Episode 7
905 Words
The hoodie still smelled like Toni.
Clairo discovered this entirely by accident.
She had tossed it over the chair beside her desk after returning from the game, promising herself she would wash it before giving it back. Instead, every time she reached for it, she found another excuse to leave it where it was.
It wasn't intentional.
At least, that's what she told herself.
"You've looked at that hoodie more than you've looked at your lecture notes."
Maya didn't bother looking up from her laptop.
"I have not."
"You just smiled at it."
"I was remembering the game."
"You were remembering the person who gave you the hoodie."
Clairo closed her textbook with a sigh.
"You make everything sound worse than it is."
"I make everything sound exactly like it is."
Before Clairo could defend herself, her phone vibrated across the desk.
Toni
Have you stolen my favorite hoodie?
A smile spread across Clairo's face before she could stop it.
Clairo
Borrowed.
Another message appeared almost immediately.
Toni
Interesting choice of words.
Clairo
You'll get it back.
There was a pause.
Long enough that Clairo thought the conversation had ended.
Then—
Toni
Keep it until it stops smelling like me.
Clairo stared at the message.
Her heart did something terribly inconvenient.
"You've gone quiet," Maya observed.
Clairo turned the phone over before Maya could peek.
"It's nothing."
Maya's expression said she believed exactly none of that.
Across campus, Toni was pretending to write.
Her notebook lay open on the table outside the humanities building, the afternoon breeze flipping lazily through empty pages.
She had written exactly one sentence in the last twenty minutes.
Then crossed it out.
"You've been staring at the same page since lunch."
Kai dropped into the seat across from her, balancing two iced coffees.
"I've been thinking."
"That's usually dangerous."
Toni accepted one of the drinks with a quiet thanks.
Kai watched her carefully.
"So."
"So?"
"Who's Clairo?"
Toni nearly choked on her coffee.
"What?"
"I asked a simple question."
"You know who Clairo is."
"I know she's the reason you've smiled at your phone all week."
Toni looked away.
"I smile at my phone all the time."
"No."
Kai leaned back.
"You smile because of your sister."
A pause.
"You smile because Coach sends memes that aren't actually funny."
Another pause.
"But this?"
Kai nodded toward Toni's phone resting face-down on the table.
"This is different."
Toni didn't answer.
She couldn't.
Because Kai wasn't wrong.
Everything about Clairo felt... different.
Conversations with her didn't feel like performances.
Silence didn't feel awkward.
For the first time in years, Toni wasn't wondering how to impress someone.
She was wondering how to make them stay.
The thought settled heavily in her chest.
Kai noticed the shift in Toni's expression.
"Oh."
"What?"
"There it is."
"What?"
"You're scared."
"I'm not."
"You absolutely are."
Toni laughed, though it lacked conviction.
"You're imagining things."
Kai didn't argue.
She simply took a sip of her coffee before speaking again.
"Just don't do what you always do."
Toni frowned.
"And what's that?"
"You leave."
The words landed harder than Toni expected.
"I don't—"
"You do."
Kai's voice remained calm.
"Every single time someone gets close enough to matter."
Toni looked down at her notebook.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You do."
Silence stretched between them.
Students wandered past, laughing on their way to afternoon classes.
Somewhere nearby, a bicycle bell rang.
Life continued around them, unaware that Toni's heartbeat had suddenly become much louder.
Kai stood.
"I have practice in an hour."
She slung her backpack over one shoulder before looking back at Toni.
"Just promise me one thing."
Toni looked up.
"If she's different..."
Kai smiled sadly.
"...don't punish her for something someone else did."
She walked away before Toni could answer.
That evening, Clairo returned the hoodie.
Or at least, she intended to.
She found Toni sitting alone on the library steps, headphones around her neck and a paperback resting on one knee.
"You know," Toni said without looking up, "I was beginning to think you planned on keeping it forever."
Clairo held out the folded hoodie.
"I said I'd return it."
Toni accepted it but didn't put it on.
Instead, she looked at Clairo with that familiar, easy smile.
"You could've kept it."
"I know."
"So why didn't you?"
Clairo thought about the answer.
Because it had started feeling like more than a hoodie.
Because every time she looked at it, she thought of Toni.
Because giving it back somehow felt safer than admitting that.
Instead, she shrugged.
"I figured you'd miss it."
Toni laughed softly.
"Maybe."
Their conversation drifted naturally after that, moving from books to classes to the strange weather that couldn't seem to decide whether it was spring or autumn.
Eventually, the campus bells chimed six o'clock.
Clairo stood.
"I should go."
Toni nodded.
"Walk with me?"
The path back to the dorms wasn't particularly long.
Still, neither of them seemed eager for it to end.
As they reached the intersection where they always parted ways, Toni slowed her pace.
"Clairo?"
"Hm?"
"I'm glad we met."
Clairo looked at her for a long moment before smiling.
"So am I."
Neither of them noticed the elderly groundskeeper tending to the flower beds nearby.
He watched them walk away in opposite directions before chuckling to himself.
"Young love," he murmured.
"They never realize they're falling until it's too late."
- Writer
