He Called Me His

Chapter Three: Too Close for Comfort.

The accident, when it finally happened, was almost embarrassingly small — a power outage during a thunderstorm, the whole house plunged into darkness while our parents were out at some work dinner neither of us had been invited to.

"Great," I muttered, fumbling through the pitch-black kitchen for the flashlight drawer I hadn't fully memorized yet. "Perfect end to a perfect week."

"Relax," Xavier's voice said from somewhere close behind me, closer than I expected, making me jump. "I know this house better than you do. Stay still, I'll find candles."

I heard him moving confidently through the dark, and moments later, warm candlelight flickered to life across the kitchen island, throwing soft gold shadows across his face as he set out three mismatched candles like it was something he'd done a hundred times before during a hundred other storms.

"You do this a lot?" I asked, settling onto a stool across from him.

"Power's unreliable out here during storms," he said. "Used to scare me when I was a kid. My mom would light candles just like this, before she left. I guess I never stopped doing it."

There it was again — that quiet honesty he only seemed to offer in the dark, away from an audience. I was starting to look forward to it more than I wanted to admit.

"Can I ask you something?" I said. "The version of you at school — the one everyone talks about. Is any of that actually you, or is it all just... performance?"

He considered the question longer than I expected. "Both, probably," he admitted. "The performance started because it was easier than letting people see how much losing my mom actually wrecked me. Somewhere along the way, I think I forgot how to fully turn it off, even when I wanted to."

"You're turning it off right now," I pointed out.

"I know," he said, meeting my eyes across the candlelight with an intensity that made my breath catch. "I don't know what it is about you, Ivy, but I keep forgetting to perform when you're around. It's inconvenient. And terrifying. And I don't entirely hate it."

The air between us felt suddenly charged, dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with the storm outside. I should have looked away. I should have laughed it off, made a joke, done anything except lean slightly closer across the kitchen island, drawn toward him by something I didn't fully understand yet.

"We can't," I whispered, though I didn't move away. "Xavier, we live together. Our parents are married. This is—"

"I know exactly what this is," he said quietly, not moving away either. "I've known since the first night on the porch, if I'm honest. I just didn't expect it to get worse instead of better."

The lights flickered back on suddenly, harsh and bright, shattering whatever fragile moment had been building between us. We both jumped back like we'd been caught doing something far more scandalous than simply talking in candlelight, laughing awkwardly at our own reaction, the tension diffusing just enough to breathe again.

"We should probably talk about this," I said, once my heart rate had settled somewhat.

"Probably," he agreed. "Tomorrow. Not tonight. Tonight I just want to pretend a little longer that this is simpler than it actually is."

I understood that feeling more than I wanted to admit. I nodded, and we blew out the candles together in silence, both of us retreating to our separate rooms without another word — though I lay awake long after, staring at the ceiling, replaying every second of firelight and forbidden honesty until sleep finally, reluctantly, claimed me.

The "talk" we'd promised never quite happened the next day, both of us apparently unspoken-agreeing to pretend the storm had never cracked anything open between us at all. We fell into an uneasy truce instead — polite at breakfast, careful at school, avoiding any moment alone together that might reopen what neither of us was ready to name.

It worked, for almost a week. Right up until Xavier's ex-girlfriend, a girl named Sasha who apparently still carried a very public torch for him, decided the rumors about us deserved a more dramatic response than Xavier's earlier dismissal had provided.

She found me alone at my locker on Thursday, arms crossed, expression carved from pure venom.

"I don't know what game you're playing," she said without preamble, "moving in like some pathetic little stray and trying to steal someone else's spotlight. But Xavier and I have history. Real history. Whatever you think is happening between you two right now — it's not going to last. It never does, with him."

"I'm not trying to steal anything," I said, though something in her words landed harder than I expected, poking directly at the fear I hadn't fully admitted to myself yet.

"Sure you're not," Sasha said, unconvinced, before storming off in a cloud of expensive perfume and wounded pride.

I found Xavier after school, unable to shake the unease Sasha's words had planted. "Your ex cornered me today," I told him. "Said this — whatever we're pretending isn't happening — never lasts with you. That I should know better than to get attached."

Something dark passed behind Xavier's eyes. "Sasha doesn't get to decide what this is," he said, his voice low and unexpectedly fierce. "Whatever history we had ended for a reason, and it has nothing to do with you."

"Then what IS this, Xavier?" I asked, the question I'd been avoiding for over a week finally breaking free. "Because I can't keep pretending I don't feel something every single time you look at me like that. And I need to know if I'm imagining this alone, or if you're actually as far into this as I am."

He stepped closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head up to hold his gaze, close enough that the careful distance we'd maintained all week collapsed entirely in an instant.

"You're not imagining anything," he said quietly, his voice rougher than I'd ever heard it. "I've been trying to convince myself this was just curiosity, or proximity, or some temporary complication. It's not. It hasn't been, since that very first night on the porch."

Neither of us moved for a long moment, the truth finally sitting plainly between us with nowhere left to hide from it — right up until a group of students rounded the hallway corner, forcing us apart before either of us could say, or do, anything that couldn't be taken back.

I didn't yet know that Sasha, humiliated and furious, had already decided exactly how she intended to make both of us regret whatever was building between us — and that her plan would put everything, our families included, at terrible risk within days.