Love Section

Chapter 3

The noise in the courtyard was deafening, a chaotic blend of cheering, megaphones, and the frantic scraping of wooden tables across concrete. The annual campus cultural fair was only two days away, and our class had been assigned the booth build in the central quad. Everyone was running around with paintbrushes, rolls of butcher paper, and rolls of packing tape, trying to make sense of the makeshift blueprint our class president had scribbled on a piece of cardboard.

I stood near the edge of our assigned stall, holding two heavy cans of yellow paint. My arms were already aching, but my mind was completely somewhere else.

Every time I looked up, I saw Kienan. He was across the yard, helping the sports committee lift heavy bamboo poles. He was wearing his gray gym shirt, his sleeves rolled up, laughing at something a classmate said. But every so often, his eyes would sweep across the crowd. Whenever our glances accidentally locked, he would freeze for half a second, give a polite, distant nod, and look away.

The warmth that used to exist between us felt like it had been locked behind a pane of glass. Ever since that afternoon in the empty classroom—ever since I choked on my own confession and lied to his face—he had put up an invisible barrier. He wasn't mean. He wasn't rude. He was just... careful. And that hurt worse than if he had been angry.

“Clarisse, watch out!”

A sudden tug on my shoulder pulled me backward just in time to avoid a guy carrying a long wooden plank. I stumbled, but a steady hand caught my arm, stabilizing me before the paint cans could hit the ground.

I turned my head. It was Lloyd.

He was wearing an oversized black t-shirt already smudged with white gesso. His expression was calm, though his dark eyes searched my face with that quiet intensity he always had.

“You’re floating away again,” Lloyd said softly, slowly releasing my arm once he was sure I had my footing. “If you spill that paint on the floor, the adviser is going to make you scrub it with a toothbrush.”

“Sorry,” I murmured, offering a small, apologetic smile. “I was just thinking.”

“About the booth design?” he asked, though the slight tilt of his mouth suggested he knew better.

“Yeah. Sure. The booth design.”

Lloyd didn't press the issue. He simply reached down and effortlessly took both heavy paint cans from my hands. “Go sit down for five minutes. I’ll take these over to the art table.”

“Lloyd, no, I can carry them—”

“I know you can,” he interrupted gently, giving me a look that made my heart do a strange, tiny flutter. “But you don’t have to do everything yourself. Go take a breath.”

Before I could argue, he walked away, carrying the heavy cans as if they were made of feathers. I watched his back as he crossed the crowded space, wondering how he managed to always notice when I was drowning, even when I was trying my absolute hardest to look fine. His words from yesterday morning echoed in my head again: Because sometimes, telling someone how you feel changes everything.

I took a deep breath and looked around the chaotic courtyard, looking for a familiar face to sit with. Near the far side of the stall, under the shade of a large mahogany tree, sat Yvonne.

She was sitting on a plastic stool, cutting out decorative paper flowers with a pair of craft scissors. She looked small over there, entirely isolated from the loud groups of classmates laughing and snapping photos together. My heart twitched with a sudden wave of guilt. I had been so wrapped up in my awkward back-and-forth with Kienan and my confusing conversations with Lloyd that I hadn't spent real time with her in days.

I grabbed a pair of extra scissors and a stack of colored paper from the supply box and walked over to her.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down on the empty crate beside her stool.

Yvonne didn't look up immediately. Her scissors kept rhythmically snipping through the red paper. “Hey.”

“Mind if I help? They assigned me to painting, but Lloyd took my cans.”

“Of course he did,” Yvonne said. Her tone wasn't sharp, but there was an underlying flatness to it that made me pause.

“What do you mean?” I asked lightly, starting to fold a sheet of paper.

“Nothing,” she replied, her eyes fixed entirely on her hands. “Just that Lloyd is always looking out for you. Everyone is.”

I stared at her, my fingers freezing over the paper. “Yvonne... is something wrong? You’ve been so quiet lately. Whenever we ask you to hang out after school, you always say you have errands.”

Yvonne stopped cutting. She stared at the half-finished paper flower in her lap. The ambient noise of the courtyard—the laughter, the shouts, the pounding of hammers—seemed to fade into a dull hum between us.

“I’m just busy, Clarisse,” she said softly.

“Are you sure? Because if I did something to upset you, or if—”

“You didn't do anything,” she interrupted, her voice dropping lower. She finally turned to look at me, and there was a strange, raw exhaustion in her eyes that caught me off guard. “You never do anything wrong, Clarisse. That’s the thing.”

“I don't understand,” I whispered.

