Just like that, the pain is gone again. There’s anxiety, sure, but the ache in the middle of his chest has receded again. It vanished the moment Alex said ‘all right’ and it doesn’t come back again.
Mara calls him on his distraction three days later, mostly by sitting him down at the kitchen table (more like counter, it’s not big enough to be a table) and insisting that he talks to her.
“You’ve been distracted as f**k and it’s weird,” she says. “Is someone giving you a hard time?”
“No,” Ryan says.
“A good time?”
“No,” he says, and wants to laugh. He wants to tell her, would tell her, if only she’d let him speak.
“You’ve been totally gone! Did you see some hot boy or something? Is it the party on Saturday? What about your course? I know you had those introductory lectures but surely t
