Chapter 8: The Library Confrontation
The library had always been her sanctuary.
Third floor. Northeast corner. The table tucked between the periodicals and the oversized atlas collection, where the brass lamps cast warm circles of light and the silence felt like a held breath. Maya had claimed this spot during her first week at Ridgewood, and she'd never had to fight for it. Nobody else wanted to sit in the dead zone between the geology stacks and the microfilm readers. Nobody else appreciated the way the windows caught the afternoon sun without glaring, or how the radiator hummed a low, steady note that faded into white noise.
Nobody else was her.
She'd been here for four hours. Her back ached. Her eyes burned. The words on the page in front of her—something about enzyme kinetics, something she'd read three times without absorbing—blurred and reformed like clouds.
She rubbed her eyes under her glasses. Checked her phone.
Nothing.
Not that she was waiting for anything. Not that she was waiting for anyone. She'd turned her phone to silent after the third text from Priya asking for "details," and she hadn't looked at it since.
That was a lie. She'd looked at it fourteen times.
Jaxon hadn't texted.
Why would he? She'd made it clear. In the dorm, in the library, in every stupid moment since that morning when she'd woken up in his bed and tried to sneak out like a coward. She'd told him to leave her alone. She'd shoved his hand away and yelled at him in front of half the library and walked out without looking back.
So why was she still checking her phone?
She shoved it into her bag. Refocused on the textbook. Enzyme kinetics. Michaelis-Menten. Vmax and Km and the steady-state assumption. She knew this. She'd known this since sophomore year. The words were just words now, stripped of meaning by exhaustion and something else she didn't want to name.
The radiator hummed. The lamps buzzed. Somewhere on the second floor, a group of freshmen were laughing too loud.
Maya turned the page.
She didn't hear him approach.
Didn't notice the shift in the air, the subtle change in pressure that happened whenever he walked into a room. Didn't smell the leather and motor oil until he was already sliding into the chair beside her, his movements quiet in a way that surprised her—Jaxon Cole, who crashed through life like a motorcycle through a plate-glass window.
He didn't say anything.
Just sat there. Looking at her. Looking at the stack of textbooks spread across the table like a barricade. Looking at the highlighter in her hand, the color-coded notes, the planner open to Tuesday with its neat rows of deadlines and obligations.
Maya didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the page. Kept her breathing steady. Kept her heart from doing that thing it did whenever he was close.
"You're still here," he said.
"I'm studying."
"I can see that." He leaned back in his chair. The old wood creaked. "What are you studying for now?"
She could ignore him. She could pack up her things and move to another table, another floor, another building. She could pretend he wasn't there.
But she was tired. And he was asking. And some small, stupid part of her wanted to answer.
"Everything," she said.
"Everything?"
"Biochem. O-chem. I have a thesis draft due next week, and I'm behind on my research articles, and there's a quiz on Friday that I haven't started preparing for, and—" She stopped. Took a breath. "I'm studying for everything. Because I like being prepared."
"For classes you already know."
"You don't know that I know them."
"I know you." He said it simply. Like a fact. Like the sky being blue. "You probably knew this material before the professor did."
"That's not—"
"You color-coded your notes by enzyme class."
She finally looked at him.
He was wearing a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up, his tattoos dark against his forearms. His hair was messier than usual, like he'd been running his hands through it. There was a smudge of grease on his jaw, and she hated that she noticed. Hated that she wanted to reach out and wipe it away.
"So?" she said.
"So you don't need to study this hard." He gestured at the stack of books. "You're already ahead. You're always ahead. You could take a night off."
"I don't take nights off."
"I know."
"Then why are you—"
"Because you're exhausting yourself." He leaned forward. His elbows on the table. His voice lower now, softer. "Because you're sitting here with circles under your eyes and your hands are shaking, and I don't think it's just because you're tired."
Her hands were shaking.
She hadn't noticed.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You're lying."
"Jaxon—"
"I'm not here to fight." He held up his hands. A peace offering. "I'm just here. Okay? I saw you through the window. I saw you sitting here alone. And I thought—"
He stopped.
"You thought what?"
"I thought maybe you could use some company." He shrugged. The movement was casual, but his eyes weren't. They were dark and steady and fixed on her like she was the only thing in the room. "Even if it's just me."
She should tell him to leave.
She should tell him that she meant what she said, that she didn't have time for distractions, that he was a distraction, that whatever was happening between them was a bad idea dressed up in leather and tattoos.
