Chapter 3 #2
I take a sip of soda to give my hands something to do. The cold bubbles sting my tongue and anchor me to something real.
“It’s just loud,” I correct, forcing it into something more believable.
Kai’s shoulders loosen a fraction. “We can leave whenever.”
I nod too quickly. “Okay.”
Knowing leaving is an option helps loosen some of the pressure in my chest, but not all of it. The room keeps pressing in—music, laughter, the smell of beer, the chaotic swirl of bodies like a storm I’m standing in the middle of, pretending I’m not soaked.
Kai stays close, talking with teammates, but his eyes check on me every few minutes like he’s counting my breaths.
Half an hour later, my mask is slipping.
“Want to get out of here?” he asks.
The word out lands like a rescue rope dropped right into my hands.
“Yes,” I say quickly. Then I hear how fast I said it and try to recover. “I mean—if you want to.”
Kai’s eyes narrow again. “Harlow.”
Right. We don’t do fake politeness. He can smell it from a mile away.
“I’m good for, like…” I glance around the kitchen like there’s a timer on the wall. “Another five minutes.”
Weston reappears out of nowhere, offended on my behalf. “Five minutes? Headed home before midnight? That’s a crime.”
I lift a shoulder. “I’m already a criminal.”
Weston points at me like I just made his day. “See? She’s one of us.”
Kai doesn’t laugh, but his mouth twitches again like he wants to. “Go stand outside for a minute,” he tells me, voice gentler now. “Get some air. I’ll be out soon.”
“I can just—”
“Harlow,” he says, one word. It’s the version of my name that means let me take care of you without you fighting me on it.
So I nod. “Okay.”
I squeeze through bodies toward the front door, heart hammering from the crowd and the music and the fact that someone brushed my shoulder and I couldn’t tell if it was on purpose.
The living room is worse—packed and flashing and loud, the kind of loud that doesn’t just hit your ears.
It hits your bones. I make it out the door and onto the porch like I’m escaping a burning building.
Cool night air smacks me in the face.
I inhale.
The sky is black velvet, and the stars are barely visible over the neighborhood glow. Somewhere across the lawn, people are laughing, shouting, living like they’ve never had to convince their own brain to calm down.
My phone buzzes with a text.
Kai: i’m gonna stay a bit. u good to uber back?
Of course he is.
Because Kai is a senior and a captain, and he belongs in rooms like this.
He has teammates here. Friends. A role he can slip into like armor.
This is easy for him. Dragging me here was probably his version of proof that I’m not turning into a hermit, which is…
a fair concern. I type back before I can overthink it.
Harlow: I’m good. Leaving now.
A pause.
Then:
Kai: proud of you for coming.
I roll my eyes at my screen, even though it warms something in my chest.
Harlow: Don’t.
Kai: too late. text me when you’re back in your dorm.
Harlow: Yes, Dad.
I order an Uber and wait on the sidewalk, arms folded, watching the house pulse with light and hear the noise coming through the windows. I feel like I’m looking at something I’m supposed to want and can’t quite make myself want.
By the time I’m back in my dorm, it’s only 10:48 p.m. Which is the worst time to leave a party—too early to justify it, but late enough that everyone else is still out, and the hallway is quiet in that eerie, empty way.
I kick off my shoes, toss my sweater onto my desk chair, and sit on my bed with my hands braced on either side of my thighs.
I try to read. That’s always my solution.
Books never demand eye contact. Books never play music so loud it rearranges your organs.
Opening my e-reader, I stare at the page, reading the same sentence three times before realizing I didn’t absorb any of it.
My brain is still buzzing. Not with party energy.
With static. Too many impressions stacked on top of each other—voices, smells, lights, Kai’s hand on my back like he was shielding me from the world, Weston calling me one of them like I belonged.
My phone sits on the bed beside me like it’s heavy. Like it knows it can win. I tell myself I’m not going to do it. Then I do it anyway. Because of course I do.
I open the PCU forum.
The insomnia thread is active—people posting memes and half-serious questions like How do you shut your brain off without removing it entirely?
I scroll, but stop instantly when I see his username.
NumberEleven.
It’s ridiculous, the way it makes my chest loosen. Like someone turned down the volume inside my skull.
We’ve been talking for six weeks. Even before I moved into this dorm at the beginning of September—back when I was still tucked safely at home, counting down the days until I had to be a person again.
He doesn’t know that. That’s kind of the point.
I don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know his name. I don’t know the shape of his life beyond the late-night messages and the way he can make me laugh when I feel like glass.
But I know he’s awake. He’s always awake.
Still, I don’t message him yet. I stare at the cursor like it might bite. Then I close the app. Try again to read. Try to sleep.
At 12:31 a.m., I’m still awake.
At 1:46 a.m., I’ve rearranged my pillows three times and somehow made everything worse.
At 2:17 a.m., I give up.
I open the thread again and type before I can talk myself out of it—confessing my failed attempt at being normal.
LittleTooMuch: You awake?
Then I set my phone down on my pillow and stare at the ceiling, listening to the distant sounds of campus through the window—cars, laughter, the faint thump of music from somewhere I’m not.
Somewhere on this campus, there’s a boy who can’t sleep either.
I don’t know his name.
I don’t know his face.
But I know he’s there when I need him.
And for tonight, that’s enough.