides were a riot.

“I’m going out. But I’ll be home by ten.”

He typed back: “Maybe.”

He opened his bedroom door. The smell of meatloaf drifted up from the kitchen. His mother was humming—a nervous, off-key tune.

Rocco pressed his forehead to his knees. He thought about Lena. Lena with the crooked smile and the book of Rilke poems she carried like a bible. Last month, at a party, she’d pulled him into a closet just to show him a glow-in-the-dark sticker of a jellyfish on the inside of the door. “See?” she’d said. “Even in the dark, there are things that make their own light.”

He picked up his phone. Leo’s text still glowed. “Party at the point.” His mother’s knock came

Downstairs, his mother hung up. He heard her blow her nose, then run the faucet to cover the sound. She would come up in a minute, knock twice—gentle, apologetic—and ask if he wanted meatloaf. She would pretend her eyes weren’t red. He would pretend not to notice. That was their love language: the art of the graceful lie.

“Ma,” he said, leaning over the railing.

That was the motto of being seventeen. Maybe. Not yes, because yes meant commitment, and commitment meant the possibility of failure. Not no, because no meant closing a door, and every open door was a future you couldn’t afford to burn. So: maybe. The coward’s gold. Her face did something complicated

Rocco stood up. He walked to his mirror and looked at the boy staring back. Dark circles. A jaw that needed shaving but not badly enough to bother. A small scar above his eyebrow from a bike crash when he was twelve—back when pain was simple, just gravel and blood and a mother’s kiss.