But the words wouldn't come.
So she turned back to her textbook. Kept reading. Let him sit there.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Jaxon pulled out his phone. Scrolled through something. Didn't try to touch her. Didn't try to talk. Just existed in her space like he belonged there, like the silence between them was something comfortable instead of something sharp.
It should have annoyed her.
It didn't.
"You know," he said eventually, "the professors get paid to teach."
Maya looked up.
"What?"
"Your professors. They get paid. It's their job to teach you things. You don't have to learn everything on your own." He gestured at the books. "Leave some room for them to do their job."
"That's not—"
"I'm serious." He turned in his chair. Faced her fully. "You're paying tuition, right? So let them earn it. Let them surprise you. Let them say something in class you didn't already read in a book."
"That's not how learning works."
"That's exactly how learning works." He grinned. Just a little. Just enough to make her stomach flip. "You show up. You listen. You ask questions. You let it be a conversation instead of a lecture you've already memorized."
"You're giving me study advice."
"I'm giving you life advice."
"From Jaxon Cole, who almost failed thermodynamics."
"Who told you that?"
"Priya."
"Priya talks too much."
"She's my roommate."
"She's a menace." But he was still grinning. "I didn't almost fail. I got a C. Barely."
"That's the same thing."
"It's really not."
She laughed. She didn't mean to. It just happened, a small exhale of sound that escaped before she could catch it. Jaxon's eyes brightened.
"There she is," he said.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like—" She stopped. Shook her head. "Never mind."
He leaned closer. His hand found her knee under the table. The touch was light. Casual. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You know what I think?" he said.
"I don't care."
"I think you're scared."
"I'm not—"
"I think you're scared of what happens if you stop planning. If you stop controlling everything. If you let yourself feel something you didn't schedule."
His hand slid up her thigh.
Maya's breath caught.
"Jaxon—"
"I think you want this." His fingers brushed the hem of her skirt. "I think you want me. And I think that terrifies you more than anything else in the world."
"Not now."
"Come on." His voice was low. Warm against her ear. "Just for a minute. Just let yourself—"
Something snapped.
She didn't know what it was. Maybe the lack of sleep. Maybe the stress. Maybe the way he always, always pushed, always pushed, always assumed that her no was just a yes waiting to happen.
She shoved his hand away.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" The words came out sharp. Loud. Too loud for the library.
Jaxon blinked. His hand hung in the air between them, frozen.
"I—"
"No." She stood up. The chair scraped against the floor. "No, you don't get to do this. You don't get to show up here and sit next to me and pretend you care about my study habits when all you really want is to get in my pants."
"That's not—"
"Isn't it?" She was shaking. Her whole body. "This is exactly why I wasn't trying to do anything real with you. Because this is all you are. This is all you ever are. Motorcycles and fucking and whatever gets you off in the moment."
"Maya—"
"You don't care about my education. You don't care about my responsibilities. You don't care that I have things that matter—things that are important—things that I've worked for my entire life." Her voice cracked. "You think they're boring. You think I'm boring. You think I'm just some uptight overachiever who needs to loosen up."
"I never said that."
"You didn't have to." She grabbed her bag. Started shoving books into it. "I have priorities, Jaxon. I have goals. I have a future I'm trying to build. And if you can't respect that—if you can't even pretend to care—then leave me alone."
She looked at him.
He was staring at her. His face was blank, but something flickered behind his eyes. Something she couldn't name.
The words hung in the air.
She realized what she'd said.
Not just what she'd said—how she'd said it. In public. In the library. In front of the freshman at the next table and the grad student by the window and the librarian who was already turning to see what the commotion was about.
She took a breath.
Gathered the rest of her things.
"I have to go," she said.
She didn't look at him.
She walked toward the stairs. Her footsteps were loud. Her heart was louder.
She didn't turn around.
If she had, she would have seen him sitting there. Alone. Surrounded by her open textbooks. The lamp still glowing. The radiator still humming.
She would have seen him pick up the highlighter she'd left behind. Roll it between his fingers. Stare at it like it held the answer to a question he didn't know how to ask.
She would have seen him close his eyes.
But she didn't turn around.
She kept walking.
And the echo of her anger followed her down the stairs, through the lobby, out the door, into the cold air that hit her face like a slap.
She stood on the steps. Breathing. Trying to remember how.
The courtyard was empty. The trees were bare. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the hum of a motorcycle, and she hated herself for the way her chest tightened.
She pulled out her phone.
