The dorm door swung open with Matt's shoulder before his key even finished turning — arms full of a half-eaten bag of Taco Bell, his backpack slung low, hoodie smelling like the parking lot he'd just been loitering in. It was past one in the morning. He fully expected the lights to be off, {{user}} passed out with her face mushed into her laptop like she always was when she waited up too long.

What he didn't expect was this.

The room looked like a small natural disaster had moved through it. A mug tipped on its side on the desk, tea soaking into a notebook nobody was going to save. Tissues — God, so many tissues — scattered across the rug like sad little snowballs. One of her shoes in the middle of the floor. The other one nowhere. And {{user}} herself, crumpled on the carpet between her bed and the dresser, knees pulled up, mascara halfway down her face, shoulders doing that silent shaky thing that was honestly worse than full-on sobbing.

Matt stopped in the doorway.

"...The fuck."

The Taco Bell bag hit the desk. His backpack slid off his shoulder and thudded somewhere he didn't bother to look. He crossed the room in three long steps and crouched down in front of her, one hand braced on the dresser, the other hovering like he wasn't sure if touching her would make it worse.

"Hey. Hey, hey, hey — what happened? {{user}}, look at me. What's going on?"

Nothing. Just a wet inhale and her face buried deeper into her arms.

He waited. Counted maybe ten seconds. Then exhaled slow through his nose and dropped the questions entirely.

"Okay. Okay, c'mon. Up. You're not sitting on the floor like a Victorian ghost, get up."

He hooked his hands under her elbows and got her standing — half-lifting, half-coaxing — and steered her the two feet over to her bed. Sat her down. Sat down next to her. Grabbed her laptop off the nightstand and flipped it open on his thighs, and without even asking, pulled up Disney+ and clicked the little thumbnail he'd seen her click approximately nine thousand times since they moved in together freshman year.

Enchanted.

The opening storybook narration started up, all soft and twinkly, and he felt her shoulder press just slightly into his arm. He didn't say anything about it. Just shifted, lifted his arm, and let her tuck under it the way she always did when she was being a baby about something. His hand settled on her shoulder. His thumb did a slow, absent stroke against the sleeve of her hoodie.

"We don't gotta talk," he muttered, eyes on the screen. "Just watch the lady fall in the fountain."

An hour and a half later.

Giselle was singing to rats. Matt was cross-legged on the bed with the bong he kept hidden behind his desk drawer organizer balanced between his knees, lighter flicking, the room hazy and warm and smelling like spruce and weed and the cheap vanilla candle {{user}} insisted on burning even though it was technically against dorm rules. Her makeup was wiped off. Her hoodie was his hoodie now, apparently. She was giggling — really giggling, the dumb wheezy kind — at something Prince Edward had done on screen, and Matt was grinning around the mouthpiece because her laugh was contagious in an annoying way.

He passed it to her. She took a hit, exhaled toward the ceiling, and watched the smoke curl up toward the popcorn texture.

And then, real casual, like she was telling him what she had for lunch:

"Connor broke up with me because he said I'm bad at sex."

Matt — mid-inhale on the hit she'd just passed back — choked.

He coughed into his elbow, eyes watering, fist pounding his own chest, and when he finally got air back into his lungs he turned and stared at her like she'd just told him the moon was made of ham.

"...I'm sorry. He said what."

{{user}} just shrugged. One of those small, embarrassed shrugs where her shoulders went up to her ears and stayed there for a second too long. She wouldn't look at him. Her eyes stayed glued to the laptop screen where Giselle was now obliviously cleaning a filthy New York apartment with a cartoon army of pigeons, and she pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down over her hands and chewed on the inside of her cheek.

Matt set the bong down on the nightstand. Carefully. Like he needed both hands free for this conversation.

"No. No, no, no, back up. Connor. Connor with the bowl cut he thinks is a haircut. Connor who wears those weird toe shoes to the gym. That Connor told you — you — that you're bad at sex?"

She nodded into her knees. Pulled them up to her chest. Her face went a shade of pink that had absolutely nothing to do with the weed.

"I —" Matt opened his mouth. Closed it. Dragged a hand down his face and let out this short, disbelieving laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all. "Okay. Okay, I have so many questions and I need you to just — nod or shake your head, alright? Because I can see you're already trying to disappear into that hoodie."

A small nod. Barely there.

"Did he actually use those words. 'You're bad at sex.' Out loud. With his mouth."

Another nod. Slower. More miserable.

"Jesus Christ." Matt flopped back against the wall behind her bed, the back of his head hitting the cinderblock with a soft thunk. He stared up at the ceiling for a long second, jaw working. "And you — what, you've been sitting with that? All day? That's why the room looks like a crime scene?"

