Chapter 1: Pancakes and a Flash
The kitchen smelled of vanilla and melted butter, the sunlight through the window so bright it turned the dust motes into drifting gold. Sera padded in, the worn cotton of the hoodie soft against her skin. It was too big, swallowing her hands, the cuffs frayed. She knew he was at the stove. She could hear the soft sizzle, see the tense line of his shoulders beneath his own plain t-shirt.
She went straight for the low cupboard, the one with the chipped blue mug he always used for her tea. She bent from the waist, a slow, deliberate motion, the hem of the hoodie riding up. The cool air of the kitchen whispered against her bare skin. She held the pose for a second longer than necessary, listening.
A sharp clatter. A hissed breath.
She straightened, mug in hand, and turned to lean against the counter. Eli was staring resolutely at the pancake bubbling on the griddle, his ears a brilliant, flaming crimson. The spatula shook slightly in his grip.
“Morning,” she said, her voice still sleep-rough.
“S-Sera,” he stammered. His eyes flicked toward her for a nanosecond before darting away. “Your—you’re… the pancakes are almost done.”
“I can see that.” She smiled, a small, private curl of her lips. She filled her mug from the kettle of water he’d already boiled. The bag of her favorite chai was waiting on the saucer. He’d even brought the honey. “You’re a lifesaver. My head is pounding. Too many victory margaritas last night.”
“You should drink more water,” he mumbled, carefully sliding a perfect golden-brown pancake onto a plate. He’d arranged them in a stack, with a pat of butter melting on the top. He brought the plate to the small table, already set with a napkin and cutlery.
She sat, pulling the hoodie down over her thighs. “What would I do without you, huh?”
He didn’t answer, just turned back to pour more batter. He was nineteen, all lanky limbs and sharp angles, but in this kitchen, he moved with a quiet certainty she never saw anywhere else. He was a ghost on campus, drifting between classes and the library, but here, he was the architect of her morning.
It had always been this way. Her earliest memory was of him, a wailing, red-faced toddler with a vicelike grip on her leg, screaming if their mother tried to peel him off. That clinginess had morphed, not disappeared. Now it was clean laundry folded on her dorm bed, her favorite soup when she was sick, his silent, looming presence in the back row of her cheer competitions, a flinch in the crowd’s roar.
Her friends thought he was pathetic. ‘That weird brother of yours,’ they’d say, not unkindly, just stating a fact. Awkward. No game. No friends of his own. Just Sera. Her awkward, lovely, pathetic thing.
She forked a bite of pancake. It was divine. “These are perfect, Eli.”
“It’s just the recipe,” he said, his back to her.
“It’s not just the recipe. It’s you.” She watched his shoulders tense again, a different kind of tension. Pleasure, maybe, mixed with something else. Shame. He was so easy to read. “You coming to the Sigma party tonight? It’s gonna be huge.”
“I have that systems analysis project.”
“So do it tomorrow. Live a little.”
He turned then, leaning against the counter, his green eyes uncertain. “I don’t really… fit at those things, Sera.”
“You would if you tried.” She said it lightly, but a flicker of irritation sparked in her chest. He didn’t even try. He was happy to be her shadow, but the world saw the shadow, not the person. They saw a loser. And by extension, sometimes, she wondered what they thought of her for letting him linger. The hottest girl on campus, and her permanent accessory was a social anchor. The love was a deep, worn groove in her heart. The shame was a thin, persistent needle.
“Maybe,” he said, a non-answer. He looked at the clock on the microwave. “You have practice at ten.”
“I know.” She finished eating, swigged her tea. “Walk me?”
He nodded, already moving to take her plate. His fingers brushed hers, and he recoiled as if shocked.
The campus quad was a postcard of autumn, all crimson leaves and vibrant green grass. Sera walked with the easy, hip-swaying confidence that turned heads, her cheer bag slung over one shoulder. Eli trudged beside her, hands shoved deep in his pockets, gaze fixed on the ground three feet ahead.
“So, listen,” she said, adjusting the strap of her bag. “Mackenzie might ask you about that poli-sci reading. The Hobbes one. I told her you aced it. Be a saint and explain it to her? She’s clueless.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t just ‘okay’ her, Eli. Be nice. She’s a sweet girl. Pretty.”
He shot her a sidelong glance, his brow furrowed. “Why does that matter?”