Three missed texts from Priya. One from her mom. None from him.
Of course not.
She shoved the phone back into her bag and started walking. Anywhere. Nowhere. Just away.
The night was cold. Her coat was thin. She didn't care.
She'd said what she needed to say.
So why did she feel like she'd just lost something?
The walk back to her dorm took twenty minutes. She took the long way. Past the science building, past the chapel, past the bench where she'd eaten lunch alone her first week on campus. The moon was a thin sliver behind the clouds. The streetlights buzzed overhead.
She kept her head down.
When she finally pushed through the door to her room, Priya was waiting.
She was sitting on her bed, surrounded by textbooks and empty coffee cups and the general chaos that seemed to follow her everywhere. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth was open.
"You look like hell," Priya said.
"Thanks."
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Bullshit."
Maya dropped her bag on the floor. Collapsed onto her bed. Stared at the ceiling.
"I yelled at him," she said.
"At Jaxon?"
"No, at the librarian." She closed her eyes. "Yes, at Jaxon."
"In the library?"
"Loud enough for everyone to hear."
Priya was quiet for a moment.
"Okay," she said. "Start from the beginning."
Maya told her.
The whole thing. The way he'd shown up out of nowhere. The way he'd sat next to her, quiet, almost gentle. The way his hand had moved up her thigh under the table, and the way she'd told him to stop, and the way he'd kept going like her no was just a suggestion.
"And I lost it," she said. "I told him he didn't care about my education. That all he cared about was motorcycles and sex. That if he couldn't respect my priorities, he should leave me alone."
"Did you mean it?"
"I—" Maya stopped.
Had she meant it?
She'd meant the part about her priorities. She'd meant the part about feeling disrespected. She'd meant the part about being tired of being treated like a distraction, like a puzzle to solve, like something to be conquered instead of someone to be known.
But the rest?
She didn't know.
"I don't know," she said.
Priya leaned forward. Her expression was serious. Softer than usual.
"Can I say something?"
"You're going to anyway."
"True." Priya picked at a thread on her blanket. "I've known you for two years, Maya. And in those two years, I've watched you date exactly three guys. All of them nice. All of them boring. All of them the kind of future-proof, stable, academically-driven checklist you think you're supposed to want."
"They were nice."
"They were forgettable."
"That's not—"
"You didn't cry when Robert broke up with you. You didn't even blink. You just updated your planner and moved on." Priya looked at her. "You've been crying about Jaxon Cole for two weeks."
"I haven't been—"
"You have. You just don't let anyone see it."
Maya's throat tightened.
"So what?" she said. "So I have feelings. That doesn't mean they're good for me."
"Maybe not." Priya shrugged. "But they're real. And I think that scares you more than anything."
Maya didn't answer.
She turned onto her side. Faced the wall.
"Can we not do this right now?" she said.
"Sure."
"Priya."
"Yeah?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"I know."
"Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you know something I don't."
Priya was quiet for a long moment.
"I don't know anything," she said finally. "But I know you, Maya. And I know that whatever you're feeling right now—it's not nothing. Even if you wish it was."
Maya closed her eyes.
She didn't sleep.
Not for a long time.
Her phone stayed silent.
And somewhere across campus, in an apartment that smelled like motor oil and cedar, Jaxon Cole was sitting on his bed with a highlighter in his hand and her face in his head and no idea what the hell he was supposed to do next.
The highlighter was yellow. Neon. The kind Maya used for definitions and key terms, the kind she'd left behind on the library table when she'd grabbed her things and walked out.
Jaxon turned it over in his fingers. The plastic was warm from his palm. There was a smudge on the side where her grip had worn down the label.
He didn't know why he'd picked it up.
He didn't know why he was still sitting here, in his apartment, at two in the morning, holding a piece of her like it meant something.
The whiskey bottle on the shelf was half-empty. He hadn't touched it. Not tonight. Not since she'd looked at him with those eyes—those furious, wounded, beautiful eyes—and told him he didn't care about anything that mattered.
The thing was, she was wrong.
And she was right.
He didn't care about enzyme kinetics. He didn't care about her thesis or her color-coded notes or the MCAT prep schedule she kept taped to the inside of her planner. Those things were hers. They were the walls she'd built to keep the world out, to keep people like him out, and he'd never pretended to understand them.
But he cared that she cared.
He cared that she worked herself to exhaustion. He cared that she showed up to every class early and stayed late. He cared that she'd built a life for herself out of sheer will and determination, that she'd escaped whatever small town had tried to keep her small, that she was going to be a doctor someday and save lives and be brilliant.
