By the time we’d worked through most of it, I understood the material in a way I hadn’t managed on my own in an entire night of trying.
She never made me feel stupid, even when I lagged behind.
I caught myself watching her more than I probably should have while she worked; the way she chewed the end of her pen when she was thinking, the small furrow that showed up between her brows right before she landed on the explanation that finally clicked. It wasn’t just her face doing it this time, or not only her face. It was the whole focus of her, fully present, fully invested in making sure I actually understood rather than just getting through it.
By the time we packed up, the café had mostly emptied out around us, and I had more respect for her than I knew what to do with, and it wasn’t just for how smart she was, but for how generously she used it.
I drove her home, same quiet, comfortable kind of silence we’d had before, and pulled up outside the house, killing the engine.
"Thank you," I said. "For today. All of it."
She turned to face me, something hopeful and a little sheepish in her expression.
"You’re still not going to come in, are you?"
I huffed a laugh despite myself. Some things, apparently, never changed.
She smiled, opening the door. "See you tomorrow."
I paused, catching up a second after she’d already gotten out. "I don’t have Thermo tomorrow."
"True, but we have another study session." She was already smiling, walking backward. "Can’t have you failing my class now, can I?"
Only then did she finally turn, heading the rest of the way toward the house.
I sat there for a second, watching her go, entirely unconvinced that ’study session’ had anything to do with it.
Still smiling, I shook my head and drove off.
By the time I got home and dropped onto the couch, my phone was already ringing.
Chloe.
I picked up. "Hey."
"Hey, big bro!"
"You sound suspiciously happy."
"Can’t I be happy to hear from my big brother who abandoned me?"
"Abando— it’s been like a month."
"Same thing."
"It’s really not."
"Hold up." A muffled shuffle, the phone changing hands mid-sentence. "Mom wants to talk to you."
"You don’t love me anymore, do you?" My mom’s voice, taking over from wherever Chloe had left off.
"Hey, Mom."
"Don’t ’hey mom’ me. Do you know how long it’s been since you actually called your own house? Since the semester started, Nathan."
"We text."
"Sending a thumbs up emoji to the YouTube videos I send you is not texting." A pause. "Even your father’s been asking about you, and you know how he is."
Somewhere in the background, a voice, unmistakably my dad’s, cut in. "Leave me out of this."
Chloe giggled, clearly still within earshot of the whole thing.
A pause, just long enough that I could picture exactly the look my mom was probably giving him right now.
"Come home this weekend," my mom finally added.
I sat with that for a second, already knowing exactly where this was headed and trying, mostly out of habit, to find a way out anyway.
"I’ve got work this weekend."
"You don’t need that job, Nathan. Your father and I have told you that a hundred times."
"It’s not about needing it—"
"Either you come home this weekend, or I’m coming there."
That silenced me faster than anything else she could’ve said.
"You know what? This weekend is perfect. I’ll be there Saturday."
"Good." Her voice softened instantly, all the earlier edge gone. "I’ll leave you to rest. Love you."
"Love you too, Mom."
Before I could hang up, the phone changed hands again — Chloe’s voice this time.
"Ooh, when you’re coming, can you get me those sour gummy worms? The good ones, not the gas station kind."
"Sure."
"You’re the best."
The call ended right after that; Chloe never one for long goodbyes.
I hadn’t even sat back down properly before my phone buzzed again.
Nicole: Home yet?
I smiled at it despite myself, the same reflex I still hadn’t managed to shake, and typed back a quick reply as I stood up, and walked into my room.
Wednesday morning classes wrapped up by ten, which left us with a solid two hours plus lunch break, before anything else, and Jackson, for possibly the first time in recorded history, was the one who brought up studying.
Thirty minutes into it, he looked up from his laptop, rubbing his eyes. "I feel like I just beat a final boss with one health bar left and somehow still lost half my sanity doing it."
"It’s a project, Jackson. Not Mortal Kombat."
"Tell that to my will to live."
"You’ll survive."
"Will I, though? Because I’m starting to reconsider that whole ’her laugh doesn’t feel evil professor energy’ thing I said two days ago. I think it does. I think it’s exactly that."
I smirked at that, saying nothing.
Jackson narrowed his eyes. "Okay, wait. How are you breezing through this? You’re top of the class, sure, but this should be wrecking you a little too. Nobody’s this calm."
"I’ve been... putting in the work."
"You’re deflecting." He leaned back, something clicking into place on his face. "Your girlfriend helped you out, didn’t she?"
I opened my mouth, already halfway into the usual ’she’s not my girlfriend’—
"You have a girlfriend?"
Both our heads turned at once.
Sasha.
Jackson, to his credit, recovered fast, mostly by not recovering at all.
"...Oh, shit."
Sasha was staring directly at me now, waiting.
I didn’t owe her an explanation. We’d never been anything, never even come close, and yet something in me still braced like I’d been caught doing something wrong, which didn’t track, not even a little, and I hated that it still felt that way anyway.
"I don’t," I finally said.
Sasha folded her arms. "Jackson just said you did."
I opened my mouth to explain, then paused mid-thought, because I didn’t actually have to.
"You know I don’t have to explain myself, right?"
It sounded wrong the second it left my mouth, colder than I’d actually meant it, but there was no taking it back now.
Sash’s arms didn’t drop, but her whole expression did, something quiet and sad settling in where the challenge had been a second ago.
"Right." She reached into her bag and set a granola bar down on the table between us. "Here. Heard it helps with focus."
Then she turned and walked off without another word.
Jackson watched her go, wincing.
"...Ouch."
"It’s my fault, isn’t it?" he said, looking at me.
"It’s not your fault. It’s..." I sighed instead of finishing the thought.
I sat there for a second, staring at the granola bar she’d left.
I hadn’t asked for any of this. Years of Sasha quietly liking me from a distance, and now whatever this thing with Nicole had become, colliding right in the middle of a study session neither of us had wanted to have in the first place. Didn’t change the fact that she’d just walked away looking like that.
I exhaled and picked up the granola bar anyway. Seemed wrong not to.