I turned her gently, so she was facing me instead of the mirror. “I wish you could see what I see. Because if you did, you’d never doubt yourself again.”
She didn’t speak right away. Just stood there in silence, eyes locked with mine, the air between us thick with unspoken emotion.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered eventually. “Why are you making it so hard not to…likeyou?”
My breath caught.
“I don’t want to just help you anymore,” I said softly. “I want to be the reason you start believing you’re enough. Because you are. You always were.”
Her lower lip trembled as she stared at me, like she didn’t know whether to pull me closer or push me away.
So I made the choice for her. I stepped in, brushed my thumb against her cheek, and kissed her. Not with hunger this time, but with something far quieter and far more dangerous.
39
EDEN
The weeks flew by like a dream we weren’t ready to wake up from.
Around mid-February, everything kind of blurred together in the best possible way. Alana and I hung out all the time. Like,allthe time. She was still coming over to teach me how to bake—though most of the time we ended up making a mess, getting flour everywhere, and then… not exactly focusing on baking anymore.
We’d start off great, working on finessing my Mille-Feuille skills, teaching me how to fix a mistake, and somehow it always turned into me lifting her onto the counter and forgetting the oven was even on. I was honestly surprised we didn’t burn the apartment down.
But it wasn’t just the sex. I mean yeah, we were definitely… close. A lot. But it was more than that.
She started staying over more. Leaving a sweatshirt or two at my place. Making coffee in the morning while humming whatever song was stuck in her head under her breath.
It felt easy. Comfortable. Like she belonged here.
And maybe that should’ve freaked me out, but it didn’t. Not even a little.
If anything, it scared me how much I liked it.
Alana changed, too—subtly, but I saw it. She stood a little taller. Smiled more. Didn’t flinch when people looked at her in the halls. Fuck, she even said hi to Austin twice. Just a quick “hey” before ducking into her lecture, but still.
For her? That was huge.
She tried to act all casual about it afterward, but I could tell she was proud of herself. And while I was proud of her, too, I couldn’t be happy about it.
Because no matter how hard I tried to be happy for her, I knew that at the end of the day, she was working this hard to get with that stupid guy.
He threw a party every weekend, which was insane, if you asked me. We didn’t go to all of them, barely any even. Alana and I had been to one weeks ago, and it was great. Alana didn’t talk to him at all. Austin looked at her a few times, but that was it.
The party wasn’t even worth mentioning to be honest.
But now… I wasn’t sure Alana still wouldn’t talk to Austin at his next party. This time, we were actually attending, too.
I hated Austin.
I hated his smug smile, the way he acted like he was everyone’s favorite when we all knew that he was just my copycat. But most of all, I hated that Alana had this massive crush on him.
But then I thought about what Austin got from her. He got a “Hey!” in passing. He got awkward smiles and a returned wave when he saw her in the halls.
And what did I get?
I got her genuine smiles. Every stage of her laughter. I got deep conversations, stolen glances with knowing smiles thatwere so hard to hide, even our business professor rolled his eyes when he saw us enter his classroom.
Alana left some of her clothes at my place.
