Better than Him

Stranger

ETHAN

I knew that look.

I only saw it for a second, but I would have known it anywhere. Not from this library. From a different hallway, years ago, on a day I never talked about.

Then Derek saw Mara looking at him, and his face changed so fast it was like someone had flipped a switch.

Under the table, my hand curled into a fist. I kept it there. Breathe in for three counts, out for three counts too. My boxing coach's rule: ‘when you want to swing, count.’

"Ethan." Derek said my name like we had just met at a party. "Good to see you, man. Still drawing buildings?"

Two years. He and Mara had been together for two years, and every single time, he did this. The friendly nod. The little pause, like he was digging around for my name. As if I were just some guy who happened to sit near his girlfriend.

And every single time, I played along.

"Still drawing buildings," I said.

"Love that." He grabbed a chair from the next table and dragged it right up against Mara's. Too close. Her knee touched his. "You guys don't mind if I join?"

It wasn't a question. It never was.

"Of course not," Mara said.

I watched her shoulders. I couldn't help it. A minute ago they had been loose, and she had been laughing so hard her hair fell out from behind her ear. Now they were up near her neck, stiff as a coat hanger.

That was what nobody else saw. Derek never yelled. Never grabbed her, never made a scene. He just walked into a room, and the girl I knew folded herself small enough to fit into whatever space he left her.

I had been keeping count for two years. How many times she checked her phone before she answered a simple question. How she asked "is this okay?" about outfits she picked herself. How she said sorry for things that were never hers to be sorry for. Her laugh had gotten quieter. She used to laugh like she was daring the whole world to try and stop her.

"Derek! What a surprise!" Jade's voice was bright. Too bright. Too fast, like she had practiced it.

I looked at her. She was smiling at Derek, but her eyes flicked to me and away, quick as a kid who got caught.

Weird. I filed it away.

"Hey, Jade." Derek slid his arm along the back of Mara's chair. "I hope I'm not interrupting. Mara said you guys do this every Thursday."

"Every Thursday," Jade said.

"That's so great." He turned to Mara, still smiling. "You looked like you were having so much fun when I walked in, babe. What was so funny?"

Mara's eyes slid to my sketchbook, then to me. I watched her do the math. If she said it was my joke, Derek would smile, and she would pay for it later in some small way she wouldn't even notice.

"Nothing," she said. "A dumb drawing."

Derek leaned over and studied the page for a long moment. The staircase. The tiny stick figure.

"Funny," he said.

He didn't laugh.

"Dinner tonight," he told Mara. "Just us. I made a reservation."

"I have to finish my outline for Adkins—"

"Finish it at my place."

"Okay."

Okay. She said it so easily. Like it was a word she had been issued.

Every part of me wanted to flip the table. I wanted to tell her what I knew, right now, in front of everyone. But what would that do? Tell her the boyfriend she loved had spent three years making my life a living hell? She already had her own stuff to carry. I wasn't going to dump mine on top of it just to feel better. And if I said it wrongly, she would defend him. She would look at me like I was the problem.

So I did what I always did. I kept my mouth shut and counted to three.

"I need to print this," Mara said, standing and grabbing her laptop. "Two minutes."

"I'll get refills," Jade said. She was out of her chair almost before Mara was. "Anybody want anything? No? Okay!"

And just like that, they were both gone.

It was just me and Derek.

For a second, neither of us said anything. The library hummed around us. Somewhere, a printer coughed.

Derek's smile didn't move. But everything behind it did. It was like watching someone take off a coat.

"Nice staircase," he said, tapping my sketchbook with one finger.

"Thanks."

"You always were good with your hands." He leaned in, and his voice dropped so low that nobody else in the world could have heard it. "Good to see you again, Cole."

Two years of "man" and "buddy" and "Mara's friend." Not once had he said my last name. Not since that hallway, when we were sixteen.

And now he had. Like he'd been saving it.

My heart slammed against my ribs. He sat back, and the smile slid over his face again just as Mara came around the corner with her pages.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"Perfect," Derek said, pulling her down into the chair beside him. "We were just catching up."

"Perfect," I said. My voice sounded like someone else's.

But it wasn't perfect. Not even close. Beca

use in two years, Derek had never once dropped the act around me.

So why had he just done it now?