"Milo."
"I'm not freaking out."
She takes a bite, and we settle into this weird, awkward dance. We pretend it's a normal Thursday. She complains about her group project partner who doesn't understand MLA format. I tell her about a guy who tried to check out a book using his gym card. We both laugh, but it's too fast, too eager. We're circling the drain.
She finishes the cookie and brushes the crumbs off her fingers. The barcode scanner beeps entirely too loud as I run a book under it. I'm stalling. She knows I'm stalling. This is stupid. It'sAva. I've told this girl things I wouldn't even tell a therapist.
"I'm sorry—" I start, the automatic apology already slipping off my tongue before I even know what I'm apologizing for.
"Don't," she interrupts, her tone softening. She puts the half-eaten cookie down. "Don't start with sorry. I've heard you start with sorry a thousand times, and it always means you're about to make yourself smaller than you need to be. Just talk to me."
I snap my mouth shut. My jaw aches with the effort of holding back the rest of the apology. It's a reflex. It smooths things over. But she just called me out on it, and the accuracy stings.
Ava wraps both hands around her coffee cup, her expression shifting into something more open. "You want to know what's actually bothering me? It's not the relationship. I like Callum with you. I likeyouwith Callum. He's been different since you happened to him, and it's a good different."
"Then what?"
"You told the group before you told me," she says flatly. Not angry, just stating a fact. "Jude knew before me.Jude. The man who can't keep a secret for longer than it takes to open a group chat knew about your fated-mate bond with mybrotherbefore I did."
"I know," I whisper, my stomach twisting. "These last few days without you—"
"Were awful for me too," she says, cutting me off. Her voice cracks ontoo, just barely, and she covers it with a sip of coffee. "I almost texted you a bunch. I had drafts. One of them was just the wordwhyin all caps." She sets the cup down. "But I needed to be mad without worrying about making you feel better about it. You would've apologized, and I would've forgiven you too fast, and then I'd still be carrying it."
I nod, because she's right. That's exactly what would have happened.
"And I could be mad about it forever," she continues. "Except I can't, because I'm a massive hypocrite."
I frown, my fingers pausing on the keyboard. "What?"
"I knew about the crush. Your crush on Callum. I've known for over a year."
The floor practically drops out from under me.
"You—what?"
"The first time Cal came to pick me up from campus. Remember?" she asks, waving a hand vaguely. "You were telling me about some guy trying to return a pizza box to the library, and his truck pulled up, and you just... stopped. Mid-word. Mouth hanging open. I looked where you were looking, and it was just my brother getting out of his truck." She shrugs. "You're never still, Milo. You're always fiddling with something. And you just froze. I put two and two together."
I stare at her, my mouth doing a stupid, trembling thing. The barcode scanner blinks uselessly on the desk.
"I never said anything because I didn't want to push," she explains, her voice dropping into something gentler. "I figured if you wanted to tell me, you would. I thought if I named it, it would make things weird, and you'd pull back, and I'd lose the version of you that bakes things and hangs out at my apartment. I was trying to protect you. Turns out I was just letting you carry it alone."
The library is dead quiet. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, and the reality TV woman's phone plays something tinny three aisles over. My heart is hammering against my ribs.
"I should have—" I start, but I bite my tongue. The apology isright there. I want to say I'm sorry for making it weird, sorry for dumping this on her, sorry for existing. I want to shrink down and give her an easy out.
But I don't want to run it anymore. Not with Ava.
I put the scanner down and force my hands to stay flat on the desk.
"I didn't tell you because..." I swallow hard, trying to get the words out in the right order. "Because I was ashamed."
Ava doesn't interrupt. She just waits, giving me the space to be messy.
"Not of him. Of wanting him the whole time I was supposed to be your friend." I trace the edge of a hardcover on the returns cart. "Every time I came to dinner and helped in the kitchen, I was also the guy losing his mind over your brother in the next room. Telling you felt like admitting our whole friendship had this huge lie running underneath it."
I pull my hand back from the cart, my voice dropping to a whisper. "I thought if you knew what I actually wanted, you'd see me differently. Not as your friend, but as the guy using your family dinners to stare at your brother. I wanted to be the good one. The easy one."
Ava looks at me, her expression completely stripped of its usual teasing edge.