Chapter 27 Harlow
HARLOW
Not Grayson or Kai. Not Wren. Not Weston trying to guilt-trip me into “community.”
NumberEleven.
My stomach drops the way it always does—like my body recognizes him before my brain decides whether I’m allowed to want this.
I’m sitting on my bed with my laptop open to a chapter I’ve been pretending to read for twenty minutes. The hall outside my door is loud in that early-evening way—someone laughing like it’s a sport, doors slamming, music bleeding through drywall like the building doesn’t believe in boundaries.
My phone buzzes again.
And I hate that I’ve barely thought about talking to him the last couple of weeks. It makes me feel guilty, even though I know I’ve done nothing wrong.
NumberEleven: hey. can you meet me somewhere? i need to talk to you.
NumberEleven: you can say no.
NumberEleven: and you can leave whenever.
My head spins as I read over his messages again, confusion forcing me to squint at my screen.
We don’t do “meet me somewhere.” We don’t do “in person.” We don’t do anything that gives this safe little space edges you can hit your shoulder on.
My fingers hover over the keyboard.
A thousand questions try to stampede out of me.
Where? Why? Who are you? What’s your name?
And then—like it’s been waiting in the background for weeks—another question rises, slower, heavier.
Do I already know?
I swallow hard and type:
LittleTooMuch: Why? Are you okay?
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
NumberEleven: i’m okay.
NumberEleven: i just…can’t keep doing this the same way. i don’t want to make you feel trapped. so if you say no, i’m good with that.
My throat tightens because nobody says that unless they mean it. Unless they care about how you feel more than what they want. I stare until my eyes sting. Then I type the only thing my brain can hold without breaking in half.
LittleTooMuch: Where?
Dots. A pause.
NumberEleven: ice rink bleachers? top row at 7:15.
NumberEleven: if you don’t show, i’ll understand.
My pulse kicks.
The rink.
Of course it’s the rink. It’s the one place my brain goes quiet on purpose—and he knows that. He knows it because I told him. I told him everything in pieces, in late-night messages I typed with shaking hands and then hit send before I could change my mind.
But there’s also one other person who knows the rink is my safe space. Who brings me a sense of peace I’m starting to understand. Who supports me in the same ways NumberEleven has encouraged me…
Before I slip too far into overanalyzing that, I glance at the time.
6:44.
Thirty minutes.
I could say no. I could keep him faceless and keep myself protected from the reality of what it means to let someone in.
But my body is already moving before my brain finishes voting.
Hoodie, sneakers, phone shoved into the back pocket of my jeans so I can feel it against me the whole way, like a pulse I can’t ignore. I pause with my hand on the doorknob.
The hallway is loud, and nerves are running rampant all through me.
I breathe in.
Out.
You can leave whenever.
He said it first.
Like permission.
Like he knows I need exits the way other people need small talk.
I step out.
Campus at night has a different kind of noise.
Less chaotic, but still busy. Pockets of laughter, mixed with the distant thump of music from somewhere I’m not going near.
The air is colder than it has any right to be—real November air, not California pretending. It bites my lungs in a way that feels honest.
By the time the rink comes into view, my stomach is a knot. My brain starts doing what it always does when I don’t have control. Worst-case scenarios line up like a firing squad.
This could be anyone.
This could be a stranger.
This could be a mistake.
This could be nothing.
The last one feels like a lie my body refuses to entertain.
I push through the doors.
The lobby is dimmer than usual. A couple of people pass through with skate bags slung over their shoulders, but it’s mostly quiet. The smell hits me the second I’m inside—that clean-metal edge that belongs to blades and boards and history.
My shoulders drop without me telling them to. It’s like my nervous system recognizes home even when my brain is screaming.
I head toward the bleachers.
The rink itself is mostly dark, ice lit in patches, like the building is half asleep. Just the hum of refrigeration and the faint echo of a place that always feels like it’s waiting.
I climb the steps slowly. Each one is louder than it should be in the quiet. Top row. My heart is in my throat now.
I reach the top and stop.
There’s someone sitting a few seats down. Hoodie up. Shoulders hunched. Elbows on knees. Head bowed like he’s bracing for impact. He lifts his head when he senses me. And my body goes still.
Because I know him. Not as a username. Not as a faceless voice in the dark. As a real person, my eyes have cataloged a hundred times without permission.
Grayson Bennett.
For one terrifying second, my brain refuses to accept it. It tries to rewrite reality because reality is too sharp. Too expensive. Too complicated.
