Perfect on Paper
MAX
It's been a week since Leo, and I had s-e-x, and I'm more confused than ever.
The morning after, I woke up feeling… good.
Really good. Like something had clicked into place, some variable I didn't know was missing from the equation.
I had to run to my morning class, but when I got home, I found Leo in the kitchen making coffee, and he smiled at me, and my chest did this warm, fluttery thing, and I thought, okay, this is new, but maybe…
"Max." His voice was gentle but firm. "We need to be best friends, okay? We can't let sex confuse things." And then he walked away. Just… walked away. Took his coffee and disappeared into his room before I could even process what he'd said.
Confuse what? I've been asking myself that question for seven days straight, and I'm no closer to an answer.
The week has been… wrong. That's the only word for it.
Leo is being my friend. He texts me memes, he saves me a seat at breakfast, and he asks about my robotics project. On the surface, everything is normal.
But it's not.
Monday, I tried to bring up what happened between us, and Leo immediately pivoted to asking if I'd had a chance to try on my costume for Pasadena's Comic Con.
When I pushed, "Leo, can we talk about—" he suddenly remembered he had to email his professor about something. Gone before I could finish my sentence.
Tuesday, we watched anime with the group, like always.
Leo sat next to me like always. But there was this space between us.
Not physical, our shoulders were touching, but something else.
I can't name it. Every time I looked at him, he was looking at the screen.
Every time I said anything, he responded a beat too late, like he had to think about it first.
That's not Leo. Leo doesn't think before he talks to me.
Leo rambles about physics and forgets his point, zones out mid-conversation, and comes back with "Sorry, what?
" That's my Leo. This Leo is… careful. Measured.
Like he's running every interaction through some kind of filter before it reaches me.
Wednesday, I found him in the library, and for a second, just a second, he looked at me the way he used to. It was warm. Like I was a person worth looking at. Then he blinked, and it was gone, and he asked if I wanted to quiz him on thermodynamics. I said yes because I didn't know what else to say.
Thursday, I woke up from a dream I can't fully remember, but Leo was in it, and my heart was racing, and I lay there in the dark trying to figure out why my brain keeps circling back to him like a moth to a bug zapper.
Friday, I almost cornered him in his room, but Haru knocked on my door, needing help with an assignment, and by the time I was done, Leo had left for class.
Now it's Saturday, and I'm lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, and my phone buzzes.
Jaren
Hey Max. Hope you're having a good week. Wanted to check in and make sure you're doing okay.
My stomach drops. Jaren. Perfect, kind, understanding Jaren, who held his hands up when I scrambled off him like he was on fire. Who asked if I was okay? Who offered to drive me home even though I'd basically rejected him mid-makeout.
Who has texted me three times this week to check in, because that's the kind of guy he is. I stare at the message. My thumbs hover over the keyboard.
I'm okay.
Thanks for checking in. How are you?
Jaren
Good! Busy with classes but good. Hey, no pressure at all, but if you ever want to talk about what happened, I'm here. No judgment.
And there it is. He's giving me an opening. A perfect, thoughtful, no-pressure opening to explain why I freaked out when we were kissing, why everything felt wrong when it should have felt right. The problem is, I don't know the answer.
Thanks Jaren. You're really great.
Jaren
You too, Max. Take care of yourself, okay?
I put my phone down and press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Jaren is perfect. He's nice, hot, and patient, and he didn't make me feel bad about any of it. He's exactly the kind of guy I should want.
So why don't I want him? Why did his hands on my skin feel so wrong, when Leo's hands felt like… I sit up abruptly. I need to talk to someone. Someone who isn't Leo, because Leo won't talk to me. Someone who might actually help me figure out what the heck is going on in my own head. I need JP.
His door is open a crack, which is his signal for "you can knock." I knock.
"deu-reo-wa." I've lived with him long enough to understand, 'come in'. He's at his desk, laptop open, probably working on one of his seventeen color-coded spreadsheets. He takes one look at my face and closes the laptop.
"Sit," he says, gesturing to his bed. "You look like your circuits are fried." I sit. Then I stand. Then I sit again, because my legs feel weird.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," I blurt out. JP's expression doesn't change. He waits, patient, like he's got all the time in the world for my malfunction.
"It's about Leo," I say, and then immediately want to take it back because where do I even start?
