Chapter 9
Aaron and I walk in step across the quad our shadows crisscrossing in the late afternoon like the X and Y axes of a graph I can’t interpret. I keep my hands stuffed in the pockets of my hoodie, thumbs worrying at the seam, head down as if that’ll stop anyone from recognizing us.
Aaron’s quiet, like the charged silence of an atom right before it bonds with something else.
Every so often he glances over, not quite catching my eye, as if he’s trying to calculate the probability of me flaking out before we hit the coffee shop.
I think about it more than once—just peeling off, muttering an excuse about study groups or existential nausea. But I don’t.
We reach the coffee shop in record time. Half-fogged windows filter the late sun into smudgy yellow streaks over the faux wood tables, canceling out the too-dim lights inside. The air is dense with espresso and whatever cheap cinnamon blend the manager thinks will keep us awake and loyal.
Aaron holds the door open with one hand and gestures me through with the other.
I hesitate, but there’s no way around it.
Once inside, he peels off to the counter, scanning the pastry case with the attention of a predator sizing up prey.
I stand behind him, close enough to smell the citrus tang of his deodorant and the faint lingering bite of sodium hypochlorite from the lab.
The barista is one of the grad students from Chemistry, hair pulled into a messy bun, eyes rimmed with last night’s eyeliner. She clocks us instantly. “Hey, Montgomery. Hey, Thompson.”
Aaron flashes his perfect teeth, all charm. “Hey, Bri. I’ll do a double shot, black, and whatever Spence here is having.”
“Just coffee, black,” I mumble barely audible over the grinder. The barista rings us up, slaps two cups onto the counter, and scribbles our names with a flourish. Aaron covers both, then nudges me toward the pickup line.
We stand side by side, not touching, not talking. My hands fidget with the cardboard sleeve, flattening it until it almost splits. I want to say something, anything, but my tongue’s got the consistency of dried glue.
Aaron finally breaks the silence. “You always this jumpy after lab?”
He watches me, but not in a way that feels dangerous. Just curious.
I force a half-smile. “Only after titrations. The threat of glassware casualties puts me on edge.”
He laughs, and it’s not mocking. “We’re the safest section on campus. I’ve seen you handle a burette like a sniper rifle.”
I shrug, unsure if it’s a compliment or just another point of data.
The coffee comes up, names shouted into the hum of the room. “Spencer! Aaron!”
We each grab our own, and I slide the cardboard sleeve around my cup.
Aaron leads the way to a corner booth that, by some miracle, sits empty.
He slides in first, back to the wall, leaving me the seat that faces the window.
I sit, careful to keep a full hand’s width between us, but the table is so tiny our knees almost touch anyway.
“You okay?” he asks, softer now.
I fidget and spin the cardboard sleeve around my cup. My name is spelled right, but the “S” has a tiny devil tail, like the barista knew more than she should. “I’m fine,” I lie. “Just… a lot on my mind, I guess.”
Aaron nods, sips his coffee, and lets the silence settle. It’s not awkward, exactly, but it’s dense. Potential energy, waiting.
I glance out the window at a trio of sorority girls gossiping on the patio, their laughter muffled by the glass.
I wonder what it’s like to be that easy in public, to have your inside and outside always match up.
My reflection in the glass is a blur, hair sticking up at odd angles, eyes framed by smudged lenses.
I look like someone who’s been run through a centrifuge and left to dry on the slide.
Aaron sets his cup down. “You ever think about just… starting over?”
I stare at him, unsure if it’s a trick question.
He shrugs. “Like, not ditching everything. Just… hitting reset. Getting out from under your own reputation.”
I swallow. “Sometimes.”
He leans in, voice dropping. “I mean, I love my friends, but sometimes I feel like I’m stuck playing the same character every day. Even when I want to be someone else, no one lets me.”
I nod, but my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth. The coffee burns my hands even through the sleeve, but I grip it tighter.
