Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
FRANKIE
B y Monday, the school looked like the inside of a Pinterest board that got into a street fight with a Valentine’s Day parade.
The glitter hadn’t faded. The drones had multiplied. And someone had installed a rose wall by the cafeteria that was definitely not school-approved. But no one was taking it down. Because apparently, homecoming week had officially become a full-blown aesthetic war.
“I swear,” Rachel muttered as we walked past it. “If someone suggests a coordinated color palette for the pep rally, I’m walking into traffic.”
I offered her my coffee. “Mood stabilizer?”
She took it without protest. “You’re a saint.”
I was not. But I didn’t say that out loud.
Because today… Today was already weird.
Not bad. Not good. Just weird in the way your skin feels right before a storm hits—electric and tight and too aware of itself.
It could have started with Mom’s sudden disappearance over the weekend.
After her repeated messages on Friday, she hadn’t even been home when I finally got there.
A note waited on the fridge, she had to go out of town for business.
She’d be back. There was money on the counter for groceries if I needed them.
Despite the quiet weekend where I worked almost exclusively on my applications for colleges and holed up in my room, I still felt—off. The guys had all messaged or called. The vibe was “normal,” almost too normal.
That added an element of strange. Because our normal hadn’t been normal in months. Every conversation seemed to vibrate with all the things we weren’t saying. Was the pressure there real? Or was I just imagining it? When did it become so hard to talk to them?
Maybe it was because Jake was back. Not just physically—he’d returned on Friday like nothing had happened—but emotionally, too.
His participation in the group chats had seemed quiet, centered.
Like he’d done some kind of soul inventory over the weekend and decided to try again.
At the same time, he kept our interactions to the group chats only.
Was he waiting for me to reach out? Should I reach out? Over a decade of friendship said I should. Friends fought. We all did dumb things. But I couldn’t say that his actions hadn’t left a sting of pain that still burned.
Then there was Coop. I did see him over the weekend, as well as maintained an ongoing conversation we picked up in person then back to messages. Coop had been acting suspiciously chill for three days straight.
Too chill.
Like the kind of chill that always came right before he dropped emotional TNT in the middle of the living room.
I hated thinking that. I didn’t have many memories that didn’t involve Coop in some way.
He’d been my best friend from kindergarten on.
We’d lived in this apartment complex for years, he was my closest neighbor, my summer buddy, and the guy I would say I knew better than anyone.
And I was right.
Because he found me during free period—in the back of the library, where no one went unless they were skipping or having a breakdown over college apps. (Both were valid.)
He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood next to me, staring at the long aisle of reference books. I tended to study back here because it was quieter and no one bothered me.
Finally: “Hey.”
I glanced up. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
It was Coop, so I answered honestly. “I don’t know.”
He nodded like that tracked. “Me either.”
We stood there for another minute. Then he turned toward me, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his shorts, gaze steady.
“So… I wasn’t going to ask. Figured it didn’t matter. Or that you already knew how I felt.” He looked down, exhaled. “But I realized that wasn’t fair. To you. Or to me.”
I swallowed. The kick of the air conditioning coming on sounding loud in the quiet.
He pulled out something small—a folded note. He handed it to me without ceremony, though there was a hint of a familiar smile quirking his lips.
He hadn’t passed me a note at school since—sixth grade? Maybe? I couldn’t remember.
I opened it.
It wasn’t a speech. Not a poem. Just a line in his handwriting.
If you’re still figuring it out, I’ll wait. If you already know… I’ll still go with you anyway.
I looked up.
His eyes met mine. Calm. Steady. Not pushing.
“We’ve been friends forever, and I know I screwed up,” he said softly. “But this? This isn’t about that. It’s about you. Wanting you to have someone who shows up without making it complicated. Just… me. No glitter. No conditions.”
My throat got tight.
“Think about it,” he said, backing away. “I’ll still sit next to you either way.”
Then he left, as easily as he arrived.
I didn’t cry.
I almost did.
But the day wasn’t done with me yet.
Jake found me. Right outside the AP Euro room. Mr. G wasn’t there, but that wasn’t unusual. That stupid desk he usually sat at was still empty like a ghost.
“Frankie.”
His voice was quiet. Rough around the edges. Like he’d worn it down rehearsing.
I swallowed, then squared my shoulders to meet his gaze. If he could take the time to talk to me straight out, I could make the time to listen.
He didn’t look like a guy with a plan. No speech. No props. Just Jake. T-shirt untucked from his jeans, hair a mess like he’d been raking his hand through it. A bruise still decorated his knuckles.
“I’m not gonna give you some grand proposal,” he said, voice low. “I don’t think I have the right to ask anything of you right now.”
That should’ve hurt. It didn’t. He looked so damn uncomfortable it made me ache.
He ran a hand through his hair. “But I wanted you to know… I see it now. Everything I missed. Everything I said that was wrong. Everything I didn’t say that mattered more. Where I fucked up—I don’t think I can apologize enough for that.”
I didn’t breathe.
Jake reached into his backpack and pulled out something—folded parchment paper. A rose.
The same kind that had been in my locker for the last week.
He held it out.
Was he behind the roses?