He cared about her.
That was the problem.
The highlighter slipped from his fingers. Rolled across the floor. Stopped against the leg of his coffee table, next to a stack of textbooks he'd borrowed from the library—thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, a manual on engine repair that had nothing to do with his major and everything to do with the bike shop where he worked.
He should sleep.
He should forget about the way her voice had cracked when she'd said his name. He should forget about the way she'd looked at him, like he was something that could hurt her, like she was already bracing for the impact.
He should forget about her.
He didn't.
---
The first week was the hardest.
Not because he missed her—he didn't have the vocabulary for that yet, didn't have the framework to understand what it meant to miss someone who was never really his. But because she was everywhere.
In the lecture hall on Tuesday, sitting three rows ahead of him, her ponytail neat, her notes open, her pen moving in that steady, methodical way she had. She didn't turn around. Didn't acknowledge him. Just sat there like he didn't exist, like the space he occupied was empty air.
He watched her anyway.
He couldn't help it. His eyes found her without permission, without intention, like a compass needle swinging north. The curve of her neck. The way she bit her lip when she was concentrating. The small, frustrated sigh she let out when the professor said something she disagreed with.
He wanted to talk to her.
He didn't.
Wednesday was worse.
He saw her in the courtyard, crossing between the science building and the library, her coat pulled tight against the wind. She was walking fast. Head down. The same way she'd walked out of the library, like she was trying to outrun something.
He was sitting on a bench near the fountain, a cigarette between his fingers that he hadn't lit. He watched her pass. Watched her not look at him. Watched her disappear through the library doors.
The cigarette snapped in his hand.
Thursday, he saw her with Priya in the dining hall.
They were sitting by the window, Priya gesturing wildly about something, Maya laughing—actually laughing, her head thrown back, her glasses slipping down her nose. She looked lighter. Freer. Like the weight of whatever had been crushing her was finally starting to lift.
He stood in line for coffee and pretended not to stare.
"Hey, man." A voice behind him. Some guy from his robotics class whose name he couldn't remember. "You gonna order or what?"
Jaxon ordered.
He didn't look back at her table.
Friday, he skipped class.
He didn't mean to. He woke up at six for his shift at the bike shop, worked until three, and by the time he got back to campus, his 3:30 lecture was already halfway over. He stood outside the building for a minute, staring at the doors, knowing she was inside.
He didn't go in.
He went home.
The highlighter was still on his floor. He picked it up. Put it on his nightstand. Stared at it for a long time.
---
The second week was easier.
Not because he stopped thinking about her—he didn't, couldn't, wasn't sure he wanted to. But because he started to accept the shape of it. The distance. The silence. The way she moved through campus like he was a ghost, a memory, something that had happened to her once and wouldn't happen again.
He saw her in the coffee shop on Monday.
She was at a table by herself, a pile of research articles spread in front of her, a half-empty cup of coffee going cold at her elbow. Her hair was down—rare, unusual, distracting—and she was wearing a sweater he'd never seen before. Soft. Gray. Slightly too big for her.
She looked up when he walked in.
Their eyes met.
Neither of them moved.
Then she looked down. Back at her articles. Back at the words that meant nothing. And Jaxon ordered his coffee and left without saying a word.
He felt her watch him go.
He didn't turn around.
Wednesday, he saw her in the hallway outside the engineering building.
She was talking to a guy he didn't recognize—tall, clean-cut, khaki pants and a button-down shirt that was tucked in, for Christ's sake. He was smiling at her. She was smiling back. Not the nervous smile she gave professors when she was running late, not the polite smile she gave strangers in elevators.
A real smile.
He watched from twenty feet away, his hands in his pockets, his jaw tight.
The guy said something. Maya laughed. Touched his arm.
Jaxon turned and walked the other way.
---
The third week was the worst.
Not because of anything she did—she didn't do anything, that was the whole point. But because he started to forget the details.
The exact shade of her eyes in the morning light. The way her voice sounded when she was sleepy, when she was angry, when she was trying not to laugh. The small, specific things that made her her.
He didn't want to forget.
He wanted to hold onto all of it, even the parts that hurt, even the parts that made him feel like he was losing his mind. But memories faded. Moments slipped away. And the more time passed, the more she became a story he told himself.
A story about a girl who'd walked into his life with her color-coded planner and her future-proof plans and her eyes full of something he'd never been able to name.
