4
Hannah
Ella found me near the back door of the Sigma Chi house with my plastic cup still clutched in my hand and my dignity somewhere underneath Nate Wilder’s expensive sneakers. She took one look at my face and stopped dead, her eyes widening behind a sharp wing of black eyeliner.
“Oh my God.”
“No,” I said, trying to push past her.
“Oh my God, Hannah. You’re glowing.”
“I am not glowing. I am perspiring from the heat of a hundred unwashed frat brothers.”
“You did not talk to Nate Wilder and come away perspiring.” Ella stepped closer, her investigative menace shifting into high gear. “You look like someone just unplugged your brain and replaced it with a glitter cannon.”
“That’s not a look. That’s a medical emergency.”
I glanced down at my cup, realizing I was practically strangling it. The red plastic was dented inward, a permanent structural scar from my conversation with the campus’s most notorious hockey player. I tried to pop the plastic back out, but it remained stubbornly caved in.
Perfect. A metaphor for my life.
Ella grabbed my arm and hauled me farther down the hallway, tucked away in a corner near the stairs where the bass of the music was only a dull thud against our ribs. The air here was a cloying mix of cheap vodka, sugary perfume, and popcorn someone had clearly burned in the kitchen.
“Talk,” she ordered.
I took a sip of my drink to buy time. It was warm, flat soda. “He just… came over.”
“To you? Nate Wilder just ‘came over’?”
“Apparently I was the most convenient target for his evening’s quota of arrogance.”
“Hannah, be for real.” Ella’s mouth curved into a slow, knowing smirk. “Nate Wilder does not lack entertainment options at parties. Half the room has been tracking his coordinates like he’s a satellite. He came to you.”
“To humiliate me,” I muttered, leaning my head against the cool drywall.
“Did it feel like humiliation?”
I hesitated. I shouldn’t have, because that split-second pause was all Ella needed. She leaned in, her gaze sharpening.
“He saw me looking at Ethan,” I confessed, the words tasting like ash.
Ella’s expression softened instantly. Not with pity—she knew I’d kill her if she pitied me—but with that protective, best-friend ferocity. “Oh, babe. Did he say something?”
“He said Ethan knows I’m looking and that he *likes* it. That he likes being admired from a distance.”
I looked at the floor, my voice dropping.
“And the worst part is, I think he was right. I saw Ethan look at me tonight. He saw me, Ella. And then he looked right past me to see who else was watching.”
The silence that followed was heavy, punctuated only by a burst of laughter from the living room. It was the ugly, honest truth: Ethan Cross was a nice guy, but he treated my attention like a background track to his own life.
“I just wish he’d look at me first for once,” I whispered. “Without me having to stand there with a neon sign.”
Ella nudged my shoulder, her voice going uncharacteristically gentle. “He’s an idiot. But Nate…” She trailed off, glancing toward the kitchen where Nate was still standing with Carter.
Nate wasn’t drinking. He wasn’t leaning in to whisper in a girl’s ear. He was just… there. Effortlessly taking up space, looking bored by the very chaos he usually thrived in.
“Nate said something else,” I added, the memory of his hazel eyes making my pulse skip a beat. “He said there are ways to make a guy notice. That I should make Ethan wonder why someone else noticed me first.”
Ella’s eyes practically turned into saucers. “No. Way.”
“It’s a game, Ella. I don’t play games.”
“It’s not a game, it’s strategy. It’s rom-com uranium, Hannah! Think about it. If Nate Wilder—the guy who could have anyone—suddenly acts like he wants *you*, Ethan is going to lose his mind. He’ll realize he’s been sitting on a gold mine while someone else started digging.”
“I am not a gold mine. I’m a girl with a biology quiz on Monday.”
“You’re a gold mine,” Ella insisted, linking her arm through mine. “And Nate Wilder just handed you a shovel.”
We left the party shortly after. The cold night air hit my face like a bucket of water, shocking the haze of the frat house out of my lungs.
We walked back to the dorms in silence, the fallen leaves crunching beneath our shoes.
Northwood was beautiful at night, all brick and lamplight and shadows, but for the first time, the scenery didn't soothe me.
At my door, Ella gave me a quick, tight squeeze. “Just think about it. You deserve to be the lead in your own story, not an extra in Ethan’s.”
I stepped into my room, the quiet wrapping around me. My roommate was away for the weekend, leaving the space dark save for the pale glow of my desk lamp. I set my dented cup in the trash and sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my phone.
I opened Instagram. My thumb hovered over the search bar.
*Ethan Cross.* His profile was a curated gallery of "nice guy" milestones. Lab coats. Hiking trips. Polished smiles.
Then, I typed in another name.
*Nate Wilder.* His profile was private, but his picture was him on the ice, helmet off, hair damp and wild. He was laughing at someone off-camera, his expression raw and real in a way Ethan’s never was.
*Make him wonder why someone else noticed first.*
I locked the phone and threw it onto the comforter.
“No,” I told the empty room.
But as I closed my eyes, I didn’t see Ethan’s polite wave. I saw Nate standing in that crowded hallway, looking at me like he’d already figured out my heart's entire map—and was just waiting for me to give him the keys.