"You've been holding that shoe for like two minutes."
I dropped it. Lay back on the bed and put my arm over my eyes.
The room was quiet except for Noah's keyboard. Click of keys. The hum of the mini-fridge. Outside, someone was laughing in the hallway, the sound bouncing off concrete walls. It faded.
"How was dinner with Emily?" Noah asked.
My chest went tight. "Fine."
"Okay."
He kept typing. I stared at the ceiling through the crook of my elbow.
The relief was still there. That was the worst part. I'd felt it the second she stopped—this wave crashing through my whole body. She didn't want to have sex. And it was a relief.
What kind of person feels relieved about that?
Noah's typing stopped.
"Alright dude. Out with it."
I raised my head. "Out with what?"
"Whatever the heck happened at dinner." He spun around in his chair. Dark eyes sharp, patient, the way they always were when he was waiting for me to stop bullshitting.
"Nothing. It was fine—"
"Don't start with the repression thing. Best friend, remember?"
I almost smiled, because he was right. He was my best friend and the fact that I hadn't told him any of this—hadn't even come close—sat in my chest like something rotten.
"It's not just dinner," I said.
"Okay."
"It's—" I sat up. Elbows on my knees. Stared at the floor—the worn carpet, Noah's sneakers kicked off by his desk, a granola bar wrapper. "It's been building for a while."
"I know," Noah said.
I looked at him.
"I've been watching you lose your mind for weeks," he said. "I've been waiting."
Something about that made it harder to hold together. That he'd just been sitting here. Patient. Not pushing. Just waiting for me to be ready.
"Alex and I hooked up," I said.
The words came out flat. Stripped. Like ripping off a bandage—fast, no buildup, just the ugly truth underneath.
"First in the closet, during the break-in. Then his dorm room, the next Saturday." I stopped. Swallowed. "And then the other day we kissed in the boathouse. After everyone had left."
Silence.
Noah didn't react. Didn't move. Just let it land.
"I can't control any of it," I said. My voice was starting to come apart at the edges. "Every time I'm near him I just—I can't. I don't know how to be in the same room and not—" I stopped. Pressed my hands hard against my knees. "I've tried. I've been trying for almost two years to not feel this and it doesn't work. Nothing works."
Noah was quiet for a moment. Then, carefully: "Almost two years?"