“I was too much. Then not enough.” He coughed. “Then too late. But I never stopped rooting for you, Frankie. I never will. I screwed up. I get that. I’ll spend however long it takes to make it up to you.”
My chest cracked.
“This isn't pressure,” he added quickly. “You don’t owe me anything. I just… I wanted to show you I’m still here. And if you want a date for homecoming, I’d be lucky as hell if it was me.”
The rose trembled slightly in his hand.
I took it. Carefully.
“Jake…” I found my voice. “The roses?”
“I wish.” His smile was bittersweet. “But they made you smile and whoever is doing it seemed to have more of a clue than I do. I wanted you to smile so—” He motioned to the rose. The slight trembling in his hand was still visible.
“Thank you.” I managed to push the words out past the lump in my throat. “I do love it.” I smiled. “See—it worked.”
Jake gave a single nod. Not confident. Not cocky. Just… honest.
Then he turned and walked away.
No demands. No dramatics. Just a boy trying to unburn a bridge. He should be in AP Euro with me, but he was just—leaving.
I leaned against the wall and stared down at the rose. Then slid a hand into my pocket for the note Coop had given me earlier.
Four asks. Four very different boys.
Somehow, for the first time in weeks, the question wasn’t who I’d say yes to.
It was who I wanted to be when I said it.
It wasn’t until after school that I finally got to talk to Mathieu. He’d been too busy during third period with work for Madame to say more than a couple of words.
He found me in the hallway, right outside his last class of the day.
With Mr. G out of the class and Jake absent, I dipped early to go find Mathieu.
His smile buoyed me, the lack of tension in his relaxed expression helped to chase away some of my tension.
The easy calm in his posture was… disarming.
Like he wasn’t worried about what came next.
“Hey,” he said, stopping beside me. “Been trying to catch you all day.”
I gave a small smile. “It’s been a day.”
“ Oui ,” he said, the generous lilt of his accent kissed each word. “It looks like it.”
He didn’t say anything more right away, just walked with me a little until we hit the empty wing where the vending machines always ate people’s dollars and hope. That’s where we stopped.
“You talked to them?” he asked, not unkindly. “The guys?”
I nodded.
He tilted his head, like he could already see the gears turning in mine. “So who are you going to pick?”
That surprised me. Not the question. Just how gently he asked it. Like it didn’t cost him anything to say it out loud.
I turned to face him. “Were you going to ask me?”
He didn’t blink. “No.”
My stomach bottomed out. “Should I have asked you?”
His smile was soft. A little sad. “No, Frankie. You don’t need to.”
A pause stretched between us. The kind you don’t rush to fill.
“I adore you,” he said finally. “You know that. I think you’re—electric. But those guys? They’re waging this kind of… intimate war over your attention. And honestly? I’m not interested in stepping into the ring.”
Something tightened in my chest.
“It’s not that I’m frightened or intimidated,” he continued, “I just don’t feel the need to fight for something that isn’t meant to be a fight. The dance? It matters to them. It matters to you. That’s okay. I’m not judging that. But it doesn’t mean the same thing to me.”
I looked at him for a long moment. “So… what does this mean? Are we breaking up?” I couldn’t even wrap my mind around that. We’d had so little time since school started. And whose fault was that? The snide little voice in the back of my head needed to stuff a sock in it.
Mathieu didn’t flinch. “We don’t have to. I like being with you. I like what we are. But you need space to figure this out. To see where those relationships might go. I don’t want you to regret anything.”
That word hit like a slow echo. Regret.
“Regret is what drove you to me in the first place,” he said, voice like velvet on stone. “I don’t want regret to be the reason you make any choice now. Not when you have this huge heart, Frankie. Not when it’s trying so hard to be fair to everyone but you.”
I swallowed hard.
Because he wasn’t hurt.
He wasn’t even trying to protect himself.
He was trying to protect me .
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, barely above a whisper.
“I know,” he said. “That’s exactly why I’m not going to let you turn yourself into knots to spare me.”
He leaned in, brushed his knuckles against my cheek. His breath was a whisper against my lips.
“You’ll make the right choice,” he said. “Even if it’s not perfect. Even if it’s messy. You’ll make it with your whole heart. That’s enough.”
Then he kissed me. Light. Sure. Like punctuation on a sentence that had already ended.
“I trust you,” he murmured. “You need to know what could be, before you let anything go and if what could be is one of them, then I want you to have it.”
I forgot how to breathe.
“I won’t hold you back or make you choose.” Another kiss. “I will, however, be here for you.” The last kiss was almost butterfly light. “If they hurt you, I will find a way to extract violent reprisal.”
For some reason, the ferocity in that last sentence just made me laugh even as tears sparked in my eyes. His smile grew and when he wrapped an arm around me, I burrowed into him. The hug was everything I needed. Wrapped up in his scent and support, I rubbed my cheek against his chest.
“Mathieu…I really don’t know what I want right now.”
“I know,” he said, another smile kissing his words as he leaned back. “You are entitled. Maybe I will woo you to show them how it’s done.”
Woo. Who used the word woo?
Then he winked. “I’ll call you later?”
“I’d like that.”
Another brush of his knuckles against my cheek, then he walked away.
He didn’t look back.
For some reason, that made me want to cry more than anything else.