College was supposed to help me find myself, not complicate my life.
But standing on the cool concrete steps of Alder Hall with Ethan’s expectant blue eyes locked onto mine, "complicated" felt like the only vocabulary word I had left. The smooth, unbothered rhythm of his invitation was everything I’d been begging the universe for, yet my chest still felt like a high-stakes penalty box.
"An official date?" I repeated, my voice catching slightly on the crisp autumn air.
"Well, let’s start smaller if that's too heavy," Ethan corrected easily, a genuine, completely unthreatened smile softening his sharp jawline. He was so incredibly adaptable, lacking that brutal, unyielding rigidity I was too used to dealing with. "How about just coffee? No campus drama, no athletic department stress. Just