He keeps going. “That’s why I kept looking for her, you know? Jessica. It was like… someone hit reset on me. Like I got to be a version of myself no one expected.” He laughs, but it’s soft, almost embarrassed. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”
I shake my head. “It’s not stupid.”
He watches me, and for a heartbeat I feel like I could drown in the attention. “What about you?” he asks. “Anyone ever make you feel like you could be different?”
I want to tell him yes. I want to say, You did. But the words evaporate before they hit my teeth.
Instead, I stare at the table, fingers tapping out a nervous Morse code. I feel like if I look at him too long, he’ll see right through me.
He waits, patient. No pressure, just open space.
I take a breath, then another, then blurt: “I need to tell you something.”
Aaron’s eyebrows go up, but he just nods. “Go for it.”
I grip the cup so hard it creaks. “It’s about Jessica,” I say, then immediately want to take it back.
He remains silent, waiting.
I try again. “The party. The contest. The kissing closet.”
Aaron leans in, elbows on the table, face suddenly serious. “Yeah?”
My mouth goes dry as sand. “It was—” My voice cracks. I start over. “I didn’t mean for it to get this far. Or for you to…”
He reaches across the table, hand hovering halfway, then pulls it back, uncertain. “Hey. Whatever it is, you can just say it. I promise I won’t freak out.”
I can’t look at him. I stare at the swirl of light reflected in my coffee, the way it warps and bends, never holding steady. My hands shake so hard I almost spill the cup.
“It was me,” I say, voice barely a whisper.
He doesn’t move.
I force the next words out, one at a time. “I was Jessica. At the party. It was a bet. Hunter and Sara—they set it up. The dress, the wig, the makeup. The contest. I didn’t think anyone would…” I trail off, lost in the erratic beat of my own heart.
Aaron sits motionless, eyes locked on me. I wait for him to laugh, or yell, or stand up and walk out. Instead, he just sits there, coffee steaming between us, the silence stretching so tight I feel like I might snap in two.
I keep talking, because if I stop, I’ll never start again.
“I wanted to tell you, but after everything blew up online, I couldn’t. And then you were in lab, and I was in lab, and it just kept getting worse. I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry—”
He cuts me off, voice low. “Spencer.”
I look up, and his face is unreadable.
He says my name again, softer. “Spencer. It’s okay.”
I blink, not believing it.
He laughs, but it’s not the laugh I expected. It’s real, and maybe a little bit wrecked.
“I’m not mad.” His hand finds mine, covering it, his palm warm and solid even through the tremor. “I’m kinda glad it was you.”
The words hit me like a reagent poured into water—an instant, total change, no going back. I brace for the backlash. Laughter, probably; maybe a little disgust, or that hyper-masculine revulsion some guys pull out when the ground shifts under them. But it doesn’t come.
He just sits there, thumb resting against my wrist, his coffee cup suspended halfway to his lips like he’s forgotten it ever existed.
The silence stretches. I stare at the swirl of his drink and try not to count the milliseconds ticking away between us.
Aaron clears his throat, but the sound is ragged.
I pull my hand back, skin tingling where he touched me. “I’m sorry. I know it’s messed up. I should have said something weeks ago, but—”
He shakes his head and cuts me off. “No. You don’t have to apologize.” He looks down at his cup, then back up at me, as if recalibrating his entire internal chemistry set. “I just—damn, you really pulled it off, didn’t you?”
I flush. “Sara did most of the work. The makeup, the walk, the whole—” I break off, gesturing vaguely, as if I can mime my way through the embarrassment. “It was supposed to be a joke. I lost a bet with Hunter. I didn’t think it would go as far as it did.”
Aaron’s face flickers, a half-smile tugging at his lips. He’s not angry, or even embarrassed. If anything, he seems relieved—like the last variable in an impossible equation has finally snapped into place.
He sets his coffee down, both hands wrapped around the cup now. “Can I be honest with you?”
