Blair woke up earlier than usual.
Not because of an alarm, but because of her own thoughts.
There were sentences looping without sound, faces appearing without permission, and one fact she could no longer deny: Carlo was now in the same city as her.
She stood in front of the bathroom sink, staring at her reflection.
Her face looked the same.
Her hair was still neatly styled.
Her eyes still appeared calm.
But something had shifted—not on the outside, but within.
Carlo had always been like that.
Touching nothing, yet managing to move so many things.
Blair tried to convince herself that she was different now.
That she was no longer easily affected by people from her past.
But what unsettled her wasn’t longing.
It wasn’t a desire to go back either.
What disturbed her was one small question:
why did his presence still have an effect?
On campus, Blair sat in class as usual.
Taking notes.
Listening.
Nodding at the right moments.
But there were empty pauses between her actions, spaces where her thoughts slipped away on their own.
She remembered the way Carlo looked at her.
Not with demands.
But with recognition.
As if Blair was something he had once understood, and that alone was enough to make her feel exposed.
Blair hated that feeling.
When class ended, she walked out with Pablo.
Their steps were in sync, yet the distance between them felt wider than yesterday.
“Are you tired?” Pablo asked.
“A little,” Blair replied.
It wasn’t a lie.
But it wasn’t the whole truth.
They walked down the campus corridor, the footsteps of other students fading into background noise.
Pablo wanted to ask more, but there was something on Blair’s face that held him back.
More like glass—transparent, but fragile.
“I’m going to the library,” Blair said.
“You?”
“I… might go to the café for a bit.”
They stopped.
“Okay,” Blair said.
There was no hug.
No invitation.
They parted with a small nod—too formal for two people who were usually not like this.
Pablo walked away, but his feelings stayed behind.
There was an odd sensation lingering in his chest.
Not anger.
Not suspicion.
More like a fear that didn’t yet have a name.
He sat at the campus café, ordering a coffee he barely tasted.
His thoughts drifted back to the bookstore yesterday.
To the way Blair stood when she was with Carlo.
To something unspoken, yet unmistakably felt.
Pablo wasn’t jealous because Carlo was more handsome.
Not because Carlo was more established.
He was jealous because Carlo knew something.
Something about Blair that Pablo had never touched.
And it made him feel late, even though he didn’t know who he was racing against.
Meanwhile, Blair sat alone in the library.
A book lay open in front of her, but her eyes weren’t reading.
She remembered the version of herself from before, the one who was harder, more defensive, more accustomed to hiding wounds behind logic.
Carlo knew that version.
And Blair hated that someone outside herself still carried that archive.
She closed the book and let out a long breath.
“I’m not going back there,” she murmured softly.
Not to anyone else.
To herself.
That afternoon, Blair decided not to go straight to the bookstore.
She walked in a roundabout way, letting her feet choose the direction.
The city felt the same, but Blair felt slightly off-center within herself.
Her phone vibrated.
Have you gone home yet?
Blair stared at the screen longer than she should have.
Not yet.
Just walking for a bit.
The reply came quickly.
Be careful.
That simple sentence pressed against something in Blair’s chest.
There was warmth there.
A sense of safety.
And alongside it, a thin but real sense of guilt.
She hadn’t done anything wrong.
But she was holding something on her own.
Night arrived quietly.
Blair finally returned to the apartment.
Kattie wasn’t there yet.
The room was silent, and for the first time that day, Blair allowed herself to sit without distraction.
She looked out the window, city lights reflecting on the glass.
Carlo was the past.
Pablo was the present.
The problem was, the past didn’t always stay still.
And the present wasn’t always solid enough to cover it.
In his own apartment, Pablo stood by the window, phone in hand.
He wanted to ask more.
He wanted to know who Carlo really was.
But he knew that if he asked now, the answer might not be complete.
And that was what frightened him most.
Not losing Blair.
But realizing that he might not fully know her.
That night, two people in two different places thought about the same thing—without words, without agreement.
Something was moving beneath the surface.
Not yet a problem.
But clearly not nothing.