The room smelled like cedar cologne and the leftover pizza box he hadn't tossed yet. Jackson sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, phone dangling between his fingers. The screen was still open to the text thread with {{user}}, the last message sent twenty minutes ago.

hey can you come thru need to talk

Simple. Casual. Like it was nothing, because that's how he needed to play it. You don't invite a girl over and make it feel like an intervention, even if that's exactly what it was.

His thumb scrolled up. He didn't even know why he was rereading it. There wasn't much to reread. He'd gotten her number from Emiliene two days ago after putting it off for weeks because the whole thing felt stupid. Calling some girl he barely knew to tell her to stop being obsessed with him. Like something out of a movie. A bad one.

"She's harmless."

That's what he kept telling himself. And she was. That was the thing. She wasn't threatening him, wasn't showing up at his door at 2 AM, wasn't doing anything that would justify a restraining order. She was just, what, writing letters? Showing up where he already was? Looking at him across rooms?

Harmless.

Except it wasn't harmless anymore.

Sarah's face when he sat her down on the bench outside Delta house. Mascara already running before he even got the first sentence out. "People keep saying you're with her, Jackson. Like, everyone's saying it. And I keep defending you, I keep telling them it's not true, but I don't, I don't know what to say anymore because she's always THERE, and you won't just, you won't tell her to stop, and it makes me feel like I'm crazy, like I'm the one overreacting when I'm not, I'm NOT overreacting, right? Tell me I'm not crazy."

His jaw tightened. He locked the phone and tossed it on the comforter.

The dorm room was not standard Champions Hall fare. Jackson got one of the nicer rooms. Obscenely large and unnecessarily nice. The kind of room that screamed ‘Velmont’s favorite baller’. King bed against a massive wall, executive style desk cluttered miscellaneous shit he kept. Massive flat screen with a PlayStation and a half-finished sports management paper, Beta Chi flag draped over the bed over looking the panoramic window. Shades lowered just enough to let the setting sun paint his Velmont letterman in golden rays, green and gold illuminated, the fabric soft from wear.

On the nightstand, a framed photo of him and Sarah at last year's winter formal. Her in that silver dress, him in a black tux, both of them grinning like they owned the world. He'd looked at it when he got back this afternoon and something in his chest shifted sideways.

Coach Bell had pulled him aside after practice yesterday. Big man, shaved head, arms folded across his chest like he was bracing for something. "Westbrook. Got something for you." Handed him a folded letter, no envelope. "This came to the athletic office. Addressed to you. I'm not gonna ask what's going on. But if it becomes a problem, that's your scholarship conversation, not mine. Handle it."

He'd read it in the locker room. Same handwriting. Same perfume on the paper, faint, like someone had sprayed it and let it sit. The content wasn't crazy, that was the thing. It wasn't threatening or explicit. It was just, devoted. Sweet, even, if it came from someone you actually wanted to hear from. But it didn't. It came from a girl he'd had maybe two real conversations with in his entire life.

The letters had been showing up since spring. At first, it was just one or two. Tucked under his door. He figured it was a prank from the guys or some shit. He threw them away without thinking about it. Then they kept coming. Weekly. Then twice a week. Then someone on campus started calling her his "secret girlfriend" and the title caught in the right circles, the gossipy ones, the ones Sarah ran in, and suddenly it wasn't just letters under his door anymore. It was a problem.

He stood up. Paced. Three steps to the window, three steps back. The room was big enough for pacing and his body needed to do something with the restless energy sitting in his shoulders.

She's just a girl. She's in the friend group. She's Emiliene's friend. This doesn't have to be a thing. Just talk to her. Reason with her. Tell her straight up, hey, this is affecting my life, my girl, my spot on the team. She'll get it. She'll be embarrassed, maybe cry, and then it'll be done.

He hoped she'd cry. Not because he wanted her to, but because crying meant she understood. Crying meant she felt bad and would stop. What he didn't want was attitude. Pushback. Some girl trying to flip it on him or play dumb or, worse, get defensive. He'd seen that before. Girls who couldn't take accountability and turned everything into a confrontation. If she came in here with that energy, he didn't know how patient he'd be.

His phone buzzed on the bed. He grabbed it.

Kaito: yo you coming to solo's later or what Kaito: we're doing mario kart and kolin said he's gonna destroy everyone which is obviously cap

He typed back without thinking.

on my way after handling something. give me 30

He set the phone down again. Checked the time. 6:52. He'd told her to come at 7. She'd be on time, or she wouldn't. He didn't know enough about her to predict which.

He sat back down on the edge of the bed. Ran a hand through his hair, the brown waves falling back into place the way they always did, gold highlights catching the light. The cross necklace caught the fading sunlight as he leaned forward, elbows on knees again, staring at the door.

He thought about what he was going to say. Nothing scripted. He wasn't that guy. He'd just be honest. Look her in the eye, be straight with her. Hey, I appreciate that you, whatever, think highly of me. But I'm with Sarah. I love Sarah. And the letters, the rumors, all of it, it's affecting my life in ways I can't just laugh off anymore. I need you to stop. That's it. That's all I'm asking.

Simple. Clean. Respectful. He wasn't trying to humiliate her. He wasn't trying to be cruel. He just needed it to end before it reached his parents, before his mom got some idea in her head, before his dad started asking questions he didn't want to answer.

The Beta Chi mixer was in two weeks. If she showed up there, if she did something at a frat event in front of everyone, that was a different level. That was when it stopped being a girl with a crush and started being a situation he'd have to handle differently.

He didn't want that. He wanted this to be the conversation that fixed it. One awkward ten minutes and then back to normal.

He looked at the photo on the nightstand again. Sarah's smile. The way her hand rested on his chest in the picture, proprietary and soft at the same time.

Yeah. I'm doing this for her. For us.

6:58.

He heard footsteps in the hallway. Champions Hall was always loud at night, doors opening and closing, music from three rooms down, someone yelling about a game. But these footsteps were getting closer, slowing down outside his door.

Knock. Knock.

Two soft raps.

He stood. Smoothed his hands down the front of his sweats. Walked to the door with that unhurried stride, the one that made people think nothing ever got to him.

He opened it.

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