She hid her face in her knees fully now. Just a curtain of hair and the back of his hoodie. Her shoulders gave one of those tiny, mortified little shakes — not crying this time, just the full-body cringe of a girl who wanted the floor to swallow her whole.

"Hey." His voice softened. He nudged her knee with his knuckle. "Hey, c'mon, look at me. {{user}}."

She didn't.

He nudged again. "{{user}}. Roomie. Eyes."

She finally turned her head, just enough that one watery, weed-glazed eye peeked out at him over the top of her arm. Her lashes were still a little stuck together. Her nose was pink.

Matt looked at her for a long moment. Really looked. And whatever he was about to say — something cutting about Connor, probably, something mean and funny that would've made her laugh — died in his throat.

Because the thing was. He'd known {{user}} since orientation week. He'd seen her eat cereal with a fork because all the spoons were dirty. He'd held her hair back exactly twice. He'd watched her cry at a Subaru commercial. And the idea of her sitting across from Connor "Toe Shoes" Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was while that absolute clown told her she wasn't good enough in bed —

Matt's jaw flexed.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life," he said flatly. "Genuinely. Top of the list. Beats out the time my brother tried to deep-fry an ice cube."

A tiny, wet snort came from behind her arm. Almost a laugh.

"I'm serious." He sat up a little. Reached over and gently — gently — tugged her wrist down so her face wasn't hidden anymore. "That's not a real reason to break up with somebody. That's a 'we can work on that together' problem. That's a — y'know — communication problem. Not a 'pack your shit and leave' problem. He's an idiot. A confirmed, certified, government-issued idiot."

She blinked at him. Bottom lip caught between her teeth. Eyes shiny again, but in a different way now — less heartbreak, more humiliation, more please can we stop talking about this.

Matt saw it. Read it. Sighed.

"Okay. Okay, I'll shut up." He picked the bong back up, took a small hit just to do something with his hands, and exhaled toward the cracked-open window. The smoke caught the blue light from the laptop screen. "...But for the record? If you wanted him back —"

He paused. Glanced at her sideways.

"— hypothetically. Like, just, in a hypothetical universe where you cared about getting that beige little man back. There are ways to fix that. The whole 'bad at sex' thing. Which, by the way, I do not for one second believe, but. Y'know."

Her head tilted. Just slightly. A flicker of something — confusion, curiosity — passed across her face.

Matt caught it. Of course he caught it. He always did.

He shrugged one shoulder, way too casual, eyes back on the screen where Giselle was now twirling around in a curtain dress.

"I'm just saying. I'm a guy. You're my best friend. If you ever wanted, like — pointers, or whatever. From a guy's perspective." He rolled the lighter between his fingers. "I could help. With that. Hypothetically."

The room went very quiet except for the soft Disney soundtrack.

Matt didn't look at her. He was suddenly very interested in the flame of the lighter.

"...Just think about it."

A week.

A whole goddamn week of Matt pretending he hadn't said it. Of {{user}} pretending she hadn't heard it. Of the two of them tiptoeing around each other in the dorm like the floor was made of glass — him making her coffee in the morning without making eye contact, her laughing a little too hard at his jokes and then immediately leaving the room. The hypothetical had been sitting between them like a third roommate nobody wanted to acknowledge.

Until tonight.

Until she'd knocked on his door at 9 p.m. with her hair freshly washed and her hands shoved in the pockets of her sweatpants and a look on her face that said okay. Okay, fine. Let's do this before I lose my nerve.

And now —

Now Matt was sitting on the edge of his unmade bed, back slouched against the headboard, hoodie still on but sweatpants pushed down around his thighs. His legs were spread just enough to make room. The desk lamp was the only light on in the room — warm, orange, kind to both of them. His Spotify was playing something low and lazy from the speaker on his desk, some indie thing with a lot of reverb, just loud enough to fill the silences neither of them knew how to fill yet.

And {{user}} was on her knees on the carpet between his feet.

Matt's hand was in her hair. Not pulling. Not guiding. Just — there. Resting at the back of her head like an anchor. His thumb brushed behind her ear in slow, absent circles, the same way he'd stroked her shoulder a week ago on the bed during Enchanted. Same hand. Different room. Wildly different context.

He cleared his throat.

"Hey. Hey, look at me for a sec."

She did. Tilted her chin up. Her cheeks were already pink and he hadn't even done anything yet, and Christ, that was doing things to him he was actively trying not to think about.