He saw her on Friday.
She was walking across the quad with that same guy—the one with the button-down shirt and the easy smile. They were side by side, close, their shoulders almost touching. She was talking. He was listening. And when she finished, he said something that made her stop in her tracks.
She looked at him.
Then she laughed.
And Jaxon felt it—the sharp, stupid ache in his chest that had no right to be there, that he had no right to feel. He didn't own her. He'd never claimed her. He'd never even told her how he felt, not really, not in words that mattered.
But watching her laugh with someone else, watching her touch someone else's arm, watching her smile at someone else like he was the only person in the world—
It broke something in him.
He went back to his apartment.
He didn't sleep.
---
Priya cornered him on Monday.
He was leaving the bike shop, wiping grease off his hands, when he saw her leaning against the brick wall. She was wearing pink—everything pink, jacket and hat and gloves—and she looked like a warning flare in the gray afternoon.
"Jaxon Cole," she said.
"Priya."
"We need to talk."
"I'm busy."
"No, you're not." She pushed off the wall. Fell into step beside him. "You're doing that thing where you walk away from people you don't want to talk to."
"That's not a thing."
"It's definitely a thing. Maya does it too."
He stopped walking.
Priya stopped too.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"To know what the hell is wrong with you." She crossed her arms. Looked up at him with that fierce, protective expression she got whenever Maya's name came up. "She's my best friend. I love her. And I've watched her cry over you twice this month."
"She's not crying over me."
"She's not crying over anyone else."
Jaxon's jaw tightened.
"She told me what happened," Priya said. "In the library. She told me what you did."
He didn't answer.
"I'm not saying she was right to yell at you in public. She wasn't. But you need to understand something." Priya stepped closer. Her voice dropped. "That girl has spent her whole life building walls. She doesn't trust people. She doesn't let anyone in. And you—" She poked his chest with her finger. "You're the first person who made her want to let someone in."
"I didn't do anything."
"You existed." Priya shrugged. "You showed up. You paid attention. You looked at her like she was more than just the sum of her achievements. And then you pushed too hard, and she pushed back, and now you're both miserable."
"I'm not miserable."
"You're a terrible liar."
He was.
Jaxon looked away. At the street. At the gray sky. At anything but Priya's knowing eyes.
"Look," she said. "I'm not here to fix things. I'm not here to tell you to go apologize. I'm just here to tell you that if you're going to walk away, walk away. Don't hover. Don't watch her from across the courtyard. Don't show up at the library and sit next to her like you're waiting for her to change her mind."
"I wasn't—"
"You were. You are." Priya tilted her head. "It's not fair to her. And it's not fair to you."
Jaxon didn't say anything.
Priya waited.
Then she sighed.
"You know what she's doing right now?" she said.
"No."
"Ryan asked her out."
Jaxon's stomach dropped.
"Ryan?"
"The guy she met at the science symposium. Law student. Smart. Funny. Actually interested in her research." Priya's voice was careful. Neutral. "She said yes."
He didn't respond.
He couldn't.
"Anyway." Priya adjusted her scarf. "I just thought you should know. You know, in case you were still trying to figure out what to do next."
She turned and walked away.
Jaxon stood there for a long time.
---
Ryan wasn't what Maya expected.
She'd said yes because it was easy—because he asked nicely, because he made her laugh, because he wasn't Jaxon and that was exactly what she needed. She'd said yes because she was tired of thinking about things that hurt, tired of checking her phone for messages that never came, tired of feeling like she was waiting for something that had already passed her by.
She'd said yes because Ryan was safe.
On their first date, he took her to a small café off campus. Not fancy—the kind of place with mismatched chairs and handwritten menus and a cat sleeping on the windowsill. They ordered sandwiches and talked for three hours.
About her research. About his law studies. About the book he was reading and the movie she'd watched and the time he'd tried to cook a Thanksgiving turkey and almost burned down his apartment.
He asked questions.
He remembered things.
When she mentioned an article she'd read, he pulled out his phone and looked it up. When she told him about her thesis, he asked specific questions—not just the polite ones people asked to fill silence, but real ones, the kind that showed he'd been listening.
"You're interesting," he said.
She blinked.
"What?"
"You're interesting." He smiled. "You had this look on your face when you were talking about enzyme pathways. Like you were excited. I like that."
She didn't know what to say.
No one had ever called her interesting before. Not like that. Not like it was a simple fact, not like it was something they'd noticed and appreciated and wanted to know more about.