"Okay." JP turns his desk chair to face me fully. "What about Leo?"
"We, um." My face is getting hot. "We had s-e-x." JP blinks once. That's it. That's his entire reaction. "You don't seem surprised," I say. His eyebrow goes up, just slightly, but he doesn’t confirm anything.
"I… we… it was…" I'm sputtering. Actual sputtering. Like a robot with a faulty speech processor. "How much did you know?"
"Enough to know this conversation was coming eventually." He leans back in his chair. "So. You had sex with Leo."
My voice is quiet as I try to explain, "Leo…
well, he gets me, and he's had s-e-x before, so I thought he was safe.
The first time was okay; it was my idea.
It was back before Christmas… It was because I was a virgin, and I wanted my first time to be with someone safe, someone who wouldn't hurt me, and Leo is—" I swallow.
"Leo is Leo. He gets me. And he'd done it before, so I thought… I thought it would be fine."
"And was it fine?"
"It was…" I think about it. Leo's hands were gentle and warm.
The way he looked at me was like I was… for a moment, he looked at me like I was everything.
The way everything felt right in a way I couldn't explain.
"It was good. Really good. But then things got weird between us, and it took forever for things to feel normal again. "
JP is quiet for a moment. "And now?" he asks.
"It's all wrong. It was weird the first time…" My eyes fly to JP's face, and his eyes are wide
"The first time?"
"We did… it… again." I whisper, as if saying it quietly enough will make it less mortifying.
JP's eyebrows go up, just slightly, and then he nods slowly. "And the second time?"
"That was last weekend… With Leo I mean… Things were finally okay, and then I started seeing Jaren, and that was good, except—" I'm wringing my hands. When did I start doing that? "Except I freaked out when we were making out, and then I went home, and Leo was there, and we…"
"Had sex again."
"Umm, yeah, we did… again."
"And now things are weird again?"
"Worse than weird." I pull my legs up onto the bed, making myself smaller. "Leo told me we have to be friends and not let sex confuse things, and then he walked away, and now he's being all… careful around me, and I don't know what I did wrong."
JP is quiet for a moment. Then he asks, "Why did you have sex with Leo? The second time."
"I don't know." It comes out frustrated. "I was upset about Jaren, and Leo was there, and it… happened."
"Did you think about how Leo might feel about it? Maybe this is Leo doing what you want, but is it what he wants?"
My brain does a full stop. Like a processor that just hit an error it doesn't know how to handle. Oh blasters.
Leo would never say no to me. That's just…
that's who he is. He'd do anything for me, absorb anything, give me anything I asked for, and I…
I walked into his room and kissed him, and he…
did he actually want that? Or did he just say yes because it's me and he can't say no to me, and I never once stopped to ask…
“Did I take advantage of him." The words come out horrified. Barely above a whisper. I look at JP, and my eyes are stinging. "JP, did I? Was that? Did I do something he didn't actually want? Because if I did, I should leave. I should pack my stuff and leave, I can't—"
"Max." JP's voice is calm and firm. "Breathe."
I breathe, but it comes out shaky.
"I don't think Leo did anything he didn't want to do," JP says carefully. "But I think it's worth thinking about. Whether you considered him. Whether you asked."
I swallow hard. "I hadn't thought about it that way," I admit. "I really hadn't."
JP moves from his chair to sit next to me on the bed. His presence is steady. Grounding. "Max, Leo would do anything for you. You know that. But this is a big ask between friends." His voice is gentle but serious. "How are things now?"
"All wrong." My eyes are stinging, which is stupid, because I don't even know why I want to cry. "It was weird after the first time, and I thought after Christmas things would be okay, but then Jaren happened, and now Leo… He won't really talk to me, and I don't understand what's happening."
JP leans forward. He's already nodding slightly, the way he does when he's three steps ahead and waiting for you to catch up. "Tell me about Jaren."
I look at my hands, still twisting in my lap. "Jaren is perfect. Like, JP, he's amazing. Kind, hot, patient, he's exactly what I should want in a guy."
"But?"
"But when we were making out, everything felt wrong." I can still feel it, that crawling sensation under my skin, the way my whole body was screaming no. Like, ick. Hard no. And that doesn't make sense, because Jaren is great. “I literally scrambled off his lap."