Monday morning hit me like karma in the shape of an alarm clock.
I opened one eye to the sound of my phone buzzing angrily on my nightstand and the sunlight seeping through my blinds like it wanted to pick a fight. My entire body felt like I'd been emotionally bench-pressed by two very attractive men and then abandoned by serotonin.
Groaning, I fumbled for the phone.
6:52 AM.
Rude.
Also: 4 new messages. All from Tiana, of course.
TIANA(6:12AM):
Tell me what happened.
If you lie, I'll assume you married him and ran away.
Also, what did Jamie look like? Scale of 1 to "I need legal counsel."
TIANA(6:27AM):
Also if Raven said anything vaguely older-brotherly I'm setting something on fire.
TIANA (6:38AM):
Still waiting.
Still dangerously curious.
Still holding a grudge on behalf of your hormones.
TIANA(6:50AM):
Do NOT ghost me like a Victorian widow.
I groaned, rolled over, and texted back with the energy of someone who had experienced too much in one day and wanted to unsubscribe from the plot entirely.
ME:
Still recovering.
Slept like I fought three emotional wars in my dreams.
Jamie looks like a grown man with bad intentions and great jaw structure.
Raven was… weirdly quiet. But not in a mean way. Just… unreadable.
TIANA:
UNREADABLE?? You're the queen of emotional subtext and you couldn't read him??
ME:
He's like a hot blank page. But with eyes.
TIANA:
So a Kindle.
ME:
A cursed Kindle.
I dragged myself out of bed and into my hoodie. My hair was somewhere between "post-apocalyptic waves" and "escaped from a broom factory," but I didn't care. I was in mourning. Mourning what, exactly? I had no idea.
By the time I got to school, Tiana was already waiting by our lockers, sipping from her obnoxiously oversized glitter water bottle and radiating chaotic energy.
"You look like you emotionally ate six pounds of waffles yesterday," she said by way of greeting.
"Only three pounds," I muttered.
She leaned closer. "Okay. Start from the top. You get in the car. You're alone with Raven. What does he say?"
I sighed. "He asked about school."
She wrinkled her nose. "Gross."
"And if I had a boyfriend."
Her eyes went full anime. "WHAT."
"Yeah."
"And you said?"
I deadpanned, "That I'd only get a boyfriend if we were the last two people on Earth and even then, he'd have to bribe me with hot chips."
Tiana clapped slowly. "Queen."
"But then," I added, lowering my voice, "he brought up Jamie. And said Jamie might like you."
She blinked. "…Me?"
"Apparently you have bold, chaotic energy."
She looked both smug and offended. "He's not wrong. But is this about me?"
"No, because then Jamie came out of his apartment—shirt too tight, confidence illegal—and helped us unpack groceries like it was a rom-com montage. And then he said he hoped to see me again."
Tiana raised an eyebrow. "Okay but… Raven was there for all this?"
"Yep. Quiet. Observing. Weirdly silent."
She squinted like she was trying to solve a murder. "So… either he doesn't care. Or he really cares and is hiding it behind his 'I'm too mature for this' college-boy exterior."
I groaned. "Exactly. And I can't tell which one it is. He's like a walking mystery wrapped in flannel and unresolved tension."
"Would you want him to care?" she asked.
I blinked. "I—what? That's not the point."
"It's exactly the point."
I didn't answer. Because the truth was, I didn't know. I wanted him to see me, sure. But what would that even mean now? I wasn't some fourteen-year-old kid following him around the house anymore. I was…
What was I?
My brain offered no response. Just static and memories of grocery carts and waffle syrup and hands that maybe lingered a second too long.
Tiana linked her arm with mine as the bell rang. "Okay. Here's the plan."
"Oh no."
"I'll investigate Jamie."
"I didn't ask you to—"
"I'm doing this for the culture."
"And what do I do?"
"You observe. Like a hot squirrel. Store information. Watch his face next time he talks to you. Count how often he looks at your mouth."