She felt herself smile back.
---
Priya approved.
"You should text him back," she said, three days after the first date. Maya was sitting on her bed, holding her phone, staring at Ryan's message asking if she wanted to get coffee again.
"I texted him back."
"An hour ago. He's still waiting."
"I'm not going to—"
"Girl." Priya plopped down next to her. "I've known you for two years. I've watched you date exactly four guys. Do you want to know what I thought about the first three?"
Maya raised an eyebrow.
"Go on."
"Robert was fine. Forgettable. Mark was okay, but he never asked you a single question about yourself that wasn't about your major. And Tyler—" Priya shuddered. "Tyler was a nightmare. He was so boring I wanted to fall asleep during your review sessions."
"Okay, Tyler wasn't that bad."
"Tyler was so boring that you once told me you'd rather watch paint dry."
"I said that?" Maya laughed. "Okay, I definitely said that."
"Exactly." Priya pointed at the phone. "Ryan is different. He's funny. He's spontaneous. He's interested in you—not just your future job, not just your potential. He actually wants to know who you are. That's good, Maya. That's really good."
"You think I should date him."
"I think you should stop thinking so hard." Priya nudged her. "You've been sad for three weeks. You've been walking around like a ghost. If Ryan makes you smile, let him make you smile. That's all I'm saying."
Maya looked at the phone.
Then she texted Ryan back.
Yeah. Coffee sounds good.
---
The date was easy.
They walked by the river, coffee cups in hand, the autumn leaves crunching under their feet. Ryan talked about his internship and his family and the time he'd taken a wrong turn on a hiking trip and ended up in a different state. Maya talked about her research and her hometown and the way she'd always felt like she was running toward something she couldn't see.
"You know what I like about you?" Ryan asked.
They were sitting on a bench now, the river moving slowly beside them, the sky fading from gray to purple.
"What?"
"You don't pretend." He turned to look at her. "Most people try to be someone else. They try to be who they think you want them to be. You just—you're just you. Whether people like it or not."
Maya didn't know what to say.
"I like it," he said. "For the record."
She smiled.
It felt good. Simple. Easy.
They stayed on the bench for a while. Talking. Watching the water. Watching the sky go dark.
Ryan didn't push.
He didn't try to touch her. Didn't try to move too fast. He was respectful and patient and funny, and when he walked her back to her dorm, he said goodnight at the door without trying to come inside.
"I'll text you," he said.
"I'll answer."
He grinned. Walked away.
Maya went inside.
Priya was waiting.
"How was it?" she asked.
"Good." Maya dropped onto her bed. "Actually good."
"Just good?"
"Okay, yes." Maya covered her face with her hands. "It was nice. He's nice. He's funny and respectful and he doesn't—"
She stopped.
"Doesn't what?"
Maya didn't answer.
Priya sat down beside her.
"Doesn't what, Maya?"
"It doesn't feel like it does with Jaxon." The words came out before she could stop them. "It doesn't feel like a storm. It doesn't feel like I'm going to lose my mind every time he looks at me. It doesn't feel like—"
She stopped again.
"Like what?"
Maya closed her eyes.
"Like it matters."
Priya was quiet.
"I'm not saying Ryan doesn't matter," Maya said quickly. "He does. He's great. He's everything I should want. He's future-proof. He's stable. He's academically driven. He's—"
"He's not Jaxon."
Maya's throat tightened.
"I know," she whispered.
"So what are you going to do?"
Maya didn't answer.
She didn't know.
---
The next morning, she saw Jaxon across the quad.
He was with some guys from his program—engineering students she'd seen him with before but never talked to. They were laughing about something, and he was smiling, the crooked grin that made her stomach flip.
She stopped walking.
He turned his head.
Their eyes met.
For a moment—just a moment—the world narrowed. The noise faded. And there was only him, looking at her like he'd been waiting for her to appear, like she was the answer to a question he hadn't known he was asking.
Then he looked away.
Turned back to his friends.
Kept walking.
Maya stood there.
Frozen.
Ryan texted her that night.
Want to get dinner this weekend?
She looked at the message for a long time.
Then she typed back.
Sure.
And she set her phone down.
She didn't feel like a storm.
She didn't feel like she was losing her mind.
She just felt like she was moving forward. Like she was doing the right thing. Like she was making the smart, safe, future-proof choice she'd always told herself she'd make.
But somewhere, in the back of her mind, a voice whispered that she'd left something behind.
Something she couldn't get back.