CIRCULATION
756 Words
By the afternoon, it isn’t subtle anymore.
It’s in the way people look at me like they’re waiting for something. A slip. A confession. A performance. I move through it without giving them any of that.
Bella sticks close, quieter now, eyes sharp. She doesn’t say I told you so. She doesn’t need to.
My phone stays face-down on the table between classes. Eric hasn’t texted again. That’s deliberate. On both sides.
“Someone posted,” Bella says finally, low.
I don’t react. “Posted what.”
“Nothing concrete,” she says. “Which is almost impressive. No names. No pictures. Just vibes and implication.”
I exhale slowly. “Where.”
She slides her phone toward me.
A private story. Someone I recognize but don’t know well enough to confront without it becoming a scene.
Wild how people really move once they think no one’s watching.
No names. No context. A handful of eyes reacting already.
“That could be about anything,” I say.
Bella snorts. “Please. It’s about you and Eric. Everyone knows that now.”
“Everyone doesn’t,” I reply. “Enough people do.”
That’s worse.
A girl walks past our table, pauses just long enough to look at me, then keeps going. Not hostile. Curious. Like I’m a question she hasn’t decided how to answer yet.
I stand. “I’m not sitting here.”
Bella’s already on her feet. “Lead the way.”
We walk. People watch. Some don’t bother hiding it anymore.
“This feels like being famous without consent,” Bella mutters.
“It’s temporary,” I say.
“You’re sure?”
“No,” I admit. “But panicking won’t make it shorter.”
We round the corner, and I almost run straight into Eric.
He stops short too. This time there’s no graceful avoidance. No reroute.
Just us.
Bella freezes beside me. “Oh.”
Eric looks tired. Not physically — emotionally. Like he’s been carrying restraint around all day and it’s getting heavy.
“Can we talk,” he says. Not quietly. Not loudly. Just direct.
I meet his eyes. “Here?”
“Yes,” he says. “Because avoiding it made it worse.”
Bella lifts both hands. “I’m going to stand exactly over there and pretend I don’t exist.”
She doesn’t wait for permission.
Eric watches her go, then looks back at me. “I didn’t want this to spread.”
“Neither did I,” I reply. “But silence didn’t stop it.”
“I know,” he says. “I was wrong about that.”
I cross my arms. “Then why did you disappear.”
He doesn’t dodge it. “Because I didn’t trust myself to handle this without making it about us instead of about you.”
“That is making it about us,” I say.
He exhales. “You’re right.”
A beat. People pass. Some slow. Some don’t.
“I asked you to talk privately,” he continues, “because I didn’t want you dealing with this alone.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I say. “Again.”
He nods. “I’m learning.”
I study him. “Are you.”
“Yes,” he says. “Because watching people speculate about you while pretending I wasn’t involved felt worse than being uncomfortable.”
That lands.
“I’m not asking you to explain yourself,” he adds. “I’m asking you not to shut me out.”
“I didn’t shut you out,” I reply. “I just didn’t chase you.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “That tracks.”
Silence stretches — not empty, not hostile.
“I don’t regret last night,” I say finally. “But I won’t be managed because of it.”
“I don’t want to manage you,” he says. “I want to be honest with you.”
“That’s a dangerous thing to want,” I reply.
“I know,” he says. “That’s why I’m standing here.”
Bella clears her throat loudly from across the hall. “Time check!”
Eric glances at her, then back to me. “This isn’t over.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
We don’t touch. We don’t smile.
But we stop pretending this is something that can be folded away quietly.
And judging by the way a few people are openly watching now, neither does anyone else.
- Writer