"We don't have to do this," he said. Quiet. Serious. His thumb kept moving behind her ear. "Like — for real, {{user}}. I mean it. You showed up over here and I'm not gonna pretend I'm not — y'know — but you don't owe me this and you sure as shit don't owe Connor this, and if you wanna get up right now and we go watch Enchanted again and never speak of this, I will literally never bring it up. Ever. I'll take it to my grave. I'll —"

He shifted. Dragged a hand through his own hair.

"You're clearly not read—"

She plopped her head down.

Matt's entire sentence evaporated.

His jaw snapped shut around a sound that was not a word, and his hand in her hair tightened on pure reflex before he forced it to relax, fingers splaying gently against her scalp instead. His head tipped back against the headboard with a soft thump, eyes squeezing shut for one full second while he remembered how to breathe like a person.

"Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, c— ow — "

His eyes flew back open. He winced, hand flexing in her hair.

"Teeth. Teeth, teeth, teeth — baby, stop using your teeth — "

The pet name slipped out before he could catch it. He didn't have the bandwidth to be embarrassed about it. He sat up a little straighter, free hand coming up to gently cup her jaw, thumb pressing soft against the hinge of it.

"Hey. Look up at me. There you go." His voice had dropped into something lower, steadier, the kind of patient he didn't usually have for anything. "Open your jaw way more. Like — yeah. Yeah, like that. Slack. Keep it slack for me. Your teeth should never be the first thing I feel, okay? Lips over teeth. Always. That's like — that's rule one. That's the foundation. We're not even at the house yet, that's the foundation."

He huffed a small laugh, mostly at himself, and brushed a piece of hair back from her forehead.

"You're doing fine. You're doing — you're doing really good, actually. Just slow down. It's not a race. Nobody's timing you." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "And breathe through your nose. I know that sounds stupid but I promise you'll thank me."

She blinked up at him with those big glossy eyes and he had to physically look at the ceiling for a second.

"Jesus. Okay. Try again. Slow. Lips soft. I'll tell you if you're doing something weird, I promise, I'm not gonna let you embarrass yourself, that's — that's the whole point of this, right?"

It started, like most stupid things, with Matt just trying to eat his fucking lunch.

He'd grabbed a tray — chicken sandwich, fries that were somehow both burnt and soggy, a Gatorade — and he'd been weaving through the cafeteria toward the back corner where he and {{user}} always sat when he heard it. Connor's voice. That nasal, too-loud, please-laugh-at-me voice cutting through the noise from two tables over.

"— nah dude, I'm telling you, dead fish. Dead. Fish. Like, I'd be doing all the work and she'd just be lying there like —"

A round of laughter from the dipshits Connor called friends.

Matt slowed down.

"— and don't even get me started on the head. Bro. I love her, whatever, but homegirl was using teeth like she was trying to open it —"

Matt's tray hit the nearest table with a clatter loud enough that three people turned to look.

He didn't even remember crossing the floor. One second he was standing by his abandoned chicken sandwich and the next he was at Connor's table, and Connor was looking up at him with that punchable little smirk, mouth opening to say something probably along the lines of can I help you? —

Matt's right hook landed before the question made it out.

It was clean. Knuckles to jaw, full shoulder behind it, the kind of punch his older brother had drilled into him the summer before freshman year of high school. Connor's head snapped sideways. His chair scraped back. Somebody at the table yelled "OH —" in that long, drawn-out way boys yell when something happens.

Connor came up swinging.

He caught Matt in the ribs, then the cheekbone, and Matt staggered back into a table — somebody's lunch went flying, a carton of chocolate milk exploded across the linoleum — and then Matt was on him, fists flying, the two of them crashing into the aisle between tables in a tangle of limbs and curses and the wet sound of knuckles meeting skin.

The cafeteria erupted.

Phones came out. Chairs scraped back. Somebody screamed "FIGHT!" like it was the 1800s and they'd just spotted land. The crowd swelled in around them in that ugly, hungry circle, kids climbing on chairs to see, somebody chanting, somebody else laughing too loud.

Matt got one more good shot in — split Connor's lip, he was pretty sure — before Connor's elbow caught him in the mouth and he tasted copper.

They were both back on their feet. Both bloody. Both breathing like they'd just run a mile. Matt's hoodie was torn at the collar and his lip was busted and his knuckles were already swelling and he was bouncing on the balls of his feet, fists up, ready to go again —

"HEY! HEY — BREAK IT UP — BREAK IT UP RIGHT NOW —"

The security guard hit Matt's chest like a freight train, an arm hooking under his and yanking him backward. Two teachers were on Connor — Mr. Davies had him by the shoulders, another one Matt didn't recognize had his arm. Everyone was yelling. Somebody's walkie-talkie was going off. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like nothing had happened.

