Confusing. Unavailable. And maybe, always.
Sometimes the only thing you’re certain of is who makes you uncertain. And for me, right now, that’s Holden.
He dismantles every belief I have—except for the Theory of Evolution, and, well… I can’t afford to lose that one. Who knows what he’s capable of at this point.
He overanalyzes. I under-ask. Together, we make a spectacular mess of almosts.
Crush or no crush, hands brushing or not, that impossible scent of pine and rain or absolutely nothing at all—I need to get a grip. I need to stop letting this spiral like it’s inevitable, like it’s out of my hands.
Which is why I’m currently standing in front of his office door, hand raised and curled into a fist, suspended mid-air like a loading icon.
I walked here without a plan. No practiced speech, no clever opening line. No idea how to fix something that technically isn’t broken. No idea how to end something that technically never started.
All I know is this: my thoughts are a trainwreck on the verge of impact. And he’s the only one standing on the tracks.
Upon my knuckles landing on the heavy wooden door, his voice filters through, muffled but unmistakable. “Come in.”
This time, I checked his office hours. I knew he’d be here.
I step inside and close the door quietly behind me. I don’t move further than that—don’t need to. I’m not planning on staying long.
He doesn’t look up at first, eyes still on the stack of papers in front of him, red pen tapping lightly against the margin of one. When I don’t speak, he flicks his gaze up, does a double take—and drops the pen. “Coralie?”
I don’t answer. Unless there’s a secret twin of mine roaming the halls, he knows exactly who I am.
He frowns. “Why are you soaked?”
That question shouldn’t send a current through my thoughts. It still does.
I glance down at the small puddle forming around my shoes. “That tends to happen when it’s raining,” I say, flatly. I’m not here to be cute.
“In the 1300s, they invented umbrellas,” he says, deadpan. “I’m almost certain you can buy one in Hawai’i.”
Of coursehewould know the exact century of the umbrella’s invention. And of course he’d bring it up in a moment like this.
I want to tell him screw umbrellas—and while we’re at it, screw his brain and his forearms and the way his shirt sleeves are pushed up just enough to derail my entire frontal lobe. Maybe I should’ve stayed on the other side of the door and yelled my thoughts at him from there.
“If you’re here for thesis questions,” he says, nodding toward the adjoining door, “Dr. Kymbert’s around.”
“I’m not here for her.”
His eyes cut back to me.
“I came to see you.”
Something flickers—quickly—across his face, before it folds back into neutrality. “Oh?”
I take a single step forward. His eyes track the movement, all the way from my soaked sneakers to the drops of rain clinging to my eyelashes.
“Is this about Damon?”
“No.”
He exhales, leans back a little. “Coralie, if this isn’t about school, then I think?—”
“Two people will never agree on everything.”
That shuts him up. He blinks. “Sorry?”
