Chapter 38 Chapter 38

Chapter 38 Chapter 38
I should have known pride would come with consequences.

Not dramatic, life-ruining consequences.

Just attention.

And attention, at Briar Ridge, had always been a complicated currency.

By Tuesday morning, people were still congratulating me in hallways. Teachers smiled more when I passed. Mrs. Hargrove stopped me before first period just to squeeze my shoulder and say, “You wore that recognition well,” which sounded like something from a nineteenth-century novel but still made me weirdly happy.

The problem was that attention never arrived alone.

It brought commentary with it.

By lunch, I’d already heard the words fellowship girl twice and Jaxon’s genius girlfriend once from a sophomore I had never seen before in my life.

I hated how quickly my body still wanted to tense.

Like some part of me kept expecting praise to turn mean in the middle of the sentence.

Naomi, of course, noticed immediately.

We were in the library during study period, sitting at our usual table while she pretended to work on history and I pretended not to reread the fellowship packet for the sixth time.

“You’re doing the face,” she said.

I looked up. “I have a lot of faces.”

“This one is specifically ‘I’m trying to enjoy my success but the social ecosystem remains feral.’”

I narrowed my eyes. “You are becoming disturbingly fluent in me.”

She shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”

I looked back down at the packet. “It’s stupid.”

“What is?”

“That good things still make me brace.”

Naomi was quiet for a moment, which usually meant she was about to say something serious enough to annoy me.

Then she leaned back in her chair. “I don’t think that’s stupid.” Her voice softened. “I think it’s what happens when people train you to expect the knife.”

I swallowed.

Because yes. That was exactly it.

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed on the table.

Jaxon:
practice got canceled. kidnapping you after school.

A second later:

for food. not crime.

Naomi caught the look on my face and grinned. “Ah. The antidote.”

“He’s not an antidote.”

“No,” she said. “But he does seem to lower your blood pressure.”

“That is medically unverified.”

She smiled. “Sure.”

After school, I found him leaning against his truck with his hands in his pockets and the kind of expression that made it very difficult to remember I was trying to be normal.

The late afternoon sun caught on the edge of his hair. He looked up when I came outside, and there it was again—that quiet shift in his face when he saw me. Recognition. Warmth. Something that still startled me every time because it never looked accidental.

“Hey, fellowship girl,” he said.

I groaned. “Absolutely not.”

He laughed and took my bag from my shoulder. “So that’s a no on the nickname.”

“That’s a no on your continued survival.”

He opened the passenger door for me. “Noted.”

Once we were on the road, I looked over. “Where are we going?”

“Burger place by the river.”

I blinked. “The good one?”

He looked offended. “Obviously.”

That did help, annoyingly. The familiar booths, the old jukebox no one used, the smell of fries and grilled onions—somehow all of it felt grounding. Less like Briar Ridge. More like the rest of the world, where I was allowed to be a person and not an evolving piece of school gossip.

We slid into a booth near the back.

Jaxon looked at me over the top of the menu. “You’ve been weird all day.”

I snorted. “Your commitment to emotional subtlety is inspiring.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

The waitress took our order, and when she left, I exhaled and leaned back against the booth.

“People are being nice,” I said.

His brows lifted. “That sounds like a good problem.”

“Not when I don’t trust it.”

Understanding moved through his face almost instantly. “Because of the assembly.”

“Because of all of it.” I traced one finger along the edge of my napkin. “Because one minute you’re the girl they make fun of for existing, and the next minute you’re the smart girl with the scholarship and the quarterback, and somehow I’m supposed to act like I don’t notice the difference.”

Jaxon was very still.

“That sounds exhausting,” he said quietly.

I laughed once. “It is.”

He didn’t rush to fix it. That was one of the things he did best. He didn’t fling reassurance at me like he could patch over years with one nice sentence.

Instead he said, “Do you want to know what I notice?”

I looked up.

“You were worth paying attention to before any of this.” His gaze held mine. “They’re just late.”

My throat tightened in the worst, warmest way.

“You really need a less effective personality,” I muttered.

A smile touched his mouth. “You’ve said.”

“Because it remains true.”

Our food arrived then, which was lucky, because I needed the interruption. I needed fries and ketchup and the exact amount of silence it takes to breathe around being understood too well.

We ate. We talked about smaller things. Lucy’s latest attempt to “rebrand” multiplication as intellectual warfare. Mr. Reed accidentally washing one of Jaxon’s practice socks with a red towel and turning it pink. Naomi threatening violence if I didn’t let her print my fellowship essay for “archival purposes.”

By the time we finished, something inside me had eased.

Outside, the evening had gone gold and soft. The river path behind the restaurant was nearly empty, just a couple walking a dog and an old man on a bench staring thoughtfully at ducks.

Jaxon nodded toward the water. “Walk?”

I said yes before I could overthink it.

We moved slowly along the path, shoulders brushing now and then, the air cool enough to make me glad I’d brought my cardigan. He took my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe it was becoming that.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said after a minute.

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Probably.” He glanced down at me. “About college.”

That got my attention fast.

“What about it?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You’ll leave.”

The words weren’t accusing. Just true.

Still, they hit.

I looked out over the river. “Maybe.”

“You should,” he said immediately. “For the fellowship. For engineering. For all of it.”

The certainty in his voice made me turn back to him. “You say that very calmly for someone who sounds like he hates the idea.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “I do hate the idea.” Then, softer, “But I’d hate being the reason you stayed smaller more.”

That stopped me in place.

He stopped too, turning toward me.

The river moved behind him in slow gold ripples. Cars hummed on the road beyond the trees. The whole world seemed briefly suspended around one impossible boy saying impossible things again.

“You make that sound easy,” I whispered.

“It’s not easy.” His hand tightened around mine. “It’s just not a question.”

And suddenly I understood something I hadn’t let myself look at yet: this wasn’t just about being chosen. It was about being loved in a way that didn’t require me to shrink my future to keep it.

That realization felt bigger than the evening, bigger than the river, bigger than the whole town.

I stepped closer.

His eyes dropped to my mouth and back.

“Jaxon?”

“Yeah?”

I smiled a little, shaky around the edges. “You’re very inconvenient to my emotional stability.”

A laugh broke out of him. “That sounds serious.”

“It is.”

Then I kissed him before I could lose the nerve.

He kissed me back immediately, warm and sure, one hand coming to my waist while the other kept hold of mine. The river breeze moved around us, cool against flushed skin, and for one suspended second nothing else existed but this: him, me, and the terrifying sweetness of being loved without condition attached.

When we pulled apart, his forehead rested lightly against mine.

“You okay?” he murmured.

I smiled.

This time, really smiled.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I actually am.”

And for once, it didn’t feel like hope trying to trick me.

It felt true.