Chapter 18 Chapter 17
Harper POV
The lecture hall smells like coffee, chalk dust, and too many lives moving forward without hesitation.
My notebook is open in front of me, but the lines blur. Professor Keene is talking about demand elasticity — a concept I normally love — but today it may as well be ocean noise.
Because all morning, all night, one text sits like a live wire in my chest.
Maybe I like when you come find me.
I hate how my skin reacted to that.
I hate how my breath caught.
I hate how I read it three times like it meant something.
I hate most of all that I believed, for a single dangerous second, it wasn’t a game.
A high-pitched laugh cuts through the room. Someone joking with friends. Normal life.
I adjust in my seat, force my hand to stop shaking, and tell my pulse to calm down.
Do not look for him. Do not give him space in your world.
Too late.
I feel his presence before I see him — back row, right side, in his usual seat. Logan Shaw, hoodie sleeves shoved up, jaw tense, pen tapping against the notebook he probably isn’t writing in.
I don’t turn.
But I swear I feel his eyes on me.
Like gravity — slow, inevitable, pulling.
No.
Not today.
I keep staring forward until the clock finally hits the hour and students explode toward the doors.
I take longer packing up — because my hands aren’t cooperating, because my stomach is already tied up in the memory of that text and every rumor I heard this week, because Tyler’s voice still rings:
“He says you’ve been chasing him since high school.”
Like I’m pathetic.
Like I’m background noise in his highlight reel.
My throat tightens and I swallow hard.
The room empties.
I turn.
He’s still there.
He always waits just long enough to make it confusing.
“Harper.”
Just my name. Quiet. Rough around the edges.
“Logan.” I hug my bag strap tighter. Armor.
“You dating Brooks now?”
Not hello, not good morning — accusation.
“What?”
He shrugs like he doesn’t care. But his jaw flexes. “Saw you outside the café yesterday. Looked cozy.”
I blink once. Twice.
Of all the things he could have walked in here with — this?
“You mean Ryan? The Delta Chi president?”
“That what we’re calling him now?”
Heat rises in my chest — anger, humiliation, the urge to cry and punch and scream all at once.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Silence crackles. He just watches. Waiting.
Like this isn’t insane.
“Ryan is not my boyfriend,” I grind out. “We co-host Rush Week events. That’s it.”
Logan’s tone stays flat. “Didn’t look like just business.”
“Then maybe,” I hiss, “you should stop staring long enough to know what you’re talking about.”
His eyes flick — like I hit something he wasn’t ready to feel.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“You sure?” I lift my chin. “Because accusing me of dating someone you barely know makes it seem like you were.”
He steps closer — too close — heat radiating off him, that stupid smell of ice and cedar and trouble.
“I know enough.”
“No. You assume enough.”
He laughs — one sharp, empty sound. “Same thing.”
“You really think you get to be jealous?” I snap. “You?”
The guy who only touches girls who look nothing like me?
I bite that part back. Too vulnerable. Too pathetic. Too real.
So instead — “You’ve hooked up with half the puck bunnies on campus.”
His expression shifts — flash of guilt, frustration, something raw before the wall slams back up.
“That’s different.”
“Why? Because it’s you?”
My voice breaks and I hate it. “Because you’re allowed to want whoever you want, but I’m supposed to stay in the corner until you’re done?”
“Harper.”
“No, really. Explain. Please. Because I’d love to understand the rules of the game where you get to sleep your way through campus but I’m not even allowed to laugh with someone else.”
“I don’t…” He drags a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to picture you with someone like him.”
The room stills.
Breath freezes in my lungs.
There it is.
Not affection.
Not care.
Possession.
“That’s not your choice,” I say, voice soft but shaking. “You don’t get to police who I talk to because your ego can’t handle not being the center of attention.”
He swallows hard. Something cracks in his expression. “It’s not ego.”
“Then what is it, Logan? Because from where I’m standing, this looks like double standards and insecurity dressed as… whatever you think this is.”
His jaw clenches. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand plenty.”
My chest hurts.
My vision blurs.
I hate this. I hate him. I hate myself for standing here.
“You chase distraction after distraction,” I whisper, “and treat it like power. Like control. But God forbid anyone else chooses something — someone — that isn’t you.”
His voice drops to a rough whisper. “You think I like feeling like this?”
“I think,” I breathe, “you don’t know what you want. And until you do — I’m not letting you use me as the thing you run toward and away from at the same time.”
He looks like I slapped him.
Good.
Let him feel something for once.
I shoulder my bag. “Next time you want to accuse me of something, try talking to me like a human instead of a jealous asshole.”
He flinches.
Barely.
Enough.
I turn to leave.
“Harper,” he murmurs behind me, quieter than I’ve ever heard him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I don’t look back.
Because if I see regret in his eyes, I might forgive him for something he hasn’t even apologized for.
“Then start meaning something better.”
I walk away.
⸻
Later — Sorority House
My hands shake when I unlock my bedroom door. I don’t turn on the main light — just the lamp. Soft, warm. Safe.
I drop my bag on the chair and sink onto my bed like gravity doubled just to spite me.
My laptop pings.
Email.
Confirmed. Numbers look good. — L.S.
Two sentences. Cold. Neutral.
Captain voice. Team captain, not—
Not the boy who texted Maybe I like when you come find me.
I stare at the screen until my eyes burn.
Then I laugh.
A single, broken sound.
“Of course,” I whisper. “Of course you don’t mean it.”
I pull my knees to my chest, rest my forehead against them, and breathe through the ache.
I could tan.
Lose weight.
Change my hair, my clothes, my everything.
And it still wouldn’t matter.
Because I will never be what he’s trained himself to want.
Not Latina.
Not curved like the girls who throw themselves at him.
Not soft in the ways he thinks desire should look.
I’m the girl with spreadsheets and schedules, who plans charity galas instead of chasing after athletes like a puck bunny audition.
And he only wants fire — chaos and curves and heat he can touch without thinking.
I wipe my cheeks before the tears fall.
I will not cry for him.
Not today.
My phone buzzes.
A notification lights up the screen.
I don’t open it.
I lie back on my bed, staring at the ceiling, heart bruising itself against the cage of my ribs.
Stop wanting him, I tell myself.
The worst part?
I don’t know how.