Chapter 15 — Lena #3
“I don’t know what to do with it,” she admitted. “Because I know what I see. I know how you’ve been with me. But then someone says something like that, and I wonder if I’m just…” She swallowed. “If I’m just the next girl who thinks she’s different.”
The chapel garden was quiet around them, the small fountain trickling beside the stone bench where students sometimes sat between classes.
Facing it.
“I can’t promise you I was never careless,” he said.
Her throat tightened.
“I can’t promise no one ever thought I meant more than I did. I never tried to hurt anyone, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t.”
Lena’s eyes burned.
“And I hate saying that to you,” he said. “Because I want to be better than that. I want to tell you everybody’s wrong and it was all harmless, but…” He exhaled. “That would be me trying to protect myself instead of being honest.”
She could barely breathe.
“I was careless,” he said. “With attention. With flirting. With letting people see only the fun parts and never correcting them when they expected nothing else. It was easier.”
Lena wrapped her arms around herself.
Carter’s voice went softer.
“But I am serious about you.”
No hesitation.
“I know that doesn’t fix the fear,” he said. “And I know saying it isn’t the same as proving it. But I need you to hear me say it anyway.”
Lena looked at him.
Scared.
Steady.
“I’m serious about you, Lena.”
Her breath caught on his name in his own voice, said like something precious.
“I don’t want to be sweet to everybody in a way that makes you feel replaceable,” he continued. “I don’t want you wondering if you’re just the one currently close enough to get the best version of me.”
Carter noticed, and his face tightened, but he did not move closer.
He let her decide.
“I’m not perfect,” he said. “I’m still going to mess up. I’m probably going to say the wrong thing or joke when I shouldn’t or miss something because I’m new at trying to be this honest. But I’m not playing with you.”
The fountain trickled beside them.
Lena wiped the tear away quickly.
“I believe you,” she whispered.
“I’m scared,” she said. “But I believe you.”
Lena stepped closer.
“This doesn’t mean I won’t wobble,” she said.
“I know.”
“And it doesn’t mean comments won’t hurt.”
“I know.”
“And I might ask too many questions.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You? Never.”
He smiled, but it faded quickly.
“Ask,” he said. “I’d rather answer than have you invent worse things alone.”
His arms came around her slowly at first, then tighter when she leaned into him. Lena pressed her face against his chest, listening to his heart beat beneath the hoodie.
Human.
“I don’t want to punish you for your past,” she whispered.
“But I also don’t want to ignore it.”
He understood, and he stayed.
Carter’s hand moved over her back once, careful and warm.
“I’ll keep showing you,” he said.
She pulled back enough to look at him.
“I’ll keep trying to believe it.”
His eyes softened.
“That sounds fair.”
“Healthy communication is exhausting.”
He laughed quietly. “Right?”
Then he lifted a hand and brushed his thumb beneath her eye, catching the dampness there.
“Can I kiss you,” he asked softly, “or is this a talking-only walk?”
A small laugh slipped out of her.
“You can kiss me.”
“Good. Because I really want to.”
Certain.
His mouth moved over hers, and Lena felt the last of the panic loosen its grip.
When the kiss deepened, she stepped closer, fingers curling in his hoodie. Carter made a quiet sound against her lips, then pulled back with visible effort.
She laughed softly, breathless. “I didn’t say stop.”
His eyes darkened.
“I know.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “That’s why I had to remind myself.”
Warmth swept through her.
“Emotionally improving and self-controlled?”
They sat on the stone bench near the fountain for a while after that, shoulder to shoulder, hands linked between them.
Carter told her his dad wanted a navy Team Clipboard shirt.
Lena said absolutely not.
Carter said his mother might want one too.
Lena said denied.
Carter said if proceeds went to charity—
Not gone.
Maybe it would not be gone for a while.
But Carter had given her the truth instead of a performance.
And Lena had given him the fear instead of disappearing with it.
At the dorm entrance, Carter stopped.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “I have morning class, practice, then my dad’s follow-up appointment. But after dinner…”
“You want to see me?”
Carter looked like he wanted to take it back and also like he absolutely did not.
But it also warmed her from the inside out.
She stepped closer.
“After dinner works,” she said.
Then he kept walking.
Lena went upstairs to find Paige sitting at her desk pretending not to wait.
“Well?” Paige asked.
Paige spun in her chair. “Hot or healthy?”
Lena leaned back against the door, smiling despite the exhaustion in her bones.
“Both,” she said.
Paige groaned. “You are so doomed.”
Lena looked down at her phone as it buzzed.
Carter: Home. No running. Still serious about you, in case your brain gets loud later.
Maybe that was enough for tonight.
Maybe enough was how trust started.
And maybe, Lena thought as she climbed into bed with Carter’s words glowing on her screen, normal life was not a trap after all.