Off the Ice

Crossing Paths Again

The event that changed everything started with a clipboard.

Mrs. Alvarez, my English teacher, walked into class on Monday morning holding one like it was a weapon, and the second she started reading names off it in pairs, I knew exactly where this was going before she even got to the Fs.

"For your persuasive essay unit, you'll be working in partners for the peer review portion. I've assigned pairs based on writing level, not friendship, so no complaints." She scanned the clipboard, glasses sliding down her nose. "Fernandez and Williams."

I actually thought I'd misheard her.

I looked up from my notebook just as Carlton's head turned from two rows over, and for a second neither of us said anything, just this awkward beat of recognition passing between us, him clearly remembering the hallway as clearly as I did. A couple of people near him snickered under their breath, the way people do when they sense secondhand tension without knowing the full story.

"Great," he muttered, mostly to himself, though it carried far enough that I heard it anyway.

Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for, but also not surprising given our track record so far.

Mrs. Alvarez assigned us to meet during the last twenty minutes of class to exchange drafts, which meant I had approximately three minutes to figure out how to survive sitting across from someone who had called me clumsy in front of half the sophomore class a week earlier. When the time came, I gathered my notebook and moved to the empty desk beside his, doing my best to look like this was all completely normal and not the most awkward thing that had happened to me since arriving at this school.

"So," I said, mostly to break the silence before it could stretch on longer than either of us could stand. "I guess we're doing this."

"Guess so." He didn't look up from his paper right away, just kept his eyes on the page like it required intense concentration. Then, after a second, almost like the words cost him something to say, "Sorry. About the hallway thing."

I blinked. That was the last thing I'd expected.

"It's fine," I said, even though it hadn't entirely felt fine at the time.

"It's not, really. I was having a bad morning and I took it out on you, which wasn't fair." He finally looked up, and there was something different in his expression than there had been in the hallway, something less guarded. "I don't usually do that. Snap at people, I mean."

"Could've fooled me."

It came out sharper than I meant it to, but instead of getting defensive, he actually laughed, short and surprised, like he hadn't expected me to push back at all. "Fair," he said. "I deserve that."

We didn't finish the assignment that first day so much as survive it, but something had loosened between us by the time the bell rang, some small c***k in the wall that had gone up after the hallway. I walked out of that classroom turning the whole thing over in my head for the rest of the afternoon, half convinced I'd imagined the shift, half terrified of how much I wanted it to be real.

Two days later, we met again, and this time it was different.

We'd been assigned to workshop each other's third drafts, and I'd braced myself for another round of stiff silence punctuated by red pen marks. Instead, Carlton showed up already smiling slightly, sliding into the seat beside mine before the bell had even finished ringing.

"Okay, don't laugh," he said, pulling out his paper, "but I actually took your note about my conclusion. Rewrote the whole thing last night."

"I don't laugh at good decisions."

"We'll see." He slid the page toward me, and I read through it while he sat there watching, which normally would have made me self conscious, except something about the way he was watching, waiting almost eagerly for my reaction, made it feel less like scrutiny and more like he actually cared what I thought.

"This is so much better," I said, and meant it. "You actually stuck the landing this time."

"Told you I could take criticism." He grinned, and it was such an easy, unguarded expression that for a second I forgot entirely that this was the same person who'd called me clumsy in a crowded hallway two weeks earlier. "Your turn. Where's yours?"

I handed over my draft, and while he read, I found myself studying him in a way I hadn't let myself do before, not through a screen, not through secondhand photos, just him, sitting close enough that I could see the small furrow that appeared between his eyebrows when he was concentrating. It was strange, having spent so many years building an entire imagined version of this person, to suddenly be sitting close enough to notice something as small and human as that furrow.

"This paragraph," he said, tapping the page, "about testing anxiety being systemic instead of individual. That's really good, actually. I hadn't thought about it that way."

"You're just saying that."

"I'm really not. I don't hand out compliments for free, ask literally anyone on my team." He looked up at me then, something more serious settling into his expression. "You're a good writer, Jenna."

It was the first time he'd said my actual name instead of some vague acknowledgment, and something about hearing it in his voice sent a small, warm jolt through my chest that I immediately tried to talk myself out of feeling. This was Carlton Fernandez complimenting a paragraph about testing anxiety, not some grand romantic gesture. I needed to keep some perspective here.

But I thought about it anyway, walking back to my dorm that evening, replaying the way he'd said my name like it was something worth remembering.

By the following week, something like a rhythm had settled between us. He'd show up a few minutes before the bell now, sliding into the desk beside mine without needing to be told, and I'd already have both our drafts pulled up, ready to go. We talked more than the assignment strictly required, small things mostly, him complaining about an early practice, me telling him about the disaster that was my attempt at doing my own laundry for the first time. It felt, impossibly, almost easy.

One afternoon, running late from a study group in the library, I nearly missed our session entirely, and he'd actually waited for me outside the classroom instead of going in without me.

"Thought you bailed," he said, though he was smiling when he said it.

"Sorry, lost track of time. You could've just gone in."

"Didn't feel right starting without you." He said it simply, like it wasn't a big deal at all, and then held the door for me as we walked in together, and something about that small, ordinary gesture stuck with me far longer than it probably should have.

I told myself repeatedly, almost like a mantra, that this was nothing. That he had a girlfriend, a very public, very established girlfriend, and that whatever small warmth had grown between us over these two weeks was just the natural result of forced proximity and nothing more. People got along with people they were forced to spend time with. That was normal. That didn't mean anything.

Except it was getting harder to convince myself of that every time he laughed at something I said like he actually found it funny, every time he remembered some small detail I'd mentioned once in passing and brought it back up days later like it had actually mattered to him.

I mentioned some of this to George one evening, carefully, testing the words before I said them out loud. "It's just weird," I said, "how different he is than I thought. In the hallway, he seemed like exactly the guy everyone says he is. But in class, he's actually..."

"Actually what?" George asked, and something in his tone had gone careful in a way I didn't fully register at the time.

"I don't know. Nice, I guess. Funny."

George didn't say much else about it, just nodded and changed the subject to something about an upcoming test, and I didn't think much of it at the time, too wrapped up in my own confusing tangle of feelings to notice anything unusual in his reaction.

It was on a Thursday, three weeks into the partnership, that everything shifted again.

Class had just ended, and Carlton and I were still gathering our things when Freya appeared outside the classroom door, arms crossed, watching us through the glass with an expression I couldn't quite read from that distance. I noticed her a full minute before Carlton did, and when the bell rang and he finally looked up and saw her standing there, something shifted across his face, quick and unreadable, gone almost as fast as it appeared.

"See you tomorrow," he said to me, already gathering his things a little too quickly.

"Yeah. See you."

I watched through the window as he stepped into the hallway and Freya immediately fell into step beside him, her hand finding his arm in a motion that looked practiced, automatic, the way you'd adjust a picture frame that had gone slightly crooked. She said something I couldn't hear, and he responded with something short, and for just a second, right before they turned the corner out of sight, Freya glanced back over her shoulder.

Straight at me.

It wasn't an angry look, exactly. It was something colder than that, something more measuring, like she was doing quick math in her head and didn't love whatever number she was landing on. Then she turned back around, looped her arm more firmly through Carlton's, and disappeared down the hallway with him.

I sat there a second longer than I needed to, my notebook still open on the desk in front of me, that look replaying itself over and over in my mind, and for the first time since this whole strange, hopeful thing between us had started, I felt something cold settle into my stomach that had nothing to do with hope at all.