Chapter six
583 Words
I couldn’t sleep.
Not because of exams. Not because of stress.
Because of him.
The gym still echoed behind my eyelids. Dante Valtieri. The way he held me. Not tight, not possessive. Just… careful. Like I was made of something breakable, even though I’d spent my whole life acting like I wasn’t.
And now, I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling while my roommate hummed to herself across the room.
Her name was Skye. With pink headphones and hair the color of warm honey, she looked like a daydream. But underneath all that softness was steel. I figured that out five minutes after moving in.
She wasn’t just pretty.
She was perceptive.
“You’ve been weird all day,” she said, peeling off her face mask and flopping onto her bed. “Is it a boy? Please say it’s a boy. I need drama.”
“It’s not—” I stopped.
I didn’t know what it was.
A moment? A shift?
Something had changed in that gym. I felt it in the way my hands had trembled after we left. I still felt it in the way Dante hadn’t texted. Not even a “good game.”
Skye sat up and narrowed her eyes at me.
“You’re doing that thing where you overthink until you ruin it.”
“There’s nothing to ruin.”
“So it is a boy.”
I pulled the blanket over my face and groaned.
“Just… this guy. From class. Psychology. He’s—he’s complicated.”
“Aren’t they all? Tell me his name so I can stalk him properly.”
“…Dante.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Dante Valtieri?! The third-year law god with cheekbones sharp enough to kill?”
I groaned louder.
“He’s not—ugh. He’s not what people think. I mean, he is, but he’s more. And I don’t know what’s happening, Skye.”
“Well, let me put it in college terms for you: welcome to Advanced Heartbreak 101.”
I threw a pillow at her. She caught it easily and smiled.
“But seriously,” she said, softer now, “guys like Dante don’t let people in. So if he’s letting you see anything real… maybe he’s already scared.”
The next day in class, Dante didn’t sit in the front row like he usually did.
He sat in the third row.
Right behind me.
When I turned slightly, he leaned forward and whispered:
“I liked what you said last time. About emotional instinct being stronger than logic.”
I blinked. “You remembered?”
“I remember things that matter.”
My chest tightened.
And then—he was quiet the rest of the class. Just… present. Like he wanted me to know he was there, but didn’t want to make a scene.
It was a subtle shift.
But I felt it.
Later that night, Skye found me curled on my bed with my headphones in, blasting music like it could drown the butterflies in my stomach.
“So… are you two a thing?”
“We’re not anything,” I snapped too quickly.
She raised her hands in surrender.
“Okay. But you’re glowing. So either he kissed you, or you found a new moisturizer. Spill.”
I couldn’t explain it.
There hadn’t been a kiss. Not even a flirty message.
Just that one hug. That one quiet moment.
But something told me it meant more than most people’s entire relationships.
- Writer
