Harper wraps her hands around her water bottle and looks at me directly. “So. Miles.”
“Yeah.” I look at the sky, buying myself a moment. “This is going to be hard to hear.”
“I kind of figured.” Her voice is steady, but I can see thetension in her shoulders. “He’s been different since that party. Distant. And when I mentioned seeing you there, he got defensive in a way that made me wonder...”
She trails off, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
“Harper,” I say quietly, “Miles and I have a history. More than just being study partners and friends.”
Her face doesn’t change, but something shifts in her eyes. “What kind of history?”
“Last summer, when you were abroad, he told me you two were in an open relationship. He said you were keeping things casual until you got back, that he wanted to figure things out properly in person rather than over text.” The words taste like acid, but I force them out. “We... we were involved. For about three months.”
Harper sets down her water bottle carefully. “Involved how?”
“We slept together. Regularly. He said...” I swallow hard. “He said he couldn’t wait to be with me properly once he sorted things out with you.”
The silence stretches between us like a chasm. Harper stares at her feet, processing, and I watch her face go through a series of expressions—surprise, hurt, anger, something that might be relief.
“He told you we were open?” she asks finally.
“Yes. He said you both knew it was casual, that you were basically just keeping each other company until you got back and could have a real conversation about your future.”
“We were never open.” Her voice is flat. “We talked about it once, hypothetically, but we never agreed to anything. And he called me almost every day while I was in London. Told me he missed me, that he couldn’t wait for me to come home.”
My stomach drops. “Harper?—”
“So while he was telling you I was just a placeholder, hewas telling me you were just a friend who helped him with homework.” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “God, we’re both idiots, aren’t we?”
“You’re not an idiot. He lied to both of us.”
“But you believed him. And I believed him.” She looks up at me, eyes bright with unshed tears. “How long did it take you to figure out he was lying?”
“About five seconds after you came back and he pretended nothing had ever happened between us.” The memory still stings, but differently now. Like a scar that’s finally healed properly. “He told me it never meant anything, that we were just friends who got carried away.”
“And then I was back.” Harper nods slowly. “So he got to have his cake and eat it too. Summer fun with you, serious relationship with me, and neither of us knew the truth about the other.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, and I mean it. “I should have—I should have asked more questions, should have insisted on talking to you directly. But I wanted to believe him so badly that I ignored all the warning signs. And after…I was so embarrassed. I blamed myself and I thought I must have imagined the whole thing.”
“What warning signs?”
I think about it. “He never wanted to go anywhere public. Said he didn’t want to complicate things before he’d talked to you. He wouldn’t let me leave anything at his place. And he always seemed... I don’t know, like he was performing. Like he was saying what he thought I wanted to hear rather than what he actually felt.”
Harper nods grimly. “He does that. The performing thing. I thought it was just because he was nervous about us getting serious, but now...” She takes a shaky breath and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “God, I'm such an idiot. All those nights he said he was studying with you?—”
“We were studying,” I interrupt quickly. “At first. For months, actually. Until summer when you left for London.”
“The whole summer.” Her voice is flat. “Three months of me sending him photos from London, telling him I loved him, while he was...” She trails off, then looks at me directly. “We were not casual. Not one bit.” A bitter laugh escapes her. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Do you still have feelings for him?”
The question I've been dreading. But looking at Harper—really looking at her, seeing the hurt and confusion and brave attempt at dignity—the answer comes easily.
“No,” I say, and realize I mean it completely. “I thought I did, but what I felt for Miles wasn't love. It was... hope, I guess. Hope that if I was useful enough, patient enough, understanding enough, he'd eventually choose me. But you can't love someone who holds you at arm's length and lies to you all the time. You can only love the version of them they're performing.”
“And the real version?”