“It just does.” She smiled at a group of guys from the baseball team. They waved, their eyes appreciative, lingering on her legs below the hoodie. One of them glanced at Eli, and the look was quick, dismissive. A blink and you’d miss it. But Sera saw it. Her smile tightened.
They reached the steps of the athletics center. The rumble of stomping feet and sharp whistle blasts from inside the gym already echoed through the doors. “Thanks for breakfast,” she said, turning to him.
“It’s nothing.” He shifted his weight. “I’ll… be here after. With water and your protein bar.”
“I know you will.” She reached out and smoothed a wrinkle on the shoulder of his jacket, a habit from when he was small. He stilled under her touch. “You’re the best, Eli. Seriously.”
She pushed through the heavy doors, the blast of air-conditioning and loud pop music swallowing her. For two hours, she was all sharp smiles, high kicks, and explosive stunts. She was a leader, flying through the air, caught by strong hands. She was, effortlessly, the center of everything.
Practice ended in a sweat-drenched, laughing heap. She grabbed her bag, waving off invitations for a smoothie run. “Can’t! Stuff to do!” she lied, pushing back out into the afternoon light.
He’d be waiting on the usual bench by the old oak tree, right where the path curved toward the dorms. She could already picture him, a blond head bent over a book, two water bottles beside him.
She rounded the corner, the smile already forming on her lips.
The bench was there. The water bottles were there. So was Eli.
But he wasn’t alone.
A girl sat next to him. Not Mackenzie. Someone new. She had soft brown hair and was laughing at something, her head tilted toward him. She touched his arm, a light, familiar tap. And Eli… Eli was smiling. Not his usual hesitant twitch, but a real, wide, unselfconscious smile. He was talking, his hands moving slightly in the air as he explained something. The girl listened, rapt.
Sera stopped dead, her grip tightening on the strap of her bag. A cold, sharp stone settled in her gut. Who was that? Since when did Eli talk to girls? Since when did girls look at him like that—like he was interesting, like he was someone?
The girl threw her head back and laughed again, and Eli’s smile grew, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He looked… different. He looked happy.
A wave of pure, irrational panic washed over Sera, hot and sour. This was wrong. This was her brother. Her Eli. The one who needed her, who belonged at her side, who no one else really understood. This pretty, smiling girl was an invader. She was a threat to the careful, private world they inhabited—a world where Sera was the sun and Eli the grateful, orbiting planet. If he had his own orbit… what did that make her?
Without thinking, Sera started walking toward them, her cheerleader’s smile plastered on her face, bright and lethal. The stone in her gut was now a burning coal. She had to get rid of her. She had to reclaim what was hers.
She had to reclaim what was hers.
Her sneakers made no sound on the paved path. She adjusted the weight of her bag, the smile on her face feeling like a plastic mask. Ten feet away. Five. The girl was still talking, her voice a light, melodic thing that grated against Sera’s nerves.
“Eli!” Sera called out, and her voice was sugar-coated shrapnel.
His head snapped up. That real, easy smile vanished, replaced by a flicker of something—surprise, guilt?—before it settled into his usual, familiar openness. “Sera. Practice over?”
“Obviously.” She stopped in front of the bench, ignoring the other girl completely. “I’m exhausted. And starving. You promised me those protein bars, remember?” She reached out, her fingers curling around the sleeve of his jacket. A possessive tug. “Come on. Now.”
The girl on the bench looked between them, her friendly expression cooling into polite confusion. “Oh, hey. You must be Seraphina. Eli was just telling me about—”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Sera cut her off, her eyes never leaving her brother’s face. “And we’ve got stuff to do. Sorry.” The apology was anything but.
Eli stood up, a slow, automatic unfolding. He glanced at the girl. “Um. Sorry, Chloe. I’ll… I’ll email you the notes from the lecture, okay?”
“Sure,” the girl—Chloe—said, her smile now strained. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You too,” Eli mumbled, already turning, already letting Sera steer him by the arm away from the bench, away from the girl, back down the path toward the towering brick dormitory.
The moment they were out of earshot, Sera’s grip tightened. She could feel the solid bone of his arm beneath the fabric. Hers. “Who was that?” she asked, her voice casual, but the edge was there.
“Just someone from Comparative Lit. Professor Albee paired us up. She’s a transfer. He asked me to show her where the library annex was. I was just finishing when you got there.”
The words landed softly, one by one, like gentle stones sinking into a still pond. Professor Albee paired us up. He asked me to show her around.
