40
Hannah
I wake up with swollen eyes, a pounding headache, and the mortifying realization that I cried myself to sleep beside a rubber duck.
Not exactly the peak of New Adult sophistication.
Gerald Reed-Wilder is currently perched on the corner of my desk, facing the window. Ella must have moved him at some point during the night. I appreciate the gesture; emotional support is one thing, but being stared at by painted-on eyes while I look like a wreckage site is another.
The room is still, save for the hum of the mini-fridge and the rhythmic sound of Ella’s breathing from across the room. She stayed over—a silent, tactical friendship move after I spent an hour sob-talking about "medium scary talks" and "shattered boxes."
I roll onto my side, my arm feeling like lead as I reach for my phone.
7:14 a.m.
The screen is a desert of notifications. I stare at it, waiting for the phone to manifest evidence that Nate didn't actually listen to me.
Nothing.
No *inside?* No *you okay?* No *no decisions tonight.*
Just a dark screen and the crushing weight of my own instructions. I told him not to text me. I drew the line with a jagged edge, and Nate—because he is infuriatingly, consistently Nate—respected it. He didn't push. He didn't try to charm his way past the boundary. He just... went silent.
It should feel like a victory. Instead, it feels like I threw something fragile against a wall and he was the only one who bothered to sweep up the glass.
Beside me, Ella stirs. “You awake?”
“No. I’m experimenting with a coma.”
“How’s it going?”
“The lighting is better, but the consciousness persists.”
She rolls over to face me, her hair a chaotic halo of blonde and one cheek creased from the pillow. She studies me for two seconds, her expression softening into that particular brand of pity that makes me want to start crying all over again.
“Phone?” she asks softly.
I shake my head. “Nothing. I told him not to text, so... mission accomplished.”
“Is it?”
“No.” I sit up, rubbing my face. My skin feels tight and hot. “I need to stop, Ella. I need to stop standing in the middle of the road waiting to get hit.”
“Talk to me.”
“Nate paused the lessons. The fake dating is a ghost. Ethan is actually here, actually trying, and he’s doing every single thing a good guy is supposed to do.” I swallow hard, my throat aching. “And I keep making everything harder because I don’t know how to let anything be simple.”
Ella props herself up on an elbow. “Do you think Nate was wrong? About the lessons being a place to hide?”
I look down at my hands. That was the part that cut the deepest.
Not because it was a rejection, but because it was an observation.
“No,” I whisper. “He’s right. I’ve been using him as this separate world. A box where I get to feel brave and wanted, but a box I can close the second I step out of his apartment. I was trying to have the spark without the fire.”
“The box exploded, Han,” Ella says gently.
“Spectacularly.” I let out a dry, miserable laugh. “So maybe I need to try with Ethan. For real. Because I wanted him before any of this started. That was real.”
“And Nate?”
“Nate is... paused.”
The word feels like a lie even as I say it. You can't pause the way my heart skips when I see his name on a screen. You can't pause the memory of his mouth or the way he looked at me in his bed. But I can't live in the *almost* anymore.
I pick up my phone, my thumb hovering over Nate’s name out of habit. I force myself to scroll past it. I find Ethan's thread instead.
**Hannah:** *Sorry I didn't answer last night. I was exhausted. I'd like to see you again too. Maybe dinner this week?*
I hit send. It’s a decision. Not a forever one, but a *today* one. It’s choosing the door that actually has a handle I’m allowed to turn.
Ethan replies in less than a minute.
**Ethan:** *No worries at all. Dinner sounds great. Wednesday? I'll find somewhere better than campus dining, promise. Also—no textbooks.*
I smile, a faint, flickering thing. “He said Wednesday,” I tell Ella. “He’s promising no textbooks.”
“A smile,” she observes. “That’s data.”
I spend the rest of the morning trying to wear myself correctly.
I shower for twenty minutes, letting the hot water beat the tension out of my neck.
I scrub my face, wash the scent of Nate’s apartment out of my hair, and dress in my most "normal student" outfit.
But every time I pass the fountain or the library steps, my head turns on instinct, looking for a black hoodie or a cocky, half-smirk.
By lunch, the tightness in my chest has settled into a dull throb. Ethan texts again, asking about Italian food. It’s easy. It’s charming. I reply with a joke about my "strong positive opinions" on pasta.
*This is what good looks like,* I remind myself. *Simple. Direct. No safety words required.*
But then I get back to the dorm and see it.
Nate’s T-shirt.
It’s folded on my desk chair—black cotton, soft from a hundred washes, with *NORTHWOOD HOCKEY* faded across the chest. I’d brought it home after the night in his bed. I’d slept with it beside me, a fact I intend to take to my grave.
I pick it up, and the scent hits me immediately. Clean soap, laundry detergent, and that underlying warmth that is just *him*. My throat closes up. This isn't a shirt; it’s a grenade. It’s the physical evidence of the "separate world" I’m trying to leave behind.
I should give it back. I should walk to his apartment, leave it at the door, and walk away.
*Not today,* a voice whispers.
I fold it tighter, moving with a kind of frantic precision, and shove it into the bottom drawer of my dresser beneath a stack of extra towels. I bury it deep. Out of sight.
My phone buzzes.
**Ethan:** *Wednesday at 7? I can pick you up.*
**Hannah:** *Sounds good. Looking forward to it.*
I lie back on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Wednesday at seven. A real date. A real chance to see if the old crush has any life left in it. No Nate. No lessons. No rules.
The silence from Nate has been a physical presence all day, a ringing in my ears. I asked for space, and he gave it. He’s being a "good guy," too. That’s the irony of it. He’s being exactly what I need him to be so I can move on, and I hate him for it.
I close my eyes. The first thing that flickers in my mind isn't Ethan’s polite smile across a dinner table. It’s Nate’s kitchen. It’s the look in his eyes when I told him it was *too late*.
I roll onto my side, facing away from the drawer where his shirt is hidden. Choosing simple should feel simple. It doesn’t. But I’m choosing it anyway.