But I was already moving.
I jogged straight past her, the slap of my shoes echoing down the hallway. I barely registered the cheap dorm carpeting, the smell of popcorn and floor cleaner, the half-closed doors leaking music and laughter. My chest heaved, not from the run, but from the mess of adrenaline still coiled under my skin.
I didn’t stop until I was outside her door.
My hand lifted automatically, ready to knock…and then I froze.
What the hell was I doing?
It hit me like a helmet to the gut. I knew her room number. I shouldn’t know that.
Any normal girl would think it was creepy as hell if some guy showed up outside her dorm when she’d never told him where she lived.
Fuck.
I lowered my hand slowly, the wood of the door inches from my knuckles.
“Think, Adler,” I muttered under my breath, but the words came out rough, useless. I didn’t have a good excuse, no explanation that didn’t make me sound insane.
I leaned in, pressing my ear to the door. There was noise—movement, maybe—but not crying. Thank fuck.
Still, the tension in my shoulders refused to ease.
“You can’t scare her off,” I whispered to myself.
Because then I’d have to do something crazy to keep her with me…and our house didn’t have a basement like Parker’s.
My fingers flexed against the doorframe, reluctant to let go. Finally, I dragged myself back a step, then another, until the door blurred into the rest of the hallway.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I’d fix this.
I’d “run into her” outside her dorm, play it casual, make her smile again.
And this time, she wasn’t running from me.
Not ever again.
OPHELIA
The door clicked shut behind me, and I just stood there for a second, forehead pressed to the cool wood, lungs fighting to keep up. The quiet of my room hit like an aftershock—too still, too soft after everything that had just happened.
My heart wouldn’t slow down. It thudded against my ribs, wild and uneven, like it didn’t know how to stop chasing him.
“You’re an idiot,” I muttered, shoving both hands into my hair.
I’d run. Again.
He’d said the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me, and I’d bolted like the building was on fire.
But the second Garrett had looked at me like that—like he’d just solved a puzzle—I’d panicked.
Because I was pretty sure he’dseenme before.
Not just anywhere. That last time I’d parked near the field during practice, watching Matty run drills like I always did, Garrett had walked right by my car. He hadn’t looked in—at least I didn’t think he had—but the window had been cracked, and every time I saw him since, a little jolt of terror hit.
What if he remembered? What if he told Matty?