Sera’s breath, which had been held tight in her chest, released in a slow, almost shuddering exhale. The coal of panic sputtered and died, leaving a warm, giddy ash in its place. It was an assignment. A chore. That was all.
“Oh,” she said. The plastic smile melted into something real. She leaned into him slightly as they walked, her shoulder bumping his. “Well, she seemed… nice.”
“She’s okay. A little talkative.”
Sera hummed, a low, satisfied sound. The afternoon sun felt warmer now. The crunch of leaves under their feet was a pleasant rhythm. She kept her hand on his arm, not guiding him anymore, just holding on. A claim, but a gentle one. “You should have just told her you had a prior commitment. To your sister.”
“I didn’t know practice would end early.”
“You should always assume it will,” she said, and she could hear the playful smugness in her own voice. It felt good. The world was righting itself. The axis of her universe was back where it belonged, solid and dependable, right here under her hand.
They reached the dorm, and she swiped her key card, nudging him inside ahead of her. The lobby was cool and quiet, smelling of lemon cleaner and old books. The elevator dinged, and they stepped in, alone. She caught their reflection in the mirrored walls—her, flushed and bright-eyed in the oversized hoodie, him, tall and slightly stooped, his blond hair messy from the afternoon breeze. A matched set.
In the confined space, she finally let go of his arm, only to immediately fiddle with the strings of his hoodie, which she was still wearing. “So, what did you make for lunch? Or were you too busy giving campus tours to think about your starving sister?”
He blushed, just as she knew he would. “I prepped the chicken and rice. It’s in our fridge. It just needs to be heated.”
Our fridge. He had a tiny single room on the third floor of a different building, but he kept his favorite spices and her favorite sparkling water in the mini-fridge in her dorm suite. His presence was woven into her space, in the textbooks stacked next to hers, in the extra blanket he’d brought over during midterms, in the quiet way he navigated her room as if it were his own.
The elevator opened on her floor. She led the way down the hall, her steps lighter. The dread was gone, replaced by a buoyant, almost overwhelming relief. He was here. He was with her. The interlopers were just temporary background noise, easily dismissed.
Inside her room, she tossed her bag onto the floor and collapsed onto her bed, a fluffy island of white duvet and decorative pillows. Eli went straight to the small kitchenette, pulling the container of food from the fridge, clicking on the electric burner under her rice cooker.
She watched him move. The careful way he scooped the rice, the precise sprinkle of black pepper. Her awkward, lovely thing. Her heart felt full, swollen with a fierce, protective affection. “You’re too good to me, you know that?” she said, her voice muffled by a pillow.
“It’s just chicken,” he said, not turning around.
“It’s not just chicken.” She rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin on her hands. “You take care of me. Nobody else does that. Not really.”
He was quiet for a minute, the only sound the soft sizzle of chicken hitting the pan. “You take care of me, too,” he said finally, his back still to her.
“How? By letting you wait on me hand and foot?” She laughed.
“By letting me… be here.” The words were so soft she almost didn’t catch them.
The simple truth of it settled over her, warm as a shawl. He needed her permission to exist in her orbit. And she gave it, freely, because his orbit was the only one that made sense to her, too. The chaos of parties, the pressure of cheers, the endless performance of being Sera Caldwell—it all fell away in this room, with the smell of his cooking filling the air.
He brought her a plate, perfectly arranged, and a fork. She sat up, cross-legged, and took it. “Thank you,” she said, and she meant it for everything—the food, the water after practice, the way he’d left that Chloe girl without a second thought.
He sat on the edge of her desk chair, picking at his own plate. “She asked if I wanted to study together next week. For the midterm.”
The fork froze halfway to Sera’s mouth. A tiny pinprick of the old coldness touched her spine. “And what did you say?”
Eli looked up, his green eyes meeting hers, clear and guileless. “I said I usually study with my sister. That you quiz me.”
The warmth rushed back, ten times stronger. It flooded her, dizzying. She lowered the fork, a slow, wide smile spreading across her face. She was over the moon. He’d chosen her. Not just now on the bench, but for next week, for the study session. He’d used her as his shield, his reason. It was the best gift he could have given her.
“Good,” she said, her voice thick. “That’s perfect. I am way better at quizzing you than some random transfer student.”
He gave her that small, hesitant smile, the one that was just for her. “Yeah. You are.”
