Between Us

Chapter 3 — Going Public

The agreement was simple.

Walk together between lectures. Sit together at lunch twice a week. Look believable enough that Keira Hanson would get the message and redirect her energy somewhere else.

Simple.

What Zane forgot to mention was that dating him — even fake dating him — came with an audience.

I found this out the next morning when I walked to BIO 215 and the entire corridor went quiet.

Not dramatically quiet. Just that specific kind of quiet where conversations don't stop but they slow down, and eyes move without heads turning. I felt it the moment Zane fell into step beside me at the bottom of the stairs — appearing from nowhere as usual, hands in his pockets, completely unbothered.

"Good morning," he said casually.

"Don't do that," I muttered.

"Do what?"

"Appear out of nowhere. It's unsettling."

"I walked down the stairs."

"You materialized."

He almost smiled. "You're dramatic for someone who claims to have no personality."

I stopped walking. "I never said that."

"You implied it." He kept moving. "Come on. People are staring."

They absolutely were.

Lunch was worse.

I had a system — corner table, back to the wall, headphones in, invisible. It had worked flawlessly for the entire first semester.

Zane dismantled it in approximately forty seconds.

He appeared at my table with his tray, pulled out the chair across from me without asking, and sat down like he'd been doing it for years. Within three minutes, two of his friends had joined us. Within five, someone had taken a photo.

I stared at my food.

"You look like you're being held hostage," Zane said quietly, leaning slightly across the table so only I could hear.

"I feel like I'm being held hostage."

"Smile. Just once. It won't kill you."

"You don't know that."

But I looked up. And I smiled — small, controlled, the kind I used when lecturers asked if there were any questions and there were absolutely questions but nobody wanted to be that person.

Zane looked at me for a second.

"That's the most painful smile I've ever seen," he said.

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment."

"I know."

He shook his head slowly, but something about his expression was different — softer, almost. Like he found me funny in a way he hadn't expected.

I looked back at my food before I could think too hard about that.

The tutoring started that same evening.

He showed up at the library at 6pm exactly, dropped his bag on the table across from mine, and pulled out notes that were — I'll admit, reluctantly — extremely well organised.

"You took BIO 215 already?" I asked, flipping through them.

"Last year. Failed it first time."

I looked up. That surprised me. "You failed?"

"Shocking, I know." He didn't seem embarrassed about it. "Didn't show up to enough practicals. Took it again, paid attention, passed. It's not as complicated as the lecturer makes it sound."

I turned another page. His handwriting was unexpectedly neat.

"You're actually smart," I said, without thinking.

He raised an eyebrow.

"I mean—" I caught myself. "You don't seem like you try."

"Most people don't try at the things they're actually good at." He pulled the notes back toward himself and flipped to a specific page. "Okay. Chromatin structure. Where are you getting stuck?"

And just like that, Zane Carter — campus bad boy, fake boyfriend, human inconvenience — became the best study partner I'd ever had.

I didn't tell him that obviously.

But still.

We walked out of the library at 8:30pm. The campus was quieter at that hour, the kind of quiet I actually liked — distant music from the hostels, yellow lights along the path, the smell of someone frying something good somewhere nearby.

We didn't talk much on the way out.

Then, just before we split off toward different hostels, he said — almost like an afterthought:

"You didn't have to agree to this, you know."

I looked at him.

"The tutoring balances it," I said.

"I know. I'm just saying." He looked ahead. "I didn't give you much of a choice. Back in the car park."

It was the closest thing to an apology I suspected Zane Carter had offered anyone in a long time.

I thought about brushing it off. Saying it was fine. Moving on.

Instead I said, "Don't make me regret it."

He looked at me then — really looked, for just a second.

"I'll try not to," he said quietly.

And then he was gone, hands back in his pockets, disappearing into the dark like he'd never been there.

I stood there for a moment longer than I needed to.

Then I went inside, told myself it meant nothing, and went to bed.

I almost believed it.