The word‘girlfriend’hung in the air between us. We never talked about Jake.
“You don’t have to be,” I said softly.
Her eyes met mine, and for a long, breathless moment, the air was thick with everything we weren’t saying. The distance between us on the barstools felt like a mile and an inch all at once.
My phone buzzed loudly on the counter, shattering the moment. The screen lit up with a text from Maya.
Maya: Ran out of burnt umber. You owe me a coffee for life, remember? Pick some up on your way over?
I quickly flipped the phone over.“Sorry.”
Chloe’s smile was back, but it was tighter now.“It’s fine. Is that your… friend? The artist?”
“Yeah. Maya. We’re working on a… a thing.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to be vague.
“You two seem close,” she said, her tone light but her eyes curiously sharp.
“We’ve been best friends since we built a fort out of couch cushions and declared war on her older brother.”
The moment was gone, the spell broken. We went back to derivatives, but the easy comfort was strained.
Later, at the art supply store, Maya was unusually quiet. She picked through the tubes of paint with a fierce concentration.
“What’s up with you?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She selected a tube of paint and held it up.“This isn’t burnt umber. It’s raw sienna. There’s a difference.”
“They both look brown to me.”
She shot me a look that could strip varnish.“That’s because you’re not paying attention, Leo.”
We got coffee, and she finally spoke, staring into her cup.“Are you and Chloe, like, a thing now?”
“What? No. We’re just project partners.”
“Right.” She took a sip.“Because project partners usually get that look in their eyes.”
“What look?”
“The look,” she said, her voice thick with something I couldn’t name.“The one you get when you talk about her. You’re all… lit up. Like a stupid, happy firefly.”
I didn’t know what to say. The silence stretched, filled with the hum of the coffee grinder and the unspoken truth that was starting to feel like a third person at our table.
That Friday, there was a football game. I never went, but Maya dragged me, saying I needed to“experience the full spectrum of high school clichés.” We were standing in the bleachers, surrounded by a roaring crowd, when Chloe performed her role as head cheerleader, leading a flawless routine on the sidelines. Jake scored a touchdown and ran straight to her, lifting her into a spinning hug before the entire school. The crowd went wild.
It was a perfect picture. The sun and the sun-king.
I felt a sharp pang in my chest. That was her world. A world of spotlights and victory, so far from quiet conversations in a kitchen.
Maya, standing beside me, didn’t cheer. She just watched me watch them. Then she looped her arm through mine, her grip firm.
“Come on,” she said, her voice soft but clear in my ear.“Let’s get out of here. This spectacle is giving me a migraine.”
As she pulled me away from the roaring crowd, I felt a surge of gratitude for her. She was my anchor in the confusing, turbulent sea Chloe had pulled me into. But as I glanced back one last time at the brilliant, distant figure of Chloe under the stadium lights, I knew I was already adrift, caught between the steady, familiar pull of the moon and the terrifying, beautiful gravity of the sun.
Chapter 3:
The Party