Connor scoffed — wet, ugly — and turned his head and spat. A red glob hit the linoleum about a foot from Matt's sneaker.

"Psycho," Connor muttered, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. "Fucking psycho, dude —"

"Yeah? Say it again —" Matt lunged, the guard's arm tightened across his chest, "— say it again, Connor, say one more thing about her, I dare you —"

"Wine. WINE. Walk. Now."

The guard started hauling him backward toward the doors. Matt's chest was heaving. His ears were ringing. Adrenaline had him shaking from his hands all the way up into his jaw, and he was already cataloging the bruises he was gonna have tomorrow when his eyes swept across the crowd and —

Stopped.

{{user}}.

Standing maybe ten feet away. Tray still in her hands. A carton of apple juice and a sad little salad and a granola bar, and her knuckles had gone white around the edges of the plastic. She wasn't moving. She wasn't blinking. Her mouth was just slightly open and her eyes were huge and glassy and locked on his face — on his split lip, on the blood on his teeth, on the torn collar of the hoodie she'd borrowed from him last week.

And her face —

Fuck.

Her face wasn't grateful. It wasn't proud. It wasn't anything Matt had let himself stupidly, briefly imagine on the swing of that first punch.

It was shocked. Devastated. The corners of her mouth pulled down in this small, broken way, eyebrows drawn up in the middle like she was about to cry, and underneath all of it — worst of all — disappointed.

Like he'd let her down.

The guard yanked his arm again. "Wine. Move."

"Wait — wait, hold on, hold on —" Matt twisted in the guard's grip, planting his feet, eyes locked on her. "{{user}} — hey — hey, look at me — "

She wouldn't. Or she was. He couldn't tell. Her eyes were on him but they were a thousand miles away.

"It's not — I know what this looks like, okay? I know. But he was — he was sitting right there talking shit about you, he was telling the whole fucking table about — about private stuff, baby, about stuff that's nobody's business, and he was laughing, he was making them all laugh, and I couldn't — "

His voice cracked. He tried again.

"I couldn't just sit there. I know you want him back, I know that, I know that's what we've been — I know. I get it. And I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry if I just — if I just blew that up for you, but {{user}}, I swear to God, if you'd heard what he was saying — "

The guard started pulling him again and this time Matt let himself be pulled, walking backwards, eyes still on her.

"— I couldn't let him talk about you like that. I couldn't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm — "

The cafeteria doors swung open behind him. The fluorescent hallway light spilled in. Someone in the crowd whistled. Connor was being walked the other direction, shooting him one last bloody, smug look over his shoulder.

The last thing Matt saw before the doors swung shut was {{user}}'s face. Tray still in her hands. Apple juice. Sad salad. Granola bar.

Not moving.

---

The dorm was too quiet.

Matt had been back for — he didn't even know. Three hours? Four? Long enough that the ice pack he'd been holding to his cheekbone had melted into a sad little baggie of lukewarm water on the coffee table. Long enough that the sun had gone down and he hadn't bothered to turn on a single light, so the whole common room was painted in that grainy blue half-dark that made everything feel like a held breath.

He was sitting on the edge of the couch. Hoodie off. Just a t-shirt now, the collar of it stretched out from where the security guard had grabbed him. His knuckles were taped up — badly, by him, with the first aid kit {{user}} kept under the bathroom sink — and there was a butterfly bandage on his lip that he'd already chewed half off without thinking.

His leg wouldn't stop bouncing.

Heel up, heel down. Heel up, heel down. The whole couch was vibrating with it. He'd checked his phone maybe two hundred times. No texts. No calls. Her location was off — or she'd turned it off, which was somehow worse, because that was a choice, that was her actively pressing the little button that said I don't want him to know where I am.

He'd been suspended for three days. Whatever. He didn't care about that.

He cared that her side of the room was empty. He cared that her bed was still made from this morning, the little stuffed frog she'd had since she was eight propped up against her pillow, looking at him accusingly every time he glanced over. He cared that her toothbrush was still in the bathroom cup, which meant she hadn't come back to get her stuff, which meant she was just — out. Somewhere. Not here. Not with him.

Did I fuck this up?

He dragged both hands down his face. Hissed when his palm hit the bruise on his cheekbone.

No fucking duh you fucked it up, idiot. You punched the guy she wanted back. You punched him in front of the entire fucking school. You punched him in front of her. You sat there for a week coaching her on how to be better for him and then you saw red the second he opened his mouth and you swung on him like a psycho —

His leg bounced faster.

She's probably with him right now. She's probably at his dorm apologizing for you. She's probably —

The keycard reader beeped.

Matt's head shot up so fast his neck cracked.

The front door swung open.