She let out a dry, breathy laugh that held no humor. “I know you don't. You don't even notice it. You just exist, and people gravitate toward you. Kienan always checks where you are before he sits down. Lloyd drops whatever he’s doing the second you look stressed. People know your name, they ask for your opinion, they want you in their groups. And I’m just... standing right next to you, feeling like a shadow.”

The words felt like a sudden drop in an elevator. I sat there, stunned, my throat completely drying up.

“Yvonne...”

“It’s stupid,” she muttered quickly, looking away as if she regretted saying it. Her hands began cutting the paper again, faster now, unevenly. “Forget I said anything. It’s just stupid high school stuff.”

“It’s not stupid,” I said quickly, reaching out to touch her arm. “Yvonne, I never meant to make you feel like that. I value you so much. You were the first friend I made here.”

“I know,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “And I don’t hate you for it, Clarisse. That’s what makes it worse. I hate myself for feeling jealous of my best friend. But every time we’re all together, I just feel like an extra in your story.”

I opened my mouth to pull her into a hug, to reassure her, to tell her how much she meant to me, but before I could utter a single word, a loud voice called out across the yard.

“Clarisse! We need the yellow paint over here! The main sign needs a second coat!”

It was the class vice president, waving frantically from the front of the stall.

Yvonne immediately pulled her arm back from my reach, adjusting her posture. “You should go,” she said, her voice returning to that guarded, quiet tone. “They need you.”

“Yvonne, please, let’s talk about this properly—”

“Clarisse, come on! Before the sun goes down!” the vice president shouted again.

Yvonne didn't look at me again. She kept her head down, snipping another piece of paper. The wall between us felt higher and thicker than ever. Heavy-hearted and deeply conflicted, I slowly stood up and walked toward the noise.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur of frantic work and overwhelming tension. I helped paint the main banner, my hands moving automatically while my head spun with a terrifying mix of emotions. I felt pulled in three different directions at once: the unspoken heartbreak between me and Kienan, the confusing safety and subtle depth of Lloyd’s presence, and now the aching realization that my closest friend was silently breaking apart right beside me.

By 5:00 PM, the sky had turned a deep, fiery orange. Most of the students were packing up their bags, exhausted from hours under the sun.

I was at the washing station behind the main building, rinsing yellow paint off my hands under a dripping metal faucet. The cold water felt good against my warm skin, but it couldn't wash away the heavy tightness in my chest.

Footsteps echoed on the damp pavement behind me.

I turned around, wiping my wet hands on my jeans.

It was Kienan. He was carrying a stack of leftover wooden boards toward the storage shed nearby. When he saw me standing by the tap, he slowed down, looking hesitant.

For a moment, neither of us said anything. The quiet between us was heavy, filled with everything we hadn't said yesterday in the classroom.

“Hey,” he said finally, lowering the stack of wood to the ground beside the wall.

“Hey,” I replied softly. “Hard work today.”

“Yeah. The booth looks good, though. Your painting turned out great.”

“Thanks.” I looked down at my sneakers, my heart doing that familiar, erratic dance against my ribs. I couldn't leave things like this between us. The distance was killing me.

“Kienan?” I called out before he could turn around and leave.

He stopped, turning back to face me. His eyes were wide, watchful, and slightly guarded. “Yeah?”

I took a small step forward, gathering every ounce of courage I had left. “About yesterday... in the classroom.”

His expression shifted slightly, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his features before he neutralised it. “What about it?”

“You asked me if I liked someone,” I said, my voice trembling just a little. “And I said yes. But then I didn't tell you who it was.”

Kienan stood still, his hands resting in the pockets of his track pants. “You don't owe me an explanation, Clarisse. It’s your business.”

“No, it’s not just that,” I rushed out, terrified that if I paused for even a second, I would chicken out again. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But I got scared.”

Kienan stared at me, his breath hitching slightly. “Scared of what?”

“Scared of... changing things between us. Scared that if I said the name out loud, you wouldn't look at me the same way anymore.”

The air felt electric. Kienan took a step closer, his guarded posture dissolving completely. The polite distance in his eyes evaporated, replaced by a sudden, intense hope that made my throat tighten.

“Clarisse...” Kienan said, his voice lowering to a quiet, breathless murmur. “Who were you talking about?”

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. This was it. The moment was right here. I just had to say his name. I opened my mouth, the word You forming on the tip of my tongue—

“Clarisse!”

A loud, frantic voice shattered the silence.

We both jumped, turning our heads toward the corner of the building. Lloyd was running toward us, his usual slow, calm demeanor entirely gone. He looked breathless, his face pale with concern.

“Lloyd?” I asked, startled. “What’s wrong?”

Lloyd stopped a few feet away, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.