Page 20 of What We Knew Then
“Don’t tell me you’re heading to the library before you’ve even finished your coffee,” Brinn scolds as we weave through the campus green, both of us clutching paper cups from the café. She’s half a step behind me, eyes narrowed like she already knows the answer.
“I’ve got a few minutes. Might as well use them,” I say, knowing Brinn’s eyeroll is coming.
“Might as well use them,” she mimics, bumping my shoulder. “God forbid you just sit on the quad and, I don’t know, catch your breath.”
“I breathe plenty,” I say too defensively, which only makes her grin.
“Uh-huh. Totally.”
I take another sip of my coffee and close my eyes for half a second, letting the warmth settle low in my chest. God, it’s good. Rich and a little too hot—exactly the kind of thing that makes mornings feel survivable. For a long time, I thought I’d have to give it up.
Years ago, when the migraines were at their worst, a doctor suggested cutting caffeine completely. I did it. Two whole months without coffee. Two gray, joyless months where mornings felt like punishment and everycafé smelled like heartbreak. In the end, it turned out coffee wasn’t the trigger after all.
Thank god.
We cut across the path toward the fountain, the water catching the September sun, all glitter and movement, the steady rush of the jets filling the silence between us. For once, I almost let the quiet sit. Almost.
But then Brinn says it.
“People are still talking about the bonfire. Lane. Freddy. You.”
I stop mid-step, the motion sharp enough to slosh my coffee, and she smirks like she’s been waiting for it.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she chides, taking a slow sip of her iced coffee. “I heard about Freddy showing up. And Lane stepping in.”
I groan, tightening my grip on my cup. “Brinn—”
“Oh, come on.” She nudges me again, softer this time but no less relentless. “Everyone’s talking about it. You can’t just say it was nothing. That doesn’t work on me.” She flips her hair over her shoulder.
“Itwasnothing.” The words come out too fast, too sharp. I try to soften them with a shrug. “Freddy showed up like he always does. Lane got weird. That’s it.”
“Got weird?” she echoes, one brow lifting.
“Yes.” I force out a laugh. “Freddy and Lane had a run-in during the scavenger hunt and it was all… territorial, which makes no sense, because Lane has made it abundantly clear he wants nothing to do with me.” The words spill faster than I mean them to, edged with something I can’t quite smooth over. “And Freddy… well, we know how he feels.”
But even as I say it, heat prickles along my skin. The memory of Lane’s voice—low, sharp, cutting clean through the smoke and noise of the bonfire—has stuck with me all week. The way he looked at Freddy. The way he looked at me.
I hated it. I loved it. And I don’t know what to do with that.
Brinn’s eyes soften. “You can keep things to yourself, you don’t have to dish. But it seems like it meant something.”
I shake my head. “No. There’s nothing there. It was just… awkward. Believe me, he wants nothing to do with me.”
“Uh-huh.” She’s unconvinced. “Whichheare we talking about?”
I shoot her a look, one that tells her to drop it, and she lifts her hands in surrender. I’m thankful for it.
I sip my coffee again, hiding behind the lid, wishing I could hide from myself, too. Because if Brinn can see it, then maybe the feeling I’ve been trying to shove down all week isn’t so invisible after all.
And I don’t know what scares me more: that she’s right, or that Lane already knows it, too.
Istandoutsidemyadvisor’s office, staring at the door like it might bite. My knuckles hover as I take a steadying breath, trying to get my head on straight before I knock. When I finally do, it sounds louder than it should. I hear movement—papers shifting, a chair scraping—before the door opens.
“One of my favorite seniors,” Professor McCullough greets, smiling as she steps aside.
I take the chair across from her desk, the same one I’ve sat in a hundred times. My body settles, even if my nerves don’t.
Freshman year, I took one of her classes. I was the only woman in the room, and one of the top students. A few weeks in, she asked me to stop by during office hours. Naturally, I assumed I was in trouble. Good girl syndrome.
