Page 17

The science building comes into view, and I slow, scanning the entrance, the steps, the paths leading up to it.

He’s on time, like always.

Cameron moves toward the entrance with a casual grace, his stride unhurried and fluid. His backpack straps pull at the fabric of his hoodie, emphasizing the width of his shoulders, the strength he seems unaware he possesses. But then I notice his mouth. His normally full lips are pressed into a thin, hard line, a sign that something has wound him up, left him tense.

What’s wrong, Cam?

He doesn’t see me as he enters the building. He never does. That’s the beautiful part. That’s what makes this sustainable. He moves through his day without knowing I’m here, watching in the spaces just outside the boundary of his awareness. It’s a kind of intimacy he’ll never understand. A connection that only works because he’s unaware of it.

I keep running toward his apartment. There’s a café across the street where I can position myself near the window and wait. I’ve been there enough times now that the barista recognizes me. I always order the same thing: black coffee and a cinnamon bun. I typically sit in the same spot by the window and pretend to scroll through my phone while actually watching Cameron’s second-floor windows, waiting for the shadow of him moving inside.

Sometimes I see him, the outline of his shape against the light, and I imagine him performing the ordinary duties of his life. It’s incredible to me that the inside of his apartment is a mystery. How can I not know the color of his bedding or the contents of his nightstand drawer? These are things I should know, things I need to know.

My phone buzzes as I’m running. It’s a text from Claire.

I don’t even slow down to read it. I know what it says. Dinner plans. Weekend trips. Meeting her parents over the break. The same desperate attempts to solidify something that’s never been real. Claire followed me to Hayworth like a ghost, clinging to the idea that we’re something when really, she was just a weapon I wielded.

I started dating her at St. Silas because I thought Cameron liked her. I saw how he looked at her, curious and gentle, the way he looks at things he might care about. So I took her. I thought it was a power move, a way of proving I could have anything he wanted, that I was better, that even the girl he liked would choose me. But I exhausted myself trying to learn which girls showed interest in him and intercepting each one. I wasn’t going to let them touch him, corrupt him, take him away. Claire was the only one I suspected Cameron might have a crush on.

But Cameron didn’t care. He didn’t show jealousy, didn’t show anything. He just accepted it like it was inevitable, like he’d never expected to have a girl anyway. And that absence of jealousy, that indifference, was worse than any confrontation could have been. It meant his feelings for her meant nothing, so using her meant nothing.

And now she’s a problem. A girl texting me about dinner, about being together, about a future that was always just a fiction. A girl I need to keep at arm’s length because I can’t afford the distraction. Cameron is all I can think about, and every moment I spend managing Claire is a moment I could be thinking about him, learning him, figuring out how to get closer.

The café is warm when I arrive, and I take my coffee and cinnamon bun to my table by the window. The late afternoon sun hits the glass of Cameron’s apartment building at an angle that makes the windows glow like fire.

I settle in to wait.

I take a sip of coffee and watch his building.

Soon, he’ll come home. Soon, I’ll see his silhouette move across those windows. Soon, I’ll confirm that I still know his routine, that he’s okay, that he’s still the thing I need more than breath.

I need you, Cam.

And even though you’re revealing parts of yourself to a girl who doesn’t exist, you need me too.

You just don’t know it yet.

5

CAMERON

My alarm goes off at five-fifteen a.m., but I’m already awake. I reach over and silence the alarm before it can finish its first chime. I stand and stretch, feeling the tightness in my lower back from yesterday’s workout. My body is sore, but it reminds me that I’m strong, capable.

I pull on running clothes: black joggers, a long-sleeve compression shirt, and a light jacket.

I grab my phone and AirPods and then check the time.

If I leave now, I’ll get to the boat launch with plenty of time to get on the water before the crew teams show up. Before the river gets crowded.

I don’t row with the team. I tried it once, over the summer, and absolutely hated it. It wasn’t the rowing itself. I actually love the sport. I’ve been out on the water since I was fourteen, back home in Connecticut. But for me, it has to be solitary. When I’m alone on the river at dawn, the world shrinks to the slide of the seat, the bite of the blades in the water, and the perfect, rhythmic mechanics of my own body. It’s one of the few places where the noise in my head completely cuts out. Out there, everything drops away, and for an hour, I feel like myself. I keep my own boat, a single scull, at a nearby private dock.

The sun hasn’t yet dared to show its face, leaving the street draped in a heavy silence. The brick buildings are dark silhouettes against the sky, while the trees still bear their autumn leaves.

I start jogging. Charli xcx plays in my AirPods, and my body warms with each stride. The streets are empty except for the occasional early-morning commuter, headlights cutting through the darkness as they pass.

I follow the path that leads away from campus, toward the misty river. It’s about a mile and a half from my apartment to the boat launch. My legs loosen with each step, my breathing evens out, and by the time I’m halfway there, I’ve fallen into that perfect rhythm, where my body moves without thinking.

The path curves through a small, wooded area, the trees closing in on either side, and the darkness deepens. There are streetlamps here, but they’re spaced far apart, and the pools of light they cast are weak. Fog from the river clings to the path’s edge, obscuring the border between the path and the bank.