She holds my gaze, letting the words settle. “I’m just saying it’s there.”
Before I can respond, a chair shifts beside me.
Kieran sits down, moving it slightly away from mine without thinking.
The same small gap.
“What did I miss?” he asks.
Maeve answers easily. “Myra being annoying.”
He snorts softly. “Shocking.”
I keep my eyes on my plate. On the placemat. The edge of my fork. The curve of my napkin. Anywhere but him.
Nothing about him has changed. But everything feels different.
Dinner moves on.
Voices rise and fall around me. Plates pass. Someone argues about the cake. I respond when I’m spoken to. I nod. I manage a faint smile at one of Maeve’s dad’s jokes.
But I don’t look at him.
Not once.
*****
I don’t sleep much that night.
I drift in and out, never fully under. Every time I close my eyes, the same thought rises back up—unfinished, unresolved, circling. It sits there in the dark, pressing at me, asking to be named. I turn it over again and again, trying to smooth it down, trying to return it to what it was before Myra said it out loud.
Before it had edges. Before it meant anything. But it won’t go back.
By morning, I’m exhausted in a way sleep wouldn’t have fixed anyway. I know I can’t carry it another day, can’t sit beside him and pretend nothing shifted.
So when our break starts, I don’t give myself time to hesitate. Kieran finds me standing. He’s just about to sit when I speak. “Do you have feelings for me?”
It comes out too fast. Too direct. It cuts straight through everything.
He freezes, mid-motion. One hand still on the back of the chair, his body caught between standing and sitting. Then he blinks once, slowly. He lets out a short, surprised breath that almost sounds like a laugh.
“Oh,” he says. “Wow. Okay.” He straightens, running a hand through his hair, the gesture restless, almost flustered. “You could’ve given the guy some warning, you know.”
His voice is light. But I see the flicker beneath it. His hand trembles, just slightly, before he shoves it into his pocket.
I don’t smile.
He notices. The shift in him is immediate. The lightness drops. His focus sharpens, all of his attention landing on me.
“Yes.” His gaze doesn’t leave mine. There’s no embarrassment in it, no attempt to hide behind humor this time. Just openness. Direct. “I do.”
I knew it was coming. Still, believing it feels impossible. I nod. Too fast. Too eager. As if nodding hard enough can hold everything together. “Okay.” I swallow. Say it again. “Okay.”
Panic floods my chest. Fast. Icy. It has nothing to do with him or his answer. I know what comes after this: the expectation, the demand, the withdrawal. The withdrawal if I fail to give the correct reply. If I fail to feel the correct feeling.
I can already feel the loss of him, and it terrifies me.
BecauseI like him.
