He didn’t answer. He climbed down.
His footsteps faded one by one. The wind took over. My breath shook out in uneven pulls. I blinked, and tears finally spilled. Hot, then cold in the air.
I was furious I was crying. I wanted to take it back. I wanted to believe I was too smart for this. Too careful.
It had always been a hookup. A fun, warm, stupidly wonderful hookup. Nothing more. Nothing that needed to last. Nothing that needed to hurt like this.
I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to stop shaking, but it was too late for that, too.
SEVENTEEN
Damon
The wind caughtme the moment I stepped away from the science building. It came sharp from the side, lifting the collar of my jacket and tossing it against my neck until my skin prickled. I kept walking. There was nowhere to go, but stopping felt impossible. If I stood still for even a second, everything from the roof would reach me again, and I did not have the strength to let it.
My hands were cold. I shoved them into my pockets and curled my fingers into fists. It did nothing to warm them.
Seth had ended things with the calm certainty of someone who had finally reached the point he had been bracing for since the start. And what had I done? Nothing. I had stood there like I was carved out of stone. No argument. No protest. No reaching for him. I just fucking accepted it.
Same as before. Same as always.
The walkway cut across the dark lawn, and the lamps along the path hummed softly. Their light flickered in the wind. My breath came out in short, tight bursts that fogged the air in front of me. Somewhere behind me, a door opened and closed again, but I didn’t turn to look. I did not want to be followed. I didnot want to be comforted. I wanted the cold to scrape something clean inside me.
I had given up. It had been the easiest thing in the world to fold under Seth’s hurt, under Nick’s unspoken threat, under the echo of every choice I had made before this. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought letting him go was kindness. Or mercy. Or maybe just habit.
Nick had won. That was the real truth. One sentence in the middle of a game, and everything inside me collapsed. Because pushing back against Nick always meant consequences, and part of me believed those consequences would land on Seth. And how was I supposed to make Seth choose between us? How was I supposed to pretend that fighting his brother would make him happier or safer?
I walked faster. The path sloped downward, and the trees above me swayed hard enough to sound like ocean waves. The wind tugged at my jacket again, like it was trying to cut me open. I let it.
Would Seth have chosen me over Nick? Would I have wanted him to? I didn’t know. I had never let myself imagine it. It always seemed like a dangerous fantasy.
My footsteps slowed without warning. The grass on my left rose into a small hill, and something about the slope of it, the color, the way the shadows pooled across the surface, jolted a memory loose. I blinked, and suddenly, I wasn’t on campus anymore.
I was back in that field, far behind Seth’s house, lying on warm grass with the summer sun slipping down behind us. We were in our underwear, too hot to care, our clothes thrown in a pile next to us. The blades of grass clung to my skin. My heartbeat felt heavy in my chest. Seth was curled against me, head on my shoulder, his fingertips making slow circles across my stomach.
He didn’t say much. He never did in moments like that. He just breathed against me, soft and steady, and I felt something in me stretch toward him like I had no control over my own body.
We watched a cloud drift overhead. He laughed at something I said, some crude comment about the shape of it. Then he went quiet for a while. His circles slowed until his hand rested flat over my ribs.
“That was fun,” he murmured. “All of this. You know.”
He waved his hand in a small arc over our bodies. It was supposed to look casual. The gesture of someone making light of things before they got too heavy. But something in his eyes betrayed him. A small sheen. A shimmer that caught the last of the sunlight. He blinked quickly, like he didn’t want me to notice. He pressed closer, as if that would distract me from whatever was happening inside him.
My whole body tightened. A warm ache built under my ribs, something deep and unsettling, like a wave rolling up from the inside. I didn’t know how to name it. It scared me because it felt too big, too direct. I breathed in slowly, trying to push it back, but Seth’s hand moved again, and the feeling pushed harder.
He had looked up at me then. Just for a second. Enough for me to glimpse something raw. Something hopeful. Something that could have been love if I believed people like us said things like that out loud.
I didn’t speak. I didn’t ask. I let the moment drift away because I didn’t understand it and didn’t trust myself with what it might become.
The wind tore the memory away. I swallowed hard and forced myself back into the present.
I crossed the lawn, and the lights from the team house came into view. The place looked warm from the outside. Gold light spilled from the windows. Laughter thinned the air. I could almost see the guys sitting around the living room, half watchingsome movie, half arguing about who would steal the last slice of pizza. For a moment, I hesitated, thinking I might walk in, pretend my world wasn’t crumbling, pretend it was easy seeing Griff and Andrei folded like two parts of the same person, pretend I wasn’t losing Seth for the second time because I had been too afraid to fight for him.
Then something twisted in my chest. I stopped walking. My fists tightened again.
Those summer words echoed faintly in my ears. Seth lying in the grass, trying to hide the truth with a crooked smile. Something warm and fragile in his voice.
He had loved me.