He was already on his feet — already moving, already opening his mouth, the apology stacked up behind his teeth in a thousand pieces he'd been rearranging for hours. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have — I know you wanted — I'll fix it, I'll go talk to him, I'll tell him I started it, I'll tell him you had nothing to do with —

"{{user}} — hey — okay, before you say anything, just — just let me —"

She was already walking.

Not toward her room. Toward him. Quick, purposeful, her backpack sliding off one shoulder and hitting the floor with a thud halfway across the common room, her keys clattering down on the kitchenette counter as she passed it without looking. Her hair was a little messy. Her eyes were red around the edges like she'd been crying and stopped and started again. Her jaw was set.

Matt's mouth kept moving on autopilot.

"— I know I shouldn't have swung on him, I know, and I've been sitting here all night trying to figure out how to —"

She closed the last three feet between them.

"— and I swear to God, baby, I'll go tell him whatever you want me to tell him, I'll grovel, I'll —"

Her hands came up.

They landed on either side of his face — gentle around the bruise, fingertips careful at his jaw — and Matt's entire monologue died in his throat as she went up on her toes and kissed him.

His brain stopped.

Full system crash. Blue screen. Nothing.

Her lips were soft. A little chapped. Warm. She tasted faintly like the cherry chapstick she always had in her pocket and a little bit like she'd been crying, salt at the corners, and her thumb brushed so carefully over the unbruised side of his face like she was afraid he might break.

It lasted maybe three seconds.

She pulled back.

Settled down off her toes. Her hands stayed on his face. Her eyes searched his — back and forth, back and forth, looking for something. Waiting for something. Her cheeks were flaming.

Matt just stood there.

Mouth slightly open. Hands hovering uselessly at his sides like he'd forgotten what they were for. The apology he'd been rehearsing for four hours straight was gone — wiped clean — replaced by a kind of staticky white noise and the very distant, very stupid thought of oh.

Oh.

She blinked up at him. Her hands started to slip from his face — uncertain, second-guessing, the bravery of whatever the hell she'd just done already starting to drain out of her shoulders —

And that was what snapped him out of it.

His hands came up. Fast. One caught her wrist before it could leave his cheek and pressed it back, firm, holding it there. The other slid into her hair at the base of her skull, fingers threading through, palm cradling the back of her head — and he leaned down and kissed her back.

Properly, this time.

Not careful. Not three-second-soft. He kissed her like he'd been thinking about it for longer than he'd ever admit out loud — like maybe a week ago in his bedroom hadn't been the first time he'd thought about it, like maybe it had been months, like maybe it had been since she ate cereal with a fork in front of him sophomore year and laughed so hard she'd snorted milk. His busted lip stung. He didn't care. The butterfly bandage came half off. He didn't care about that either.

He tilted his head. She made a small sound into his mouth — a tiny, surprised, good sound — and his hand in her hair tightened just slightly, and he walked her backward one step, two, until her back found the wall next to the bathroom door with a soft thump.

He pulled back maybe half an inch. Just enough to breathe. Just enough to look at her.

Her eyes were closed. Her lashes were wet. Her lips were parted and her cheeks were pink and she looked, somehow, exactly the way she'd looked on the floor a week ago in the wreckage of her tissues and tea — and also nothing like that at all.

"...You wanna run that by me one more time?" he murmured. His thumb stroked her jaw. His forehead came down to rest against hers. "Because I'm pretty sure I just had a stroke and I need to make sure I'm not hallucinating."

A month.

A whole goddamn month of the best Matt had ever felt in his entire life.

Kissing her in the kitchenette while she tried to make ramen. Her legs in his lap on the couch during Enchanted — for the fourteenth time, because she'd insisted, and he'd pretended to complain but he'd watched her face the whole time instead of the screen. Her hand slipping into his back pocket when they walked to class. Her falling asleep in his bed three nights in a row, just sleeping, her face mushed into his shoulder and her hair in his mouth and him lying awake at 3 a.m. grinning at the ceiling like an absolute lunatic.

He thought she was over him. Connor. The whole thing. He thought they'd finally — finally — turned a corner. He thought maybe the universe had decided to be nice to him for once.

So today, after his last class, Matt didn't go back to the dorm.

He took the long way. Hit the little flower shop two blocks off campus — the one with the bell on the door that the old lady who owned it had been ringing since 1973 — and stood in front of the cooler like an idiot for fifteen minutes because he didn't know shit about flowers. He ended up with a stupid, oversized bouquet. Pink and white peonies because they were her favorite. Some yellow ones he didn't know the name of because the lady said they "meant friendship turning into something more" and Matt had nearly walked into a display rack on his way out.

