Chapter 17
Declan
Idothiseverynight now.
The game. The practice. The film. The silence.
And then, the truck.
It’s Saturday night. The team is off—bye week. No game, no travel, just a blank space on the schedule where adrenaline usually goes. Most of the guys are downtown, drowning the downtime in cheap pitchers atThe Boxor chasing girls at the frat houses.
I’m parked on a side road near the main quad, tucked into the deep shadow where a streetlamp’s been dead since fall.
It’s been two nights since the country club. Two nights since she watched another woman’s mouth on mine while cameras flashed and my father nodded like he’d just closed a deal. Twonights since I watched her walk across that parking lot alone and did nothing but sit there and choke on my own excuses.
We haven’t spoken.
She hasn’t texted anything but what I told her to.
In.
One word, every night, after I know she’s back in her dorm. No emojis. No extra letters. Proof of life, nothing more.
My phone is facedown on the passenger seat now, screen dark. I don’t pick it up. If I scroll back, I’ll only see how lopsided the thread is—me, longer messages; her, shortest possible replies. Me trying to knit some kind of connection out of silence. Her giving me just enough so I can’t tell myself to let go.
I kill the engine. Noise drops out of the cab, leaving just the faint thrum of the arena in the distance—a low industrial heartbeat I’ve started to match my breathing to. My hands rest on the wheel, fingers at ten and two. The tape on my knuckles glows pale in the spill of a far-off security light.
I tell myself this is about patterns.
Order is safety. Patterns mean everyone gets home.
She leaves the main library around 11:40 most nights. Crosses the quad. Hits the same cracked section of pavement by the maintenance building. Passes the hedge line. Cuts through the stretch with the dead lamp. Four minutes from door to dorm if she’s not stopped.
If I know the variables, I can control the outcome. That’s the lie I hold between my teeth like a mouthguard.
The reality is uglier.
This is penance.
For sitting in that country club parking lot and watching her flinch from my headlights instead of getting out and going after her. For letting her see me standing there while someone else claimed me.
She walks. I watch. It’s the only way I know she’s still here, on this campus, breathing the same cold air, not disappearing into some black hole I didn’t see coming.
11:37. 11:41.
Students filter out of the library doors, blinking into the dark. Groups peel off toward different dorms, their laughter thin and exhausted. A couple argues quietly by the bike rack. A girl shoves a guy’s shoulder with a smile. Normal.
And then her.
I know her silhouette instantly: the line of her shoulders under a too-thin coat, the way she holds her bag tight against her side, chin down, steps quick but measured. Not running. Never running. Running draws attention. She moves like she has a target painted between her shoulder blades and refuses to speed up to prove it.
Talia.
My chest loosens a fraction when I see her. Pattern intact. Tonight, at least.
She starts down the path. Same route as always. Crosswalk. Hedge. Maintenance building. Dead lamp.
I should start the engine. I should leave. She’s here. She’s moving. She’s fine.
