Chapter 23 – Bonus chapter #2
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And that was the beginning of it—whatever it is with Theo.
He’s pure signal, no noise. He doesn’t pretend, doesn’t posture.
And in a field that demands constant proof of legitimacy, of performance, he’s the rare exception who doesn’t seem interested in playing that game.
Back then, I still had Jacob. And certainly I was different. Not more approachable, exactly. Just… less carved out by grief. I hadn’t yet mastered the art of putting my edges where people couldn’t touch them. And somehow, despite that, Theo got in.
So yeah, if I were building a perfect match for Coralie on some mental whiteboard—Theo would be the obvious answer.
He said so himself.
It was after the Backdoor Shootout on the North Shore.
We all went to eat, crowded around a too-small table with barely enough room for the chaos her friends brought in with them.
They were loud—debating cheeses, movies, whether marine snow counted as poetic or just gross—and somehow managed to take up every inch of air and attention in the room.
It was the perfect cover. Everyone looking at them meant I got to look at her.
That day I watched Coralie worry over my best friend and laugh with hers.
I watched her in my hoodie for the first time—the one she’s sleeping in now, sleeves too long, shoulders swallowed up in it.
And I swear to everything I believe in, something cracked loose in my ribs at the sight of her in it.
I almost said screw the careful plan. Screw the slow build.
Something primal in me just wanted to take her home and keep her there.
Later, when we got back to the house, Theo tossed his keys on the coffee table and gave me a look he almost never wears—a real frown.
“Holden,” he said, dragging a hand over his face. “What the polite fuck are you doing?”
I froze. My arms were already prickled with goosebumps—mostly from the cold because I told Coralie to keep the hoodie. I didn’t want her to take it off. I wanted it to smell like her. I wanted her to have it.
“What do you mean?” I asked, already defensive.
“Don’t play dumb,” he said. “Bro, I love you, but you’re confusing her.”
I didn’t want to get into it. Not with him, not with myself. So I turned and went upstairs, dropped onto my bed like if I closed my eyes hard enough, it would all go away.
Of course, he followed.
“Nuh uh,” he said, leaning in the doorway, arms crossed. “You don’t get to skip the talk.”
I opened one eye. “Fine. Let’s hear it.”
“She’s fucking great, bro,” he started. “She’s like… Einstein. If Einstein was sexy and twenty-something and a little clumsy and could turn entire lectures into comedy sets.”
I blinked at him. “That’s your analogy?”
“Shut up. You know what I mean. She’s one of the best girls I’ve ever met—and I’ve met a lot of them. And she’s definitely one of the best you’ve ever met.”
“You don’t think I know that?” I snapped, sitting up. “You don’t think that’s what’s been running through my head every hour of every day since this semester started?”
“Then why the hell did you tell her you didn’t want her?” His voice rose. Theo doesn’t yell. That night he did.
I exhaled hard, sinking back into the mattress. “It’s for her own good.”
“That’s such coward shit, Holden,” he said instantly. “You love her, bro. You love her or you wouldn’t have a stack of octopus neurology textbooks by your desk. You wouldn’t spend hours prepping for questions she hasn’t even asked yet.”
I didn’t argue. Couldn’t.
“Maybe,” I said finally. “But sometimes that’s not enough. She deserves more than what I can give.”
Theo shook his head, looking genuinely disappointed. “She does deserve more. She deserves someone who’s sure of her. Someone who doesn’t make her question what’s real and what’s temporary. If you can’t be that guy, Holden, I might.”
And fuck, I saw red.
I was so fucking pissed at him—for saying that, for even thinking it.
For threatening to give her the very thing I wanted to offer but couldn’t seem to figure out how.
Every second she laughed more easily with him than she did with me flashed through my head like a fucking montage from hell.
All the times she leaned into his presence while tensing around mine. It wrecked me.
It was one of those rare, dangerous moments where I actually wanted to punch my best friend.
And judging by the way his jaw ticked and his hands balled into fists, he probably wanted to punch me too.
