The quad was busy for a Wednesday afternoon—students sprawled on the manicured lawn, others walking between classes with that purposeful Kingswell stride.
“Alex! Wait up!”
I turned. Chelsea from my Pre-Law seminar was jogging toward me.
“Hey,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Did you finish the brief for Morrison?” She fell into step beside me, breathless. “I’ve been working on it all week and I’m still not sure I have the analysis right.”
My stomach dropped.
The brief for the perjury case analysis was due tomorrow at 9 AM.
I’d completely forgotten.
“Yeah, it’s been tough. Still working through it,” I said.
“Oh thank god.” She laughed, relieved. “I was worried I was the only one struggling with it. The precedent cases are so dense.”
“They are,” I agreed, having no idea what she was talking about.
“Are you heading to the library?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to study together later? We could compare notes—”
“I’d love to, but I have a meeting with my advisor in an hour.” The lie came too easily. “Another time?”
“Sure. Good luck!”
She split off and I kept walking, my jaw tight.
Another deadline I’d forgotten. Another thing I was supposed to be on top of but wasn’t.
Perfect Alex Harrington didn’t forget assignments. Perfect Alex Harrington won all of his races. Perfect Alex Harrington would have taken the opportunity to study with Chelsea and tell the guys that I slept with her.
But no, that wasn’t me—that mask was falling apart.
I pulled out my phone as I walked, checked my calendar just to confirm what I already knew.
Yup. Tomorrow, 9 AM. Pre-Law Seminar brief due.
I shoved my phone back in my pocket and kept walking.
That’s when I saw him.
Marcus was coming out of the student center, phone in one hand, coffee in the other. He hadn’t seen me yet—too focused on his screen.
I could’ve turned and gone a different direction to avoid this entirely. But Derek’s words echoed in my head.One honest thing at a time.
And I’d decided yesterday what that one honest thing would be, so I kept walking straight toward him. Marcus looked up and our eyes met. For a second, neither of us moved. Students flowed around us like water around stones, but we were frozen there on the pathway.
Then Marcus smiled. That easy, familiar smile he’d given me a thousand times before.
“Hey, man. Where’ve you been? You’ve been like, MIA since the party.”
The old Alex would have smiled back and would have made some joke about being busy with practice. He would have smoothed everything over and pretended nothing was wrong.