She ate then, the food tasting better than any restaurant meal. Every bite was a victory. The room was safe again. The boundaries were firm. He was hers, and she was his, and the world outside with its pretty, talkative girls was just a show they sometimes had to watch. Here, in the soft light of her dorm room with the sunset beginning to paint orange streaks across her wall, they were the only two people that mattered. She had seen a crack in the universe, a possible future where he had his own laughter, his own conversations, and she had slammed it shut herself. And he had helped her do it.
She finished her food and set the plate aside, patting the space on the bed beside her. “Come here. Tell me about this dreadful Lit reading. I’ll pretend to be interested.”
And he did, because he always did. He sat on the edge of the bed, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, listening to the steady rumble of his voice explaining some obscure poetic form, not hearing a single word, just bathing in the solid, relieved certainty of it all. He was here. He was hers. It had all been a misunderstanding. Everything was exactly as it should be.
Everything was exactly as it should be. The weight of his shoulder against her temple, the monotone of his voice explaining iambic pentameter—it was a lullaby. Her eyes drifted shut, then snapped open. A spark of restless energy, a need to test the fences of this peace, itched under her skin. She loved these quiet moments after a scare, like the one with Chloe. They made the calm afterward sweeter, and made her want to stir the water just to watch the ripples.
He was midsentence. “…so the stress falls on the second syllable, like ‘aRISE’…”
She stretched, a long, luxurious arch of her back, her arms reaching overhead. The hem of the hoodie—his hoodie—pulled taut against her thighs. She made a small, tired sound and let her arms drop, one hand casually brushing the fabric down, a pointless, instinctive gesture. She swung her legs off the bed.
“I’m getting water. You want some?”
He shook his head, his eyes already back on his notebook, a safe neutral zone.
She padded to the kitchenette, the cool laminate floor under her feet. She opened the fridge, the light bleaching the dim room for a second. She grabbed a bottle, took a long swig, and leaned against the counter, facing him. He was just a silhouette against the darkening window now.
“You know,” she said, her voice cutting the quiet. “I think I pulled something during the pyramid today. My lower back is so tight.”
“You should ice it,” he mumbled, not looking up.
“Probably.” She pushed off the counter and walked toward the center of the room, where a sliver of amber streetlight cut across the floor. “It’s right here.” She turned her back to him, a calculated move. Her hands went to the hem of the hoodie. In one smooth, practiced motion, she gathered the thick cotton fabric and pulled it up, just to the small of her back. She held it there.
The room was silent, but she could hear a new quality to the silence. The soft scratch of his pencil had stopped.
She closed her eyes, a slow smile touching her lips. She could feel the air on her skin, a delicate touch from the waistband of her shorts down. There were no shorts. He knew there were no shorts. The hoodie was all she had on. She’d made sure of that when she put it on this morning, the thought a private little thrill, a secret she carried all day just for this moment.
She bent forward, a deep, graceful athlete’s stretch, her palms flat on the floor. The hoodie rode up further, the fabric pooling around her shoulders. The streetlight painted a perfect, explicit triangle of gold on the floor between her feet, illuminating the back of her thighs, the curve beneath. She held the pose, counting in her head. One. Two. Three.
A sharp, shaky inhale from the desk chair.
The sound was better than any compliment from any fraternity president. It was raw, unfiltered. It was a gasp punched right out of him. Her smile widened. She straightened slowly, vertebra by vertebra, letting the hoodie fall back down with a soft whisper. She didn’t turn around. Not yet. She reached her arms overhead again, intertwining her fingers and pushing her palms toward the ceiling in another stretch, this time facing the window. The movement lifted the front of the hoodie this time, the hem drifting high on her hips. She saw their reflection in the dark glass—her, a pale, elongated ghost in a rectangle of light; him, a frozen statue in the chair.
She let her arms fall and finally turned.
Eli was staring, his book forgotten in his lap. His face was a mask of pure, tortured conflict. His green eyes were wide, locked on the spot where the hoodie now covered her again, as if he could still see what was branded there. His lips were slightly parted. A deep, blotchy red flushed from his neck, up his jaw, to the very tips of his ears. He looked utterly transfixed and utterly horrified with himself for being so.
She walked toward him, her steps slow and silent. She stopped a foot away. “Eli?” she said, her voice soft, innocent.
He flinched. His eyes finally ripped away from her body and shot up to her face, then past her shoulder, to the wall, anywhere else. “Yeah?”
“You okay? You look weird.”
