Chapter 31
Kieran's POV
The F=ma mock exam had five minutes left when Logan kicked my chair.
I didn't look up. Problem twenty-three required a coupled oscillator analysis and I was already behind schedule because I'd spent the first ten minutes replaying yesterday's scene outside Coach's office—Summer's face when she'd realized she'd overheard everything, the way her voice had cracked when she'd tried to explain herself, how I'd stood there like a complete asshole with my walls up and my guard raised while she stammered through an apology she didn't even owe me.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound like—like charity or pity or whatever you think it was.
Had she meant it? Or was that just what rich girls said when they got caught eavesdropping on conversations that exposed exactly how pathetic someone's life really was?
This morning I'd left physics notes in her locker—derivations for rotational dynamics she'd been struggling with in study hall last week, problems I'd worked out on graph paper with step-by-step solutions because I'd noticed her handwriting getting messier when she was frustrated. I'd slipped them through the vent slots before homeroom, my hand shaking like an idiot, and then I'd spent the entire morning wondering if she'd found them yet, if she'd think I was being condescending, if leaving notes anonymously made me a coward or just pathetic.
My gaze drifted to the window. Down below, Summer and her friend Mia were hauling equipment across the grass, Summer's gold-brown curls catching the afternoon light.
My chest tightened.
She'd been wearing that same shade of lip gloss yesterday when she'd shown up outside Coach's office. The kind that made her mouth look soft and pink even when she was stammering apologies and looking at me like she'd committed some kind of crime. I wondered if she'd opened her locker this morning, if she'd seen the notes, if she knew they were from me or if she thought some other physics nerd had decided to play secret tutor.
Stop it.
I jerked my eyes away and attacked problem twenty-three. The equations finally started making sense. I sketched the free-body diagram, derived the angular frequency, checked my units.
The proctor called time.
"Yo, Cross." Logan's hand landed on my shoulder as I stood. "What's the rush?"
"These don't need two people to carry," I said flatly.
"Bro, I saw you." He was grinning now. "You were totally zoned out on the window. Don't even try to deny it—you were checking out the cheerleaders, weren't you?"
"Who?"
"Who?" Logan looked at me like I'd asked what sport used a basketball. "Brooke Martinez? Cheer captain? The girl is a ten, dude. Or Madison Chen—she's got that whole 'could definitely benchpress you but might also bake you cookies afterward' energy. Or Ashley Torres. Her Instagram has like eight thousand followers."
"I have no idea who any of those people are."
Logan clutched his chest. "Kieran. My guy. These girls are twenty feet away, in tiny uniforms, doing high kicks, and you don't know their names? What are you, a malfunctioning robot?"
I kept my expression neutral and waited for him to exhaust himself.
He did not.
"Wait." His eyes narrowed. "You seriously weren't watching the cheerleaders?"
"No."
"Then what the hell were you—" He stopped. Turned to look out the window. Turned back with dawning horror. "Please don't tell me you were mentally solving differential equations."
"I need to turn these in," I said, moving toward the door.
Logan blocked my path. "Hold up. If it wasn't the cheerleaders, and it wasn't equations, then—" His eyes went wide. "Was it that fat-ass campus cat? The giant orange one that's always posted up on the AC unit?"
"Yeah," I said. "The cat."
His whole face collapsed into disappointment.
"Dude." He shook his head slowly. "I was so ready to be proud of you. I thought, 'finally, Kieran Cross is having a normal teenage boy moment.' But no. A cat. That's honestly tragic, man."
"Riveting conversation, Logan."
"You're such a freak," he muttered, but he finally stepped aside.
I walked past him into the hallway, my right hand clenched in my pocket around that stupid pink cat lock she'd given me weeks ago. My fingers traced the smooth plastic, the tiny keyhole, the curve of the cartoon ears. I'd been carrying it everywhere since the day she'd pressed it into my palm with that bright, nervous smile, like some kind of talisman I couldn't bring myself to leave behind, and this morning I'd almost brought it with me to her locker before deciding that would be too much, too obvious, too desperate.
Behind me, Logan's voice carried down the hall: "Bro, Kieran Cross just admitted he'd rather watch a cat than Brooke Martinez. I think he might actually be broken."
If only he knew.
I stopped walking and pressed my forehead against the cool wall.
Yeah. The cat.
Not the girl with honey-colored eyes that turned amber in the sunlight. Not the girl who'd shown up outside Coach's office yesterday holding Pop-Tarts and a card with my name on it, who'd looked at me like she'd die if I rejected her when all she'd done was overhear something she shouldn't have. Not the girl I'd treated like a threat when she'd been nothing but sincere, the girl I'd accepted things from with all the grace of a cornered animal because I hadn't known what to say, how to respond to someone who looked at me like that, how to explain that her knowing about my situation felt like swallowing glass because now she'd seen exactly how pathetic my life really was.
I'd taken the Pop-Tarts. I'd even agreed to help her with physics. But the whole time I'd stood there like a complete asshole, barely managing to get words out, my face probably looking like I'd rather be anywhere else.
What was I supposed to do with that?
I'd never dated anyone. Never even thought about it. From the moment I could remember, my life had been survival—keeping Lily safe, working enough hours to pay rent, winning competitions to keep my scholarship. There was no room for anything else, no space in my head for liking someone or wondering what it felt like to be liked back.
I didn't know what love was supposed to feel like, didn't know what it meant to be cared for without conditions attached.
But then—this fall, this first autumn in Boston, seventeen years old and I'd met her.
Summer Hayes.
A pretty little cat I could never afford to keep.
She'd never be mine. I didn't know how to make her happy, didn't know how to respond when she smiled at me and looked at me like I was someone worth knowing instead of someone to avoid. I didn't know if she'd found the notes this morning, if she'd understood they were my way of saying I'm sorry for being such a defensive asshole yesterday, for not knowing how to accept what you were offering, for being too much of a coward to just say thank you properly when you were standing right there in front of me.
And I wanted to say yes to everything she asked.
Anything, I thought, my throat tight. Anything you want. As long as I have it. As long as I can.
It made no sense. It was completely irrational. There was no logical framework for this, no equation I could solve.
It felt like instinct.
I pushed off the wall and headed toward Coach's office to turn in the exams.
Tomorrow I'd see her in homeroom. I'd have to figure out what to say—if I should say anything at all, if I should pretend yesterday never happened, or acknowledge it somehow, if I should ask if she'd gotten the notes or just let it stay anonymous and safe.
You're going to regret this, I told myself.
But my hand was already wrapped around the lock in my pocket, and yesterday's scene kept playing on repeat—her voice cracking, her eyes bright, the weight of those Pop-Tarts in my hands like a question I still didn't know how to answer, and this morning's memory of sliding those notes through the locker vents like some kind of pathetic secret admirer who couldn't even own up to his own gestures.
She'd given me a lock shaped like a cat.
I was the idiot who'd already let her have the key.