Chapter Four: The Birthday
904 Words
Monday came faster than I wanted it to.
Classes, syllabi, a campus I barely remembered how to navigate after a summer away. I told myself the ache in my chest was just nerves about the semester.
It wasn't.
It was the memory that had been clawing its way back up ever since that moment on the terrace — the way Marcus had looked at me before he caught himself. I'd spent six years keeping it locked in a drawer. Living in his house had picked the lock.
Four years ago.
My twentieth birthday. My parents had thrown a party in the backyard — string lights, too much cake, my father's friends filling the patio with the kind of loud, easy laughter that only happens when everyone's had one drink too many.
Marcus had arrived late, tie already loosened, and handed me a small wrapped box before anyone else noticed he was there.
"Don't open it in front of your father," he'd said. "He'll think it's too much."
It was a bracelet. Simple, elegant, exactly my taste in a way that made me wonder how closely he actually paid attention to me.
"Marcus, this is—"
"Happy birthday, Reyes." He'd said it quietly, like it was just for me, and something in his voice had made my stomach flip in a way it had no business flipping over my father's best friend.
Later that night, when the party had thinned out and my parents were saying goodbye to the last guests, I'd found him alone in the hallway, refilling his glass from a bottle he'd hidden from my father's watchful eye.
"You're not driving home like that," I'd said.
"I'm aware." He'd smiled, loose and unguarded in a way sober-Marcus never let himself be. "I'll call a car."
"You could stay."
The words had left my mouth before I could stop them, and I'd watched something shift in his expression — the smile fading into something quieter, more careful.
"Elena." My name, not my father's last name, not Reyes — just my name, low and rough, like it cost him something to say it.
"What?"
He'd stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell the cedar and whiskey and something underneath that was just him. Close enough that for one suspended second, I'd been certain — certain — that he was going to close the last few inches between us.
Then my mother's voice shattered the silence.
"Elena? Honey, where are you?"
Marcus blinked as though he'd just woken from a dream.
Whatever had been in his eyes disappeared.
He stepped back so quickly that the space between us suddenly felt enormous.
"Happy birthday," he said again, his voice quieter this time... almost apologetic.
Then he turned, walked out the front door, and disappeared into the night without looking back.
I stood there alone, wondering if I'd imagined everything.
I never told anyone what almost happened in that hallway.
I wasn't sure, most days, if it had really happened at all — or if I'd built an entire fantasy out of one drunk, unguarded moment that meant nothing to him the next morning.
But I still had the bracelet.
I still wore it, some days, tucked under long sleeves so no one would ask where it came from.
I was still lost in the memory when a voice cut through the campus noise.
"Earth to Elena."
I blinked. Priya, my roommate from freshman year and the only person who'd stuck around through every major since, was waving a hand in front of my face.
"Sorry. What?"
"I asked how the big move went. New house, new roommate situation." Priya raised an eyebrow. "You've been weird since you sat down."
"I'm fine."
"Uh-huh." She studied me with the particular focus of someone who'd known me for five years and could smell a lie from across a quad. "This is about Marcus, isn't it."
My stomach dropped. "What? No—"
"Elena." Priya's voice softened. I've watched your whole face change every time Marcus walks into a room since we were nineteen.” I'm not blind. I just never said anything because I thought you'd grow out of it."
"There's nothing to grow out of," I said, too fast. "He's my father's best friend."
"That wasn't a no."
I didn't have an answer for that.
Because she was right.
It hadn't been a no.
Not once.
Not in six years.
I had loved Marcus Whitfield in silence for so long that I couldn't remember what my life looked like before him.
Priya reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
"Just promise me one thing."
I looked up.
"What?"
Her expression turned serious.
"Be careful."
I laughed softly.
"Why?"
She held my gaze for a long moment before answering.
"Because men like Marcus..."
She paused, choosing her words carefully.
"...don't always realize the effect they have on people."
Before I could ask what she meant, my phone buzzed on the table.
Marcus.
My heart skipped.
I opened the message.
Marcus: What time do your classes finish? I'll pick you up.
I stared at the screen a little longer than I should have.
Priya leaned over just enough to read the name.
Then she looked at me.
A slow smile spread across her face.
"Elena..."
"Yeah?"
"You're in trouble."
I looked back at Marcus's message.
The frightening part was...
I wasn't sure I wanted to be rescued.
- Writer