Then his eyes meet mine, and the last thin thread of denial snaps. He looks…wrecked. Not dramatic wrecked. Just tight at the edges. Like he’s been carrying this, and it finally got too heavy to pretend it wasn’t there.
I don’t sit.
I don’t move.
I just stand there with my skin buzzing and my pulse pounding so hard I can hear it.
“Hi,” Grayson says quietly.
My throat closes. My first attempt at words dies before it makes it past my ribs. When it finally comes out, it’s rough. Ugly.
“No.”
He flinches like the word hits him in the chest, and he nods like he deserves it.
“I know,” he says, hand coming up to the back of his neck and rubbing it. He’s nervous. Anxious. I know this, because I know him.
That’s what breaks my freeze.
I step down one row. Closer but only close enough to hear him, yet far enough to run.
“You’re him,” I whisper, and it comes out like an accusation even though it’s a fact.
Grayson nods once. “Yeah.”
“But…you’re number nine.”
He looks at me, his eyes full of pain. “My brother always wore number eleven.”
My hands shake. I hate my body for doing this—reacting before I can decide whether I want to.
“You asked me to come here,” I say, voice sharper. “Why?”
His hands stay where they are—open on his knees, palms up like he’s not hiding anything.
“Because I can’t do it anymore,” he says, and his voice is steady in the way that makes my throat burn. “Not like that.”
“Like what?” My voice cracks into something uglier. “Like this is a game?”
His head shakes immediately. “No.”
The single syllable comes out firm. Not defensive. Not angry.
Just truth.
“No, Harlow. It isn’t a game. I didn’t know at first,” he says, and his eyes hold mine like he’s refusing to let me shrink. “I swear to you I didn’t.”
My chest tightens.
“What about at the donor dinner?” I say, anger and humiliation battling in my mind. “Did you know then?”
He winces slightly, and I can’t tell for sure if he’s going to lie or tell me the truth. “I didn’t know for sure, no. I suspected, though.”
He nods like he understands the rule. Like he’s learned my rules the way I learn exits.
“I’m not telling you to fix it,” he says quietly. “I’m telling you because you deserve the truth, and I want to give you that.”
My breath stutters.
He swallows once, slow, like he’s choosing each word instead of throwing them at me.
“I asked you to meet me here because I didn’t want to do this in a message,” he says. “I didn’t want you alone in your room reading something that could gut you. I wanted you somewhere you could leave whenever you wanted.”
My jaw clenches. “I can leave.”
“I know.” His voice stays calm. “That’s why I picked here.”
I laugh once, sharp and ugly. “Because it’s my safe place.”
What he doesn’t know, is that he had started to become my safe place. I felt good on the ice lately, yes, but being near him recently had started to make me feel better than skating ever had. He made me feel wanted for exactly who I was, never asking me to play a role that wasn’t authentically me.
“I know. I’m so sorry, Harlow.”
No denial, no excuse, just the truth. And that’s what hurts the most.
“So you knew you were going to ruin it? That’s why you waited to tell me? To enjoy whatever time we had left together?”
His eyes flash with pain.
“I didn’t want to ruin anything,” he says, voice rougher now. “I wanted to stop lying by omission.”
I swallow hard.
“You didn’t tell me,” I say. “You let me—” My voice catches. I clear my throat, furious at myself. “You let me tell you things I’ve never told anyone outside of my family. You let us do things together. I trusted you.”
His shoulders lift and fall, one heavy breath.
“Yeah,” he says. “I did.” He doesn’t dress it up. He doesn’t pretend it’s noble. He just holds the weight of it like it belongs to him. “And I’ve felt guilty about it every day since,” he adds softly.
The honesty lands like a punch. Because guilt means he cares. And caring makes this more complicated, not less.
I stare at the ice below us, because if I look at him too long, I’m going to do something stupid—like cry, or scream, or reach for him like my body doesn’t know the difference between hurt and safe anymore.
I want to run.
I want to throw up.
I want to rewind time to when he was just words, and I could pretend the world couldn’t touch it.
My brain starts looping outcomes. The worst ones first, always, and the truth slips out of me.
“I feel so stupid.”
Grayson’s voice sharpens, not angry, but protective. “Please don’t.”
I snap my head back. “You don’t get to tell me anything right now, Grayson.”
He stops himself from saying whatever he was about to say and takes a breath, rethinking his next words and choosing them carefully.
“I’m not trying to tell you how to feel,” he says, and his eyes are too steady to be fake. “I’m just—Harlow, you aren’t stupid.”
My throat tightens.