We argued more after that—useless, testosterone-heavy bullshit. Voices raised, pride bruised, nothing new under the sun. But the apology came in the morning, and the damage stuck. He didn’t mean it, he said. But intentions aside, the words cut anyway.
Because Theo was right. Coralie doesn’t need perfect. She doesn’t need easy. She just needs honest. And maybe, if I ever figure out how to be that for her, I’ll finally deserve the way she looks at me.
“Holden?”
Her voice is soft—barely above a whisper—but it pulls me from the depths of memory and straight back into the room like a tether. I blink once, twice, and look at her.
Her eyes are still shut.
“I’m here,” I murmur, shifting a little closer and brushing the backs of my fingers against hers, letting her feel me before she has to see me. Her fingers twitch once, then slide over mine with gentle certainty, curling into my palm like they were always meant to fit there.
She exhales slowly, and her lashes flutter open just enough to show a glimpse of that green—barely lit, but unmistakable. Her mouth curves into a slow, sleepy smile that makes my chest ache.
“Hi,” she breathes, the word catching like silk. Her eyelids droop again, her body giving in to exhaustion even as her voice keeps reaching for me. “I should go to my bed now.”
I shake my head and lift my free hand, brushing a knuckle down her temple. She leans into the touch like it’s instinct.
“No,” I say, letting my fingers map the soft, freckled path of her cheek. “You stay right where you are.”
She hums in response, the sound low and content and entirely unguarded.
“What about you, though?” she asks, barely louder than the ocean outside. Her voice is different when she’s this tired—softer, almost fragile. Slower, like she’s trying not to wake a dream she doesn’t want to leave.
“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
She smiles at that and squeezes my hand a little tighter.
“Holden?” she asks again. She opens one eye this time—just a sliver—and when it finds mine, even half-lidded and unfocused, it still feels like the world shifts on its axis. “I always want you this close.”
I go rigid.
Every muscle locks, every thought empties, and my breath halts in my throat.
Because I know she’s half-asleep, floating between the real and the not-quite, but it doesn’t matter. She means it. I can feel it in the way her thumb brushes the side of my hand. I can see it in the small, content smile still curving her lips.
And hearing it—hearing her say that—wrecks me in a way nothing else has.
She told me, weeks ago, how she might feel. And I shut it down—pushed it down—to protect us both. To protect her, mostly. For me it’s too late. I’ve known for a while now that there’s no getting over Coralie Taylor.
And maybe I suspected that her feelings hadn’t entirely gone away. But hearing those words—here, in this space, wrapped in my hoodie and moonlight, after everything—we’ve slipped into something more dangerous than I ever intended.
But I don’t pull away. I drag my fingers gently along her cheek again, slower this time.
“Me too, Trouble,” I whisper. The words land somewhere between her dreams and mine.
It’s not a confession. Not entirely. But it’s something. A placeholder. A promise.
In the daylight, things are too sharp—too easy to ruin. But here, in this moment, I let myself want it. Want her. Want to hear her say it again, awake. Want to see the look on her face when I tell her what I’ve been holding back since the day I met her.
So I make myself a quiet promise.
That while we’re here—far from campus, from titles, from the lines we keep drawing and redrawing—I’ll stop hiding behind the rules I’ve built. Just once. If that’s all I get, I’ll take it.
I want to hold her and know she wants to be held. I want to touch her and not feel like I’m stealing something I was never meant to have. I want to feel her choose me, freely, openly, in the clear light of day.
Just once.
And if that moment comes—if she gives me even a sliver of that truth—I swear I’ll be there to meet it. Walls down. No more hiding.
Her hand stays curled in mine, and I settle beside her, my shoulder pressed to the wood, the curve of her body just a breath away.
I watch her fall back asleep, counting the freckles across her nose, down her cheekbones, across the bridge of her jaw.
I lose track somewhere around seventy-five, my own eyes growing heavy, wondering if I’ll ever get the chance to count them all.