The one she hates

Chapter 1: Never Knock My phone buzzed at 4:12 in the afternoon, and I knew who it was before I looked. Nobody else called me. People texted. Bella called, like she was summoning me. "Cole." No hello. "Please tell me you're free." "Good afternoon to you too." "I'm serious. Professor Marlowe just emailed. He wants our project in his inbox by nine tonight or I lose the whole grade. Can you go to my apartment and get it?" I frowned at the wall. "You're supposed to be home finishing your half. I did mine last night." "I know, I know. I just got... caught up." "In what?" "Something." "Something." "Cole." I closed my eyes. Seven years I'd known this girl, and she still lied like someone hiding cookies behind her back. Then I heard it, somewhere behind her voice. Warm, easy, far too confident. "Babe, are you coming or what? They're waiting for us." I would have known that voice anywhere. It had been shouting across a soccer pitch at me for three years. Alan Scott. I was the captain. He was the number nine, the guy who could miss a penalty and still get a standing ovation. In all our time at the same university, he had never once said my name correctly. It was always Colin. Always with a smile, so nobody could call it an insult. "Ah," I said, flat. "That's why you're busy." "It's not what it sounds like." "It's exactly what it sounds like." Her voice dropped, soft and pleading. "Please. Just this once. I'll make it up to you." She always said that. She never did. I always said yes anyway, which said more about me than about her. "I'll go tonight. I have somewhere to be first." "Thank you, thank you, you're the best." I heard her breathe out. Then, as if remembering something: "Oh, and Cole? My sister's back." My stomach did a slow, unhappy roll. "Allison?" "She got in last week. She's staying with me." A pause. "Be careful. She still hates your guts." "She's never even spoken to me properly." "She doesn't need to," Bella said cheerfully, and hung up. I stared at my reflection in the black screen. At the face Allison apparently couldn't stand to look at. Not because of anything I'd done. Because of whose face I was wearing. * * * "Seven years," James said, stabbing a fry into the ketchup like it owed him money. We were in the back booth of the campus diner, windows fogging in the evening light. I'd told him about the call. I probably shouldn't have. "Don't," I said. "Seven. Years. Cole." "I can count." "Then count this." He pointed the fry at me. "How long are you going to keep feeding a fire that's already dead?" "If letting go were that easy, don't you think I would have?" James slid his phone across the table without a word. A video. Shaky, loud, shot at a party. The camera swung across a crowded living room, plastic cups, music thumping. And there in the middle, laughing, was Bella. Alan's arm hung loose around her shoulders. She tipped her head against his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world. She looked happy. That was the worst part. "She knows how things are between you and Alan," James said quietly. "She knows what you feel. She just doesn't care enough to stop." I handed the phone back. My hand was steady. I was proud of that. "I need to go finish the project." "Cole." "She'll fail without it." He watched me pull on my jacket. For a second, I thought he'd push. Instead he just shook his head, tired and kind. "You can't control what you feel. You can only decide what you do about it. And you keep deciding the same thing." He paused. "Try something new. Anything. Anyone. Just not this." I didn't answer. I walked out into the dark. * * * It started to rain at the third block. Not a drizzle. A full, committed downpour, the kind that soaks through a jacket in under a minute. I hadn't brought an umbrella. Of course I hadn't. I'd been too busy being noble. By the eighth block, water was running down my spine, and I laughed out loud on an empty street because the universe clearly had a sense of humor. The funny thing about a long, cold walk is that your mind doesn't wander. It marches. Straight back to that video. Her head against his chest. She'd known. That was what got me. It wasn't cruelty. It was worse. It was the comfort of someone who is absolutely certain you aren't going anywhere. And she was right. I'd told her how I felt three times in three years. The first time, she went quiet, then smiled that careful smile and said, "I'll be yours. Just not yet." She never said why. The second time, same answer. The third, same smile. This year, I hadn't said it at all. Somewhere along the way, patience had started to feel like quitting. Get the project, I told myself. Give it to her. Go home. You're not a tragic hero in a movie. You're a guy with a key. I did have a key. Bella had pressed it into my hand two years ago, "in case of emergencies," and it had lived on my keychain ever since, a small brass reminder of everything she'd ever half-offered me. By the time I reached her building, I looked like I'd been dragged behind a boat. I climbed to the third floor, dripping on every step, and stood outside her door. It never occurred to me to knock. That was my first mistake. * * * The apartment smelled like vanilla candles and somebody else's shampoo. A suitcase sat open on the couch, half unpacked. Not Bella's. Then, from the hallway, light footsteps. A door opening. A voice, drowsy and sharp at once. "You're back? I thought you said you wouldn't be—" She stopped. I stopped. Allison stood in the hallway with one hand on the bathroom door and a towel in the other, forgotten and useless. Her hair was damp. She was wearing nothing but her underwear. Time did something strange. It stretched, and thinned, and slid right out from under both of us. I knew her face from the framed photo on Bella's shelf, the two of them squinting into the sun at a lake. But the photo hadn't prepared me for her eyes, for the way they went from confusion to recognition to something very, very cold. She didn't scream. That might have been easier. Apologizing won't help, I thought, with sudden, bleak clarity. She already hates me for a face I didn't choose. Anything I say will sound like an excuse. Do what you came for. Leave. Fast. I fixed my eyes on a point six inches above her head. "Hi, Allison." Nothing. "Do you know where Bella's project is?" A long, awful pause. Then she lifted one arm and pointed at the second door down the hall. "Thanks." I moved. I did not run. I want that on the record. Bella's door was locked. Of course it was. I tried the handle again, as if the first attempt had been a typo, and felt Allison's gaze on the back of my neck, hot enough to dry my jacket. I dialed with dripping fingers. "Cole! Did you get it?" "The door's locked." "Oh no." Muffled music, a burst of laughter that was definitely male. "I forgot I locked it this morning, I'm so sorry! Give me twenty minutes?" I knew Bella. Twenty minutes meant an hour. An hour meant whenever Alan lets her go. "Fine." "You're a lifesaver!" She hung up. I lowered the phone and listened to the rain on the windows, and to my shoes making a tiny, pathetic puddle on the floor. Behind me, bare feet crossed the hallway. "You," said a cool voice right at my shoulder, "might want to change." I turned. The towel hit me square in the chest. I caught it on pure reflex. Allison stood there with her arms crossed and her chin lifted, as if the whole thing were somehow my fault. Which, to be fair, it was. But she hadn't kicked me out. And her eyes were still burning.