I glance at her and catch the thoughtful look spreading across her face.
But the thought of leaving her and Katie - of leaving this beautiful campus, the frozen lake just beyond the trees, the life I’ve only just started building here - doesn’t make me feel excited.
It feels heavy instead.
And all I want, suddenly, is to forget he ever suggested it.
5
LEONORA
It feels too quiet after Markus leaves.
I wave like an idiot until he disappears through security, even though he can’t see me anymore, then drive back to campus with that empty feeling that always follows when he leaves. The house used to feel like that after he left for away games when we were younger, especially after Dad passed.
When I get back to the dorm, I decide to distract myself with study.
Which is how I end up lying on my bed with my sports science anatomy textbook spread open in front of me.
The diagrams stare back at me.
Muscle groups. Tendons. Labels everywhere.
It should be interesting - I’m sure the job will be.
But the process of learning it all?
Painfully dull.
I drag a highlighter across a paragraph about ligaments and immediately realize I’ve absorbed absolutely none of it.
God, this is boring.
A knock on the door interrupts my suffering.
Willow bursts in without waiting. “Snack break!” she announces.
Katie appears behind her carrying a few bags of crisps like a rescuer arriving with supplies.
Within seconds we’re sprawled across my bed in a chaotic pile of blankets, textbooks shoved aside while the crisps are passed around.
This is the part of college I actually like.
“Your brother,” Willow says dreamily, “is ridiculously hot.”
I throw a crisp at her. “Stop.”
She dodges it. “No seriously. Like unfairly attractive.”
“Willow.”
“I’m just saying-”
I grab another crisp and fling it. “I do not want to hear that about my brother.”
Katie snorts into her drink.
Willow laughs but then her expression shifts slightly. “Okay fine,” she says, crunching a crisp thoughtfully. “But he was right about one thing.”
