•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•✾•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•
The sound of her laugh was bright and unrestrained, coming out of her without hesitation, and it made smile before I could even think about it, a genuine smile, the kind that arrives before your brain jumps in to weigh the situation.
See? This was nice. It was exactly what I’d told myself I wanted. Normal, warm, and simple, without any subtext lurking beneath every exchange waiting to trip up.
Exactly what I should’ve wanted.
The movie turned out to be surprisingly good. In fact, it was funny, better written than the trailer had suggested, with a lead couple that had the kind of chemistry making the jokes hit just right instead of falling flat.
lanie leaned over to whisper little comnts during the funniest scenes, perfectly tid observations, and nudged my arm whenever sothing particularly ridiculous happened on screen.
I found myself laughing more than I expected. Relaxing more than I anticipated.
For about forty minutes, everything felt genuinely easy.
Then my brain, loyal as a cat and timing like a car alarm, decided to wreck everything.
A character kissed her boyfriend on screen, nothing dramatic, just a small, quiet mont between two people who’d been circling each other all film long...and my brain, without asking, summoned another kiss.
A different mont. Another pair of lips, a hand against a wall, and the strange, bewildering feeling of being kissed by soone you were supposed to be at odds with.
I groaned internally. No! Not tonight! We’re not doing this!
I focused on the screen with determination.
Five minutes later, lanie’s hand brushed against mine as she reached for popcorn.
And just like that, my traitorous brain decided to compare it to the mory of Damien’s hand over mine by the salt shaker.
What was wrong with ?!
I was sitting next to a pretty girl who had willingly chosen to spend her Saturday night with a dumbass like . A girl who laughed at my jokes and texted back quickly and hadn’t once given a reason to feel confused if she liked or was just ssing around. This should’ve been enough. More than enough. That was the whole point.
Yet, a disloyal part of my mind kept drifting toward icy blue eyes, dark hair, and a laugh I’d only heard twice yet sohow had etched into my mory.
I hated it. I hated it with the intense focus of soone losing an argunt with themselves and refusing to yield.
God...what is my life at this point?
After the credits rolled, lanie hooked her arm through mine as we stepped out onto the street with the crowd, drifting toward the ice cream shop two blocks down, guided by unspoken agreent and the usual flow of an evening that didn’t want to conclude.
The air had cooled while we’d been inside, pleasantly so, carrying the scent of cut grass and distant food carts. Students filled the sidewalks in small groups, voices overlapping, music wafting from sowhere above us.
The streetlights had co on, casting everything in a warm amber glow, and the evening had that familiar vibe of a city settling in, easygoing and relaxed, glowing from below.
"See?" lanie said, diving into her ice cream with the satisfaction of soone who’s been proven right. "I told you I was fun."
I pretended to consider her claim seriously. "The jury is still out."
She smacked my arm. "Rude."
"Accurate."
"You laughed multiple tis."
"I laugh at lots of things. The threshold for laughter isn’t as high as you think it is."
"You laughed at specifically."
I pointed my spoon at her. "That’s quite a bold statent."
"I have witnesses."
"You have a theater full of strangers who don’t know my na."
Her grin widened, bright and proud, nudging my shoulder with hers as we walked. "I like you, Oliver."
Those words ca out easily, just the way she said most things, light and certain, free of any complications. No hesitation. No underlying layers. She liked , plain and simple, as if stating a fact she was completely comfortable with.
And I stood there, ice cream in hand, feeling the strange weight of how simple that should’ve felt. How much easier everything would be if I could just accept that sentence at face value, letting it resonate where it was ant to land.
I wondered, not for the first ti, if she’d still feel that way with all the details laid out. The hospital bills. The jobs I was quietly stacking. How so mornings I needed to take stock of what I could afford for the week.
The organized chaos of being Oliver Reyes, financially stretched, emotionally entangled, and apparently unable to sort out a normal feeling about my own roommate.
But lanie looked genuinely happy I was there. Standing on a sidewalk, eating ice cream on a Saturday night, she regarded like that was enough, like I was enough, and maybe sotis that mattered more than perfect timing.
"I had fun tonight," she said as we approached Callington Hall, its stone facade looming above us in the dark, with all its elegant lines and old-money charm.
So she was another of the many elites of this school. God, I never really had a chance, did I?
" too." I really ant it. The night had been good...genuinely, honestly good. The catch was that good and simple weren’t the sa as certain, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of the gap between them.
Her smile softened, becoming a bit shy, a departure from her usual deanor that felt more impactful for it. "I’d...um, I’d like to do this again."
My stomach tightened. Not because I didn’t want to, I just couldn’t find that part of that should’ve reacted simply, and its absence was painfully conspicuous.
"Yeah," I said, after what felt like a beat too long. "I’d like that too."
Her face lit up, the way it did when she was genuinely pleased about sothing, that imdiate warmth radiating from her.
Then, before I had a chance to fully process the movent, she stepped in closer, close enough for to catch the scent of vanilla and faint floral notes. Closer enough to see that smile still shining in her eyes.
"I really like you, Oliver."
And just like that, she kissed .
It was soft, sweet...warm, in the uncomplicated way a kiss is supposed to be, gentle, present, and asking nothing difficult from either of us. The kind of kiss you see in the last act of a good movie, when everything has finally resolved and the audience exhales.
I kissed her back. Naturally, because it’ll be weird not to.
For a few monts, the world around us narrowed to just that instant. The cool air, the distant city sounds, the warmth of her hands resting briefly against my chest.
Then, with the worst timing possible, my brain brought Damien back into the picture.
Not subtly, not slowly or apologetically. Just... there, as if a song had gotten stuck in my head. Damien’s hand over mine at the party. The way his attention felt when it was directed at . The sound of his laugh in the kitchen, rare enough that each instance felt like sothing I’d had to earn.
The way he’d looked at that afternoon when I said I had a date, that brief flash of sothing on his face that he’d smoothed away before I could fully interpret.
The comparison dropped in before I could stop it.
And right behind it ca guilt, arriving quickly and hitting hard, like guilt does when you know you’ve thought sothing you shouldn’t have.
What was wrong with ? lanie was right here. She was kissing . She was sweet and funny, genuinely interested in my average ass, and she deserved soone fully in the mont, not wandering back to a complicated roommate situation with no resolution in sight.
When she pulled away, her cheeks had a faint pink tint, her smile hopeful and soft, beautiful under the amber streetlight.
And I felt like the worst person alive.
"Text when you get ho?" she asked.
I managed a smile that I hoped conveyed more calm than I felt. "Yeah."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
That made her happy. She held my gaze for a second longer, still smiling, then slipped through the front door of the building. I stood alone on the sidewalk, feeling the evening air cool around as I touched my lips and replayed everything that had just happened.
Then I overthought it. Then I overthought my overthinking, which honestly had beco my most reliable skill, the one thing I could count on to do thoroughly and without cutting corners.
By the ti I started walking back to Preston Hall, my head was a complete ss, cycling through everything in that frustratingly circular way it had been doing for weeks.
The evening had gone well, the date had genuinely been nice. lanie was sweet and funny, and she liked unconditionally. Any reasonable person would have walked away from tonight feeling light.
But instead, every thought circled back to the sa person, the sa question...one date with a girl who actually, genuinely liked .
So why was it that a fleeting look from Damien that afternoon, two seconds, unreadable, smoothed away almost before it registered had done more for my pulse than the entire night?
I didn’t know.
But I was walking ho through the dark, thinking about it, and maybe that was the answer.
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