Then the gas station. Because {{user}} was a candy gremlin. Sour Patch Kids — the watermelon ones, specifically, because she picked those out of the regular bag and left the rest for him like a psychopath. Reese's Pieces. A bag of those weird Japanese gummies she liked from the international aisle. A bar of that ridiculous expensive chocolate she'd mentioned once, in passing, three weeks ago, that he'd remembered because he remembered everything she said.

He walked back to the dorm with his arms full and a stupid grin on his face that he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he tried. Some guy on the quad nodded at him like nice, dude, and Matt nodded back like yeah. Yeah, I know.

He took the stairs two at a time.

He was bouncing by the time he got to their floor. Practically vibrating. He fumbled the keycard against the reader twice because his hands were full and he was laughing at himself, and he was already thinking about her face — the way her eyes were gonna go big, the way she was gonna do that little squeak she did when she got excited, the way she was gonna throw her arms around his neck and he was gonna lift her off the floor —

The door swung open.

Matt opened his mouth.

"Babe, I got y—"

The words evaporated.

The bouquet was still in his hand. The gas station bag was still hooked around his wrist. The door was still half-open behind him. And on the couch — their couch, the one where she'd fallen asleep on his chest two nights ago, the one where he'd kissed her for forty-five straight minutes last Sunday until both their lips were swollen — was {{user}}.

Kissing Connor.

Connor's hand was on her jaw. Connor's other hand was on her waist. {{user}}'s eyes were closed and her hand was on Connor's chest and the lamp on the side table was on and they were just — they were just doing it, in the middle of the common room, like it was nothing, like the last month had been nothing, like Matt was —

The bouquet slipped.

It hit the floor with a soft, papery crunch. Petals scattered. The gas station bag swung against his thigh and he heard the bag of Sour Patch Kids land with a whump.

{{user}}'s eyes flew open.

She jerked back from Connor so fast she nearly fell off the couch. Her hand shot up to her mouth. Her face went white — actually white, all the color draining out at once — and her eyes went huge and wet and she was already moving, already opening her mouth, already —

"*Matt — *"

He didn't say anything.

He just looked at her. For maybe two full seconds. Looked at her hand still half-up to her mouth and her hair messed up where Connor's fingers had been in it and the way her sweater was a little crooked off her shoulder, and he watched the apology forming on her face in real time, and he —

He turned around.

He walked.

Not ran. Walked. Fast. Past the open door. Down the hallway. The bouquet stayed on the floor where he'd dropped it. The Sour Patch Kids stayed in the bag. Behind him he heard Connor say something — low, stupid, probably smug — and {{user}}'s voice cracking out a get out, just GET OUT — and a door slamming and footsteps and her calling his name again but he didn't stop, he didn't stop, he hit the stairwell and took the stairs three at a time and he was out the front door of the building before he'd taken a full breath.

The sky opened up the second his sneakers hit the sidewalk.

Not a drizzle. Not a build-up. Just — down. Like somebody upstairs had tipped a bucket over. The kind of rain that soaked through a hoodie in fifteen seconds and made the streetlights all blur into halos and turned the parking lot into a mirror. Matt didn't even slow down. He kept walking. Hands shoved deep in his pockets. Jaw locked so tight his teeth hurt. The bruise from the cafeteria fight was still faintly green on his cheekbone and the rain was cold and he didn't care, he didn't care, he didn't —

"MATT!"

He kept walking.

Her footsteps were splashing. She didn't have a jacket on. He could hear it in her voice — that wet, panicked, scrambling thing — and he kept walking.

Her hand caught his elbow.

He yanked it away like she'd burned him.

"Don't."

He didn't turn around. His voice came out lower than he expected. Hoarser.

"Don't touch me. Go back inside. Go back to your fucking boyfriend, {{user}}, go — "

"He's not — Matt, he's not my —

"Fuck off."

It came out flat. He kept walking. The rain was running down the back of his neck. His shirt was already plastered to his shoulders. He could hear her behind him, half-jogging to keep up, and somewhere distantly he registered that she was crying — that hitching, gasping sound she made when she couldn't get a full breath — and he hated that part of him still cared. He hated it. He hated it.

He stopped.

He stopped so suddenly she nearly ran into his back.

He turned around.

The rain was pounding. Her hair was already soaked, stuck to her cheeks and her forehead in dark ropes. Her sweater — the cream-colored one he'd bought her for her birthday — was see-through at the shoulders. Her mascara was running. Her lower lip was shaking. She looked small and wrecked and sorry, so fucking sorry, and a month ago that face would've gutted him.

It still gutted him.

That was the problem.

"A month," he said.

His voice cracked on it.

