CHAPTER FOUR_ What she didn't say
975 Words
The dorm was quieter than usual.
Naomi hadn’t come back yet. She’d mentioned meeting someone earlier, her tone casual in a way that never quite fooled me. With Naomi, casual usually meant complicated. I hadn’t asked who she was meeting. Isa hadn’t either.
The silence felt deliberate.
I was sitting on my bed, phone in hand, scrolling without really reading anything, when Isa spoke.
“You didn’t know,” she said.
I looked up. “Know what?”
She was standing by the window, arms crossed, her reflection faint against the glass. The campus lights outside cast long shadows across the floor, stretching toward us like something unfinished.
“About Aaron,” she continued. “Back in first year.”
My stomach tightened. “I already told you. I didn’t know he and Naomi—”
“I know,” she interrupted. Her voice wasn’t sharp, just firm. “That’s not what I meant.”
She turned slowly, like she was bracing herself.
“I was involved with him.”
The words settled into the room quietly, without drama. Somehow that made them heavier.
I stared at her. “Involved how?”
Isa didn’t look away. “I slept with him.”
There was no explanation attached. No softening of the statement. Just truth, offered without apology.
“Oh,” I said.
It sounded small, but it was all I had.
I tried to feel surprised. Tried to feel offended. What I felt instead was an odd sense of alignment — like a missing piece had just dropped into place.
“When?” I asked.
“First year,” she replied. “Before Naomi and him became what they are now.”
“What they are now,” I repeated. “Which is…?”
She didn’t answer that.
“Does Naomi know?” I asked.
Isa’s jaw tightened. “No.”
That single word sat between us, dense and uncomfortable.
I leaned back against the headboard, exhaling slowly. “Why are you telling me this?”
She hesitated. I could tell this wasn’t something she’d planned to say — not tonight, maybe not ever.
“Because you keep thinking I’m overreacting,” she said finally. “And because I don’t like being misunderstood.”
I laughed quietly. “That’s new.”
Her gaze flicked to me. “Is it?”
I didn’t respond.
“So,” I said instead, “this is why you hate seeing him around.”
“I don’t hate him,” she replied. “I don’t think about him at all.”
That felt… unlikely.
“Then what is this?” I asked. “Because every time Aaron’s name comes up, you go cold. Every time he’s near the dorm, you tense. You don’t even pretend otherwise.”
She looked away again, back toward the window.
“It’s not about him,” she said.
I waited.
“It’s about Naomi.”
That surprised me more than the confession itself.
“You slept with her on-and-off ex,” I said slowly, “and you’re telling me you’re reacting because of her?”
Isa nodded once. “I cared about her. Before him. Before all of this.”
I processed that in silence.
“And she doesn’t know,” I said.
“No.”
“Did she ever?” I asked.
Isa shook her head. “It wasn’t something I could say.”
I frowned. “Why?”
She glanced at me, something sharp and restrained in her eyes. “Because Naomi doesn’t see what’s right in front of her.”
The room felt heavier after that.
“So,” I said carefully, “when you get like this — when you act like Aaron shouldn’t be anywhere near us — that’s because you’re still tangled up in whatever you feel for Naomi.”
She didn’t correct me.
She didn’t confirm it either.
That silence did the work for her.
“I get it,” I said eventually. “Messy pasts have a way of bleeding into the present.”
Isa watched me closely. “You don’t seem angry.”
“Should I be?”
“No,” she said. “I just expected… something.”
I shrugged. “Men come and go. I don’t attach meaning where it doesn’t belong.”
Her gaze sharpened. “You don’t think s*x belongs to anything?”
“I think it belongs to moments,” I replied. “Not promises.”
Something in her expression shifted — not judgment, not approval. Recognition.
“And you?” I asked. “Did it belong to something for you?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Yes,” she said finally.
That answer lingered far longer than the rest.
“So that’s why you don’t like me overlapping with Naomi’s past,” I said. “Because you were already there.”
She didn’t argue.
“Lee,” she said quietly, “I don’t want him around you.”
“Because of Naomi.”
“Because of history.”
I nodded. “Those things tend to stick.”
Naomi came back later than expected. The door opened softly, her voice light as she greeted us, completely unaware of the conversation that had just taken place. Isa’s posture shifted instantly — guarded again, controlled.
Closed.
That night, lying in bed, I replayed everything Isa had said.
I slept with him.
I cared about Naomi first.
She doesn’t see what’s in front of her.
It made sense, I told myself. Too much sense.
Isa wasn’t against Aaron because of me.
She was against him because of unresolved feelings — feelings she’d buried, redirected, restrained.
And somehow, I’d walked straight into the fallout.
What I didn’t consider — what I couldn’t see yet — was that Isa had never once asked me to stay away from Aaron for Naomi’s sake.
Only for mine.
- Writer