"Tiana—"
"Also," she added, dead serious, "next time you're alone in a car with him, ask him what he'd do if you did have a boyfriend."
"Why would I—?"
"Because if he answers with anything other than 'good for you,' we're cracking open a new chapter. Maybe even a new genre."
I groaned again and buried my face in my locker.
School hadn't even started.
And already, my brain had declared war on itself.
⸻
By the time first period started, I had entered full background character mode.
I sat in my usual desk near the window, pencil in hand, notebook open to a fresh page—very studious, very composed. My body was present. My thoughts? Not even in the building.
I drew a tiny spiral in the corner of my notebook.
Spiral became a cloud. Cloud became a vaguely irritated blob person with a speech bubble that said: WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.
I flipped the page.
Somewhere in the distance, Tiana passed me a note:
"On a scale of 1 to full body collapse, how bad is your overthinking today?"
I scribbled back:
"Mild chest implosion with side effects of identity crisis."
She read it. Nodded solemnly. Ate a granola bar.
⸻
Second period: math.
I solved a whole equation with the full force of my subconscious because my conscious mind was busy replaying Raven's laugh.
That soft laugh. The one from the diner when I told him about the raccoon queen comic. The way he leaned back slightly, just enough to show his teeth. The kind of laugh that felt like it hadn't been used much lately. Like he'd forgotten how it worked until I said something weird enough to bring it out.
I stabbed my calculator keys harder than necessary.
"Problem?" our math teacher asked from the board.
"Nope," I said sweetly. "Just emotionally calculating things that can't be graphed."
He blinked at me.
I blinked back.
Tiana slid a piece of gum into my hand under the desk like she was sedating a wild animal.
⸻
Third period: science lab.
Dissection day.
Normally, I'd be focused. I'm very pro-science, very anti-frog. But today?
Today, I was asking the real questions.
Why did Raven go quiet when Jamie started joking with me?
Was he annoyed?
Was he… weirdly observing?
And most importantly: was he bothered?
Or was he just tired from lifting emotional baggage up seven flights of stairs?
"Dali, can you hand me the scalpel?" my lab partner asked.
"Sure," I said, and nearly handed him my pen.
"Thanks… but, uh… this is a Pilot G2."
"Right. My bad. Just… dissecting some thoughts."
I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the cabinet doors. I looked semi-normal. Hoodie. Bun. Eyeliner not doing anything illegal. No one would guess I was having a full romantic identity meltdown mid-biology.
I passed him the actual scalpel and tried not to think about Raven's hands.
Or his voice.
Or the way he looked at me during the movie night like he was memorizing something.
⸻
Lunchtime.
Tiana dragged me to our usual table under the pretense of "sunlight therapy," but really she just wanted to keep interrogating me like she was building a court case.
"So," she said, taking a bite of a cookie. "You think he noticed Jamie noticing you?"
I groaned. "What if it's all in my head?"
"Oh, it's absolutely in your head. That's where everything lives. But it doesn't mean it's not also in his."
I stared at my fries.
They stared back.
"I'm not even sure I want him to notice me like that," I admitted.
Tiana stopped chewing. "Liar."
"I'm serious," I said, quieter. "It's been four years. He left when I was just starting to figure out how to exist without my parents. He felt like a ghost for a long time. Now he's back and he's… not a ghost. He's just… here. Breathing. Being nice. And sometimes looking at me like…"
"Like you matter?"
I didn't respond.
Because, yeah.
Exactly that.
And it scared me more than anything.
⸻
Last period: history.
I barely made it through the reading. My highlighter was dry. My brain was running highlight reels of everything Raven had said and not said.
Every laugh. Every moment of silence.
Every time our hands brushed.
Every glance I thought I imagined.
I doodled in the margin of my textbook.
A moon lamp.
A shopping cart.
The word Maybe written ten times.
⸻
When the final bell rang, I sat frozen in my seat for a second longer than usual.
I had no answers.
Only a growing list of maybes.
Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe it was everything.
Maybe I needed to stop thinking about him.
Maybe I didn't want to.