"A month, {{user}}. A fucking month. Of you in my bed. Of you in my fucking clothes. Of you laughing at my dumb jokes and kissing me in the kitchen and — and falling asleep on my chest, {{user}} — "

His hands came up. Dragged through his soaked hair. He let out this short, ugly, disbelieving laugh that turned halfway through into something that wasn't a laugh at all.

"And I — I really thought — "

His voice broke.

He stopped. Pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. The rain kept coming. When he dropped his hands his eyes were wet and he didn't know how much of it was rain and how much wasn't and he didn't fucking care anymore.

"I really thought you were over him."

A tear slipped. He let it.

"I thought we — fuck, {{user}}, I thought we were — I bought you flowers. I bought you those stupid watermelon Sour Patch ones because you pick them out of the bag like a freak, I remembered the chocolate, I — I was running up the stairs, do you know that? I was running. Like a fucking idiot."

He took a step toward her. Then back. Then forward again. He didn't know what to do with his hands.

"I beat the shit out of him for you. I got suspended for you. I sat on the floor of my room for a week trying to figure out how to teach you how to —" his voice cracked again, "— how to be better for him, {{user}}, because you asked me to, and then you kissed me, and I thought — I thought — "

He shook his head. Hard. Water flew off his hair.

"How could you. How could you run back to him? After everything? After what he said about you? After what he did to you? After — after me, {{user}}, after us, after a fucking month — "

He gestured up at the dorm building behind her. His hand was shaking.

"He was on our couch. He had his hand on your face. And you — you kissed him back, {{user}}, I saw you, don't — don't try to — "

His voice gave out completely.

He stood there. In the rain. Soaked through. Shoulders heaving. Looking at her like he didn't recognize her — like he was trying to and couldn't — and the worst part, the worst part, was that his hands kept twitching at his sides like they wanted to reach for her anyway.

"...How could you do that to me," he said. Quiet now. Wrecked. "How could you do that to me. I would've — {{user}}, I would've done anything. You knew that. You knew."

The rain kept falling.

He didn't move.

He waited.

Matt hadn't said a word to her in twenty-six hours.

Not when she'd come back to the dorm last night with her hair still wet from the rain, mascara halfway down her face, his name on her lips like a question. Not when she'd knocked on his door at midnight. Not at one a.m. when she'd slid a folded piece of notebook paper under it that he'd kicked to the corner without reading. Not this morning when she'd made coffee and set a mug on his desk and stood in the doorway for a full minute waiting for him to look up. He hadn't. He'd kept his eyes on his laptop screen until she'd quietly walked away, and then he'd watched the steam curl off the mug for ten minutes before dumping it in the sink.

Now it was nine p.m.

And Matt was pissed.

His bedroom door was open — not because he wanted it open, but because the smoke detector in his room was a sensitive little bitch and if he shut the door he'd set it off in twenty minutes flat. So the door was cracked. And the room was hazy. Thick. Blue-gray clouds curling up against the ceiling and rolling slow toward the hallway like fog off a lake. He was on his bed, back against the headboard, bong between his thighs, and he'd been ripping it for the better part of two hours. His eyes were red. His mouth tasted like a campfire. His chest felt full of cotton in a way that should've been calming and wasn't, because no matter how much he smoked he could still see her face on that couch every time he blinked.

Her hand on Connor's chest.

Connor's hand on her jaw.

Matt exhaled hard through his nose. Took another rip. Held it. Let it out slow.

Down the hall, the bathroom door clicked shut. The shower started.

He could hear it. He could picture it — her hanging her towel on the hook, kicking her clothes into the corner the way she always did, stepping in. She used that stupid expensive shampoo that smelled like coconut and something else he could never figure out. The whole dorm was gonna smell like her in twenty minutes. His room was gonna smell like her. He was gonna smell like her.

He set the bong down hard enough that the water sloshed.

"Fuck this."

He swung his legs off the bed. Stood up. The room tilted, just slightly, in that lazy stoned way, and he steadied himself with one hand on the dresser. His socks hit the carpet. He padded out of his room, down the little hallway, into the kitchenette.

He told himself: one drink. One. Just to take the edge off. Just so I can sleep.

The handle of cheap vodka under the sink had been there since the start of the semester. He grabbed it. Grabbed a red Solo cup off the stack on the counter because washing a glass felt like too much. Poured.

That was the first one.

The second one was because the first one didn't do shit.

The third one was because he could hear her humming in the shower — humming, like nothing was wrong, like she hadn't ripped his fucking heart out twenty-six hours ago — and the sound of it made something hot and ugly twist behind his ribs.

The fourth one he didn't really count. That's when counting stopped being a thing.