I nod, my heart somewhere between my stomach and my throat.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night,” he says, words coming out slow, deliberate, like each one needs to be weighed and measured.
“Not just because of the kiss, though yeah, that was—” He laughs, the sound small and real.
“That was something. But mostly because for the first time ever, I didn’t feel like I had to be on.
Like I could just… be.” He rubs the back of his neck, awkward.
“I kept trying to figure out why it felt so different. Why you felt so different.”
He looks at me then, curious, open, like he’s waiting to see what happens if he steps just a little bit closer to the edge.
I can’t help it. I start laughing, quiet at first, then louder as the tension melts away. “So basically, the universe’s biggest prank is that you had your Big Romantic Moment with me by accident.”
Aaron grins, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yeah, I guess so.”
I cover my face with my hands. “This is mortifying.”
He reaches over and pulls my hands away, gentle but insistent. “Stop. You’re not allowed to be embarrassed. I mean, come on—” He leans in, voice dropping to a whisper. “You were incredible. I don’t think anyone’s ever thrown me off my game like that.”
I feel my face go even redder, which I would have thought physically impossible ten seconds ago.
Aaron squeezes my fingers, his own hand shaking just a little. “You know what’s wild? I think I like you better like this.”
I stare at him, not sure what to do with the words. “Like what? Neurotic and undercaffeinated?”
He shakes his head. “No, just… you. All of it.”
I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry, so I settle for staring at our hands on the table, side by side.
After a minute, Aaron lets out a slow breath. “So, uh, does this mean I owe you dinner? Or is that too weird?”
I blink. “You want to go on a date?”
He nods, face suddenly serious. “If you want to. No pressure. I just… I’m interested in seeing what happens next.”
I take a second to process. The room seems brighter, voices softer, the weight in my chest replaced by something lighter and wilder than hope.
“Yeah,” I say, and it comes out steadier than I expect. “I’d like that.”
Aaron’s smile is full-spectrum now, the kind that pulls everything else in its orbit.
We sit there for a while, just talking. No more secrets, no more chemical disguises. He tells me about his plans for school, about growing up in a house where everyone talked over each other, about how sometimes he feels like he’s just faking it, hoping nobody notices.
I tell him about the terror of being seen, and how it’s even scarier when someone looks and keeps looking. I tell him about Sara’s studio, about late-night lab disasters, about how the only thing worse than a failed experiment is not knowing what you did wrong.
We finish our coffees and order two more.
The hours slip past, marked only by the slow migration of sunlight across the table.
Every time I think about what I’ve done—how the bet turned into a joke, then a disaster, then this—I feel a surge of something too complicated for words.
Not quite regret. Not quite pride. Something in between.
Eventually, the barista flicks the lights twice, a subtle signal that we’re pushing the boundaries of student hospitality. Aaron stands, stretches, and offers his hand.
I take it, and he doesn’t let go until we’re out the door.
Dusk settles over us, the quad empty except for a janitor emptying a trash can. We walk in step again, but this time it’s easy. No ghosts, no crowd, just the two of us and the path ahead.
Aaron stops at the edge of the quad, looks at me sideways. “So… see you in class?”
I nod, already thinking about the next reaction, the next possible result.
He grins, then leans in—just for a second—and kisses me, light and quick, like a promise.
I watch him go, hands in his pockets, head down against the cold. He doesn’t look back, but I know he’s smiling.
I head home, the taste of coffee and possibility buzzing on my tongue.
In the hallway outside my room, Hunter is waiting, slouched against the cinderblocks, thumbs flying on his phone.
He looks up, grins, and says, “Well? Did you blow up the universe?”
I laugh, for real this time. “Not yet,” I say. “But we might have started something.”
He gives me a look—half proud, half jealous—and punches my shoulder. “Told you. Legend.”
I shake my head and unlock the door. “Go home, Hunter.”
He leaves, still smirking, and I close the door behind him. I sit on my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how sometimes the only way to get out of your own story is to rewrite the ending.