Some things—especially us—were made to bleed through.
Late afternoon autumn light filtered through the blinds when I trudged in from my first lecture, textbooks in one hand, half-empty coffee tumbler in the other, ready to collapse on my side of the room. Instead, I froze.
My navy windbreaker hung over Tru’s desk chair. It wasn't just crossing the line; it was a full-on invasion.
I dropped my books with a thud. “What the hell?”
Tru looked up from his sketchpad, calm as if I hadn’t just walked in on a crime scene. “I needed somewhere to hang it.”
After he’dwornit? I stalked over and yanked the jacket free. “Rule number one, don’t touch my clothes.”
He blinked, unbothered. “They weren’t in your closet.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I snapped, holding the jacket out like it was contagious. “This is my side.”
He took the jacket, folded it like some damn peace offering, and placed it on his bed. “Fine.”
My eyes caught the next offense, his laundry basket, halfway into my territory. I jabbed a finger at it. “And that?”
“It was the only spot,” he said quietly. “You were gone.”
“Right,” I muttered, heat rising in my neck. “Because whenever I’m not around, this place turns into your personal storage locker.”
He met my glare evenly. “You said I could use half the room.”
“I meant half,” I snapped. “Not take over the whole fucking space.”
He shrugged, eyes dipping for just a second. “Same difference.”
My pulse kicked up, frustration clawing at the edges of my chest. “Look, I never wanted you here. Not like this.”
That got him. Tru’s expression flickered, quick and sharp, before he schooled it flat. His gaze dropped to the rule list I’d tossed on my desk. “Then why keep me?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Because it’s not up to me.”
I shoved past him and slammed the door so hard the frame rattled.
Behind me, I heard him exhale—quiet, but it cut.
I sank onto my bed, my pulse still hammering. The border between “his” and “mine” felt like the only thing holding the walls up inside my head. The only thing I still had control over.
In the silence that followed, every sound was too loud—the hum of the mini-fridge, the creak of his chair, the faint scratch of pencil on paper again, like nothing had happened. I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself I didn’t want him here. Not really.
But my eyes drifted anyway—to the folded windbreaker now sitting at the edge ofhisbed. Neat. Respectful.
Like it belonged there.
Likehedid.
I clenched my fists until my nails left half-moons in my palms.
Rules kept things clean. Kept me sane. Rules were the walls between what I could admit and what I couldn’t.
But looking at my jacket on Tru’s bed, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to throw it out the window or pull it over my head and breathe him in.
Maybe rules didn’t just cage freedom. Maybe they kept me from admitting what I was really a prisoner of.
That night, I lay in my cramped bed, staring at the ceiling fan spinning in lazy circles. I wished the hum could drown out the noise in my head. The itch under my skin. The memory of him standing in the rain at the graduation party, like the world had washed him clean and left me dirty.