By the time the shower shut off, Matt was back on his bed. Bong abandoned on the floor. Solo cup balanced on his chest. Phone held up over his face with both hands, screen glow lighting up the smoke around him, and he was laughing. Wheezing, actually. Some TikTok of a guy getting hit in the nuts with a frisbee, and Matt's whole body was shaking with it, and the laugh had that loose, sloppy edge to it that meant he was gone. Cooked. Stoned and drunk and in a mood, and the combination was — well. It was a combination.

The bathroom door opened. Steam rolled out.

He didn't look up.

He heard her bare feet on the carpet. Heard her bedroom door open. Heard the rustle of her getting changed — pajamas, probably, those shorts she stole from him and that oversized t-shirt that was so thin it was basically translucent — and he kept his eyes locked on his phone like his life depended on it. Scrolled. Laughed again, quieter this time, more performative. I'm fine. Look how fine I am. I'm having a great time.

Her door opened again.

Footsteps. Soft. Hesitant.

She appeared in his doorway. He saw her in his peripheral vision and refused to turn his head. Hair damp. That t-shirt. Arms crossed over her stomach the way she did when she was nervous.

She stood there.

He scrolled.

She stepped in. Slowly. The way you'd approach a dog you weren't sure about. She crossed the room. Sat down on the edge of his bed — careful, light, leaving space — and Matt's whole body went rigid.

"Leeeeave me aloneeee."

It came out sing-song. Slurred at the edges. He didn't look up from his phone. His thumb kept scrolling but he wasn't seeing anything anymore.

She flinched. He felt it more than saw it — the mattress shifted as she pulled back, scooted toward the foot of the bed, putting space between them again. Didn't leave, though. Just — moved.

Matt sighed.

A long, heavy, fuck my life kind of sigh. He locked his phone. Tossed it onto the pillow next to him. Dragged both hands up through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead, holding it there for a second with his eyes closed before letting it flop back down. His head rolled to the side on the pillow. He finally — finally — looked at her.

Bad idea.

She looked good. Of course she did. Hair wet and curling at the ends. Cheeks still pink from the hot water. That t-shirt. Bare legs tucked up under her. Eyes huge and careful and sorry, watching him like he might shatter.

His stomach did something stupid.

He hated her. He hated her. He wanted to —

She opened her mouth.

And then she asked it.

That question. The one you should never ask a drunk person. Especially a drunk person who is upset with you. Especially a drunk person who is upset with you specifically and has been chain-smoking and drinking warm vodka for two hours and is currently looking at you in a thin t-shirt with wet hair.

It hung in the air for maybe half a second.

Matt's eyes — glassy, red, slow — sharpened.

He moved.

He didn't even feel himself decide to. One second he was slouched against the headboard and the next his hand was planted next to her hip, his other hand catching her shoulder, and he was over her, pressing her back into the mattress in one slow, deliberate motion. Her back hit the comforter. Her hair fanned out. Her hands came up — instinct — and landed flat against his chest, and he could feel her heart hammering through her t-shirt, or maybe that was his, he couldn't tell anymore.

He braced himself on his forearms. One on either side of her head. Caged her in.

His hair fell forward. He was close enough that she could probably smell the vodka on his breath, the weed in his hoodie, the cheap soap he'd used this morning before he'd remembered to be miserable.

He stared down at her.

Eyes flicking. Forehead. Eyes. Mouth. Eyes. That little freckle right under her left eye that he'd kissed maybe a hundred times in the last month. The wet ends of her hair against his pillow. Her lips, parted, breath catching.

His jaw worked.

"...You don't get to ask me that."

His voice was low. Rough. Slurred at the edges but focused in a way that should've worried both of them.

"You don't get to come in here, in that shirt, with your hair all — " he gestured loosely at her head, " — and ask me that. After yesterday. You don't get to do that, {{user}}."

He shifted his weight. His knee pressed into the mattress between her legs without quite touching her. His thumb, on the hand braced by her head, brushed once against her hairline. Tucked a wet strand back. He watched himself do it like he was watching someone else's hand move.

"You're really — " a short, breathy laugh, no humor in it, " — you're really gonna look at me like that. And ask me that. Right now."

His head dipped. Not all the way. Just enough that his nose almost brushed hers. His eyes were half-closed. Bloodshot. Locked on her mouth.

"...Tell me to get off you."

It came out almost a whisper.

"Tell me to get off you, {{user}}. Right now. And I will. I'll get up, I'll go sleep on the fucking couch, I won't — " he swallowed hard, "— I won't even look at you again. Just say it."

His arms were shaking. Not from the weight. From holding himself back.

"...Say it."