Everything else was already out of my hands.
Chapter 20: Alex
The diner was nearly empty at eleven at night on a Saturday. I guess the late night rush hadn't started yet.
Just us in the back booth, the waitress doing a crossword behind the counter, and an old man at the far end nursing a cup of coffee.
I hadn't gone home after the mixer. Couldn't face my dorm room. Couldn't face the silence and the replay of Emily's face and the taste of Liam still on my mouth. So I'd texted Ethan from the parking lot, and he'd saidBluebird. Ten minutes.
He was already in our booth when I got there. Two coffees. Pancakes ordered without asking.
"So," he said, fork halfway to his mouth. "Emily saw you."
I nodded. Cut into my pancakes—terrible as always, dense and somehow both overcooked and undercooked. The consistency of a hockey puck that had been left in the rain.
"Yeah," I said. "She saw us."
"Kissing."
"Kissing."
Ethan set his fork down. "Okay. How do you feel?"
I looked up at him. "Kind of—relieved? That it's out… I'm out."
"Look at you." He leaned back. "One public kiss and suddenly you're evolving."
"It doesn't feel like evolving. It feels like I destroyed someone's life."
"You didn't destroy her life. You hurt her. There's a difference."
"Well… that isn't a good thing either."
"Better than Liam lying to her… she deserved honesty a long time ago. You both did."
We sat there for a second. The diner sounds around us—dishes clanking in the back, the hum of the old refrigerator case, the waitress's pen scratching at her crossword.
"I've never talked about this," I said finally. "With anyone. Like—actually talked about it."
"About Liam?"
"Aboutguys." The word felt strange in my mouth. Not wrong—just unfamiliar. Like speaking a language I'd always understood but never been allowed to use. "About wanting—any of it."
Ethan's expression softened. Not pity. Something closer to patience—the kind that came from watching someone finally arrive at a door he'd been holding open for… years.
"Well," he said, "we've got terrible coffee, pancakes, and nowhere to be. Go."
"I don't even know where to start."
"Start with him." He took a bite of pancakes. "When did you know?"
"Summer before freshman year at the lake." I picked up my coffee—lukewarm, slightly burnt, perfect.
Ethan's eye's widened. "I knew it. I knew there was more history than just college. So what happened?"
"My dad made me work at the marina. And Liam was there. The first time I met him it was—" I stopped. Searched for the word. "Electric. I couldn't stop thinking about him."
"What was it like?" Ethan asked. "Being around him and realizing you wanted him?"
