Warren
you wanna come over tonight? after the game?
I stare at the message for a second, debating whether to hit Send. Things felt ... right between us last night. Easy. Like maybe we were stillusunderneath all the wreckage. But maybe it was just that—one night. One good thing before she panics and runs again.
I send it anyway, and my phone buzzes less than a minute later.
Quinn
Busy, sorry! Talk later.
I frown. The message feels off—too neat, too automatic. Like one of those programmed responses you hit when you’re driving or stuck in a meeting. What a fucking cop-out.
I toss my phone back onto the armrest and lean back against the couch, tension crawling under my skin.
Is she gonna do what she always does? Pull away, build her walls back up, decide that whatever this thing is between us isn’t worth the mess?
Maybe I should’ve kept my distance. Maybe I’m a fool for thinking we could patch this up so easily. I take another swig of beer, barely tasting it.
A few minutes later, Liam comes back, still grinning like Birdie just told him the meaning of life.
“She good?” I ask gruffly.
“Yeah. I told her about your little chain.” He flops back onto the couch, grabs a wing, and waggles his eyebrows. “She thinks it’s cute.”
“Glad my love life’s keeping you both entertained.”
The rest of the game blurs by, the tension coiling tight in my chest. I can’t focus. Not on the game, not on the wings, not on the occasional joke Liam throws out about the commentators. All I can think about is Quinn and that forced, too-perfect brush-off.
Busy, sorry! Talk later.
Like she’s already halfway out the door. Like I should’ve known better than to believe things could be simple.
I sink deeper into the couch, jaw tight, stomach sour.
Yeah. I should’ve fucking known better.
28
QUINN
Monday feels... normal. Good, even. Like everything is back to business as usual. I’m chatting with Professor Lang before class, casually leaning against the desk while she thumbs through her notes.
“You ready for this round of eager young minds? Or are you planning to fake your own death by mid-semester?”
I grin. “I think I can hold off until fall break.”
Lang’s sharp sense of humor always makes me laugh. She’s strict but fair, the kind of professor who demands a lot without making her students miserable in the process. She’s been in my corner since I joined her class as a freshman—pushing me, challenging me, even encouraging me to apply for journal submissions and writing contests.
She suggested The Silverleaf Emerging Voices Prize, the national debut fiction contest I applied for freshman year. I don’t blame her for what I did to cover the three-hundred-dollar submission fee, obviously. But it still lingers.
I gambled everything for it. Didn’t even win the damn thing, either. Just torched my relationship and wrecked myself over something that didn’t even pan out.
I wasn’t good enough. Not for Silverleaf, not for Warren.
“Today should be good,” she says, glancing toward the door as a few students start filing in. “It’s one of my favorite topics.”
“Symbolism?”
