The name lands between us like a dropped glass.
His face fractures.
“Because that’s the part you don’t want to see about yourself,” I say, voice steady now. “You didn’t listen. You didn’t ask. You decided.”
I gesture vaguely to the quad. The crowd. The noise.
“You’re different men,” I say. “But the entitlement looks the same from where I’m standing.”
His mouth opens. Closes.
I don’t wait for him to speak.
“Goodbye, Kieran.”
Movement in my peripheral vision—Theo pushing through the crowd, wire-rim glasses askew, face dark with an anger I’ve never seen on him.
“Wren.” His voice cuts through, sage-green, honest, the only thing that sounds right. “I saw the posts. Are you?—”
His eyes land on Kieran.
Everything in his expression hardens.
“You.” The word is flat. Cold. “Youfuckingasshole.”
“Theo, don’t, he’s not w—” I start, but it’s too late.
His fist connects with Kieran’s face—a sound like a branch snapping. Kieran staggers, blood blooming fresh at his already split lip.
“Don’t you ever,” Theo says, voice shaking with rage, “come near my friend again.”
Kieran doesn’t hit back. Doesn’t even raise his hands.Just stands there, bleeding, taking what he thinks he deserves.
I’m already walking away. Theo catches up, hand gentle on my elbow. “Hey. Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”
Behind us, Kieran’s voice breaks once—my name, small against the noise.
I don’t turn.
If I do, gravity wins. If I look back, I’ll see him bleeding from Theo’s punch, and some traitorous part of me will want to go back. Will want to believe his desperate promises, his claims that it became real, his insistence that he didn’t mean for this to happen.
But intention doesn’t erase action.
And first times don’t come back.
Theo walksme across campus in silence. Doesn’t try to fill it with platitudes or questions. At my dorm, I press my palm to the brick wall and hold still while my stomach claws. It passes in slow shocks. Breathe in. Breathe out.
His hand stays warm at my shoulder. “You’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs. “You hear me?”
I nod because I can’t speak.
“You need me to…come up? Stay with you?”
I shake my head.
“Okay.” He doesn’t move. “I’m texting Aubrey. I’m stopping by later. Nonnegotiable.”
Another nod.
