you okay?
Then I delete them. I stare at the empty cursor like it’s a dare. Because if I’m right, asking anything is dangerous. If I’m wrong, asking anything is still dangerous. Either way, the truth is the same:
I’m being pulled.
Toward the quiet she carries. Toward the way she looks on the ice—like she belongs to herself. Toward the version of me that wants to reach.
And away from Kai’s trust. Away from simplicity. Away from the rules I’ve lived by these last months.
I lock my phone, setting it face down, like that fixes anything.
And I’m not sure what scares me more?—
That sheisHarlow Mercer…or that a part of me is hoping she is.
16
HARLOW
Friday hits like my nervous system never got the memo that the week is over. Midterms are no joke, and sadly, I don’t think I was well prepared.
My body is technically fine. My heart rate is normal. It’s not as if I’m actively dying.
But my brain is awake in that sharp, vigilant way—like it’s waiting for someone to yell my name from across a room again, like it’s braced for the nextAre you okay?that isn’t really a question so much as a diagnosis.
I make it through the morning on autopilot.
Shower. Clothes. Backpack. Walk.
I sit through a lecture and take notes I can barely remember writing. I laugh once at something the professor says and immediately wonder if it was too loud, too weird, too noticeable. I saysorryto someone who bumps into me, even though it was their shoulder that hit mine, and then I hate myself for apologizing for existing.
By the time my last class ends, my brain is a clenched fist.
A tight, tight fist.
I should go back to my dorm and rot for the weekend.
Instead, I find myself walking toward the student bookstore because my syllabus has been glaring at me all week about a workbook I still haven’t bought.
I tell myself it’s responsible.
My therapist would call it exposure, but my brain calls it stupid.
Rows of shelves full of color-coded textbooks and PCU merchandise that make my eyes feel like they’re buzzing.
I stop just inside the entrance and immediately regret this decision.
There are too many people. Too many choices. Too many things I’m supposed to know how to do without my brain turning it into a game of survival.
I take a breath and scan for the section sign.
ACADEMICS→ all the way in the back, of course.
I weave through a group of girls holding hoodies and laughing, keep my eyes forward, and make it to the textbook section.
Workbooks, study guides, spiral-bound nightmares.
I find the title I need and pull it off the shelf—only to realize there are two versions. Same cover. Same authors. Different editions.
