Between Us

Chapter 5 — Not Supposed To Feel Like This

The first time we had to actually act like a couple — like properly, in front of people who were watching — was at Bello's birthday get together on Saturday night.

I hadn't planned to go.

Zane had texted me at 4pm.

Bello's thing tonight. Need you there. 8pm.

I had stared at that message for a long time.

Then I had typed back: That's not a request, that's a summons.

Please. A pause. Then: Ava.

I didn't know why him using my name did anything to me. It was just my name.

People used it every day.

I went at 8pm.

Denise spent forty five minutes on my appearance, which I protested for the first twenty and then quietly gave up on because she had a vision and there was no stopping her when she had a vision.

"You're going to a party with Zane Carter," she said, like this was a national event. "You're not showing up in your lecture clothes."

"I show up everywhere in my lecture clothes."

"Not tonight you don't."

I ended up in a black dress I'd forgotten I owned and earrings Denise lent me that were slightly too fancy for a student house party but she insisted were perfect.

When I stepped outside and saw Zane leaning against the wall waiting for me, hands in his pockets, I told myself the way my stomach moved was just hunger because I hadn't eaten since the meat pie incident.

He looked at me for a second without saying anything.

Then — "You look different."

"Good different or bad different?"

"Just different." He pushed off the wall and we started walking. "Good."

I didn't say anything to that.

I should have said something to that.

Bello's place was loud and warm and packed with people who all seemed to know each other except me. The music was good though — the kind that gets into your bones without asking permission.

Zane kept a hand on my back as we moved through the crowd, which was practical more than anything else — it was genuinely difficult to move without losing each other — but it made me very aware of exactly where his hand was at all times.

Transaction, I reminded myself. This is a transaction.

His hand stayed warm against my back.

We found a spot near the wall with Zane's friends — Bello himself, a tall guy named Kofi who laughed at everything, and a quiet girl called Serena who I immediately liked because she was also clearly there under some form of social obligation and we bonded over that silently.

Zane stayed close all evening. Not suffocatingly close — just present. Checking in occasionally, making sure I had a drink, once leaning down to say something in my ear just because Kofi had said something ridiculous and he wanted to make sure I'd caught it.

It felt natural in a way that made me deeply uncomfortable.

Around 10pm, Keira arrived.

I felt the shift in Zane before I saw her — something in his posture, subtle and quick, like a door closing. He straightened slightly. His hand, which had been resting loosely near my shoulder, moved to hold mine properly.

His fingers laced through mine like it was nothing.

It was not nothing.

"Breathe," he said quietly, looking straight ahead.

"I am breathing."

"You stopped for a second."

I had. I absolutely had.

Keira's eyes found us across the room. She looked at our hands. Something moved across her face — quick and controlled — and then she looked away and laughed at something her friend said like she hadn't seen us at all.

Zane's hand didn't loosen.

Neither did mine.

We walked back at 11:30 — the night air cool and sharp after the warmth of the party, the campus quiet around us. Our hands had separated somewhere between leaving the house and hitting the main road but I could still feel the ghost of it.

I hated that I could still feel it.

"You did well tonight," Zane said.

"I didn't do anything."

"You stayed. You smiled at the right times. You talked to Serena for forty minutes about plants apparently."

"She's doing botany. It was interesting."

He glanced at me sideways. "You're the only person I know who goes to a party and makes a genuine friend."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No." Something quiet in his voice. "It's really not."

We stopped at the point where our paths split — the same spot as before, same yellow light, same distant hostel sounds.

"Zane," I said.

He looked at me.

"When Keira moves on—" I started.

"Yeah."

"This ends. Right?"

He held my gaze for a moment that went on just slightly too long.

"Right," he said.

I nodded. Turned to go.

"Ava."

I looked back.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head slightly.

"Nothing. Goodnight."

I went inside.

I lay in the dark for a long time, staring at the ceiling, listening to Denise's steady breathing across the room.

When Keira moves on, this ends.

I'd said it to remind myself.

So why did it feel less like a relief and more like something quietly breaking?