“I’m fine.” The words were strangled. He cleared his throat. “Just… zoning out. Tired.”
She bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. She loved this. She lived for this. The total power of it. The knowledge that with one simple, silent action, she could short-circuit his entire world. He was brilliant with books, could untangle complex code, but this—her, this game—it rendered him a stammering, blushing child. And it was for her eyes only. A secret show. His reaction was a drug, and she was craving another hit already.
She perched on the edge of the desk now, right next to his chair, swinging one leg casually. The movement made the hoodie gap open slightly at her thigh. She saw his gaze, against his will, flicker downward for a millisecond before wrenching back up to the ceiling.
“So,” she said, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. This posture was dangerous; she knew it. The loose neck of the hoodie yawned open. She saw his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, his eyes rigidly fixed on a point above her head. “This iambic thing. Is it, like, the heartbeat of the poem?”
He blinked, struggling to re-enter the conversation. “Uh. Yeah. Basically. Da-DUM. Da-DUM. Like a heart.”
“Huh.” She shifted, swinging her leg again, letting her foot brush against his jean-clad calf. He stiffened as if electrocuted. “So it’s alive. The poem has a heartbeat. That’s kind of beautiful, Eli.” She said his name softly, drawing it out.
He nodded, a jerky, mechanical motion. “Yeah.”
She couldn’t resist. The game was too sweet. She slid off the desk, pretending to lose her balance for a split second. She threw a hand out, grabbing the back of his chair for support. The sudden motion caused the hoodie to twist and ride up dramatically on one side, revealing a long, clean line of her hip, the subtle curve of her waist, a flash of pale skin that disappeared into shadow. It was accidental, perfectly choreographed carelessness.
This time, he made a sound. A low, almost pained noise in the back of his throat. He shut his eyes tight, like a child hoping a monster would vanish.
She righted herself, smoothing the hoodie down with a faint, apologetic smile he couldn’t see because his eyes were sealed shut. “Clumsy me.” She let her hand linger on the chair, her fingertips close to his shoulder. She could feel the heat radiating from him. “You’re sure you’re okay? You seem really… warm.”
“I’m good.” He opened his eyes. They were glassy. He stood up suddenly, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. “I should… I forgot. I told David I’d look at his laptop tonight. It’s crashing.”
It was a transparent lie. David was a kid down his hall he barely tolerated. But she loved the excuse, loved the desperation in it. She had pushed him to the edge, and now he was fleeing. It was the most honest reaction in the world.
“Okay,” she said, her voice dripping with fake disappointment. “My brilliant tutor, abandoning me.”
“I’ll… see you tomorrow. For breakfast?” He was already grabbing his backpack, not looking at her, fumbling with the strap.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” She hugged herself, making the fabric pull tight across her chest for a fleeting second. “Thanks for today. For everything.”
He just nodded, a quick, frantic jerk of his head, and was out the door, pulling it shut behind him with a soft but definite click.
The silence he left behind was profound. Sera stood in the center of the room, the afterimage of his stunned, scarlet face painted on the inside of her eyelids. A slow, deep, exhilarating satisfaction spread through her chest, warm and syrupy. She replayed every micro-expression: the halted breath, the widened eyes, the tortured attempt to look away, the final, helpless flight. Each was a trophy.
She walked to the window, looking down at the path that led to the male dorms. A minute later, she saw him emerge, a lone, hurried figure almost jogging under the streetlights, his head down as if against a rainstorm. She laughed, a quiet, breathy sound in the empty room.
He was hers. Completely. Not just in the way that he made her pancakes or cleaned her room. But in this deeper, more thrilling way. His entire nervous system, his every physical reaction, was tuned to her frequency. She was the conductor, and his blushes and stammers were her symphony. The Chloe incident had threatened that, had introduced a foreign note. But this? This ritual, this game, was the perfect reset button. It reminded them both where the boundaries were, and who held the key.
She let the hoodie fall off one shoulder, catching her reflection in the dark glass. She looked powerful. She looked beloved. She padded to her bed, the ghost of his stunned heat still hanging in the air near the desk, and curled up under the duvet. The fabric of the hoodie smelled like his laundry detergent and, faintly, like the pancakes from this morning. She breathed it in, a contented sigh escaping her. Everything was, once again, exactly as it should be. He was unsettled, electrified, and utterly hers. And tomorrow, he would be back, with coffee and a bagel and that delicious, shameful secret in his green eyes that only she could see. She couldn’t wait.