Spurred by their trepidation, my certainty that college would finally level the playing field between us only grew stronger. I wasn’t the kid sister trying to keep up anymore.
I was a force to be reckoned with, armed with craft glue and glitter.
Feeling strangely in my element after subtly threatening Adam and Blake with glitter war, I smiled at the guy who opened the gate in front of us. With dark hair and features, he contrasted my lifelong crush sharply, but I winked at him, like he was in on my secret plans.
As I slid my arm off Blake and Adam’s necks, the guy’s eyebrows rose and he glanced between me and them. When he smiled back, his bright grin transformed his darker features.
Something fluttered inside my chest.
It caught me off guard. Not merely the guy’s response to my first attempt at college-level flirting, butmyreaction to his smile. A smile that didn’t belong to Blake Hawthorne.
It wasn’t attraction, even though the guy was gorgeous.
It felt like…hope.
College presented a world of opportunity.
My chance to discover who I really was.
Not the wallflower I’d been around most of my peers in high school, excluding the two goons behind me. Not the girl hiding behind a book, waiting to be noticed.
I could be the girl who sauntered past a cute guy, keeping his smile and eyes on me, as I walked through the open gate. Standing out. Commanding attention.
The girl he didn’t want to let slip by before saying, “Welcome to the building. I’m Nate.”
“Nice to meet you, Nate.”
Blake bristled beside me, his eyes narrowing on my smile, and the soft flutter in my chest grew stronger. Things were about to change for the three of us.
College was my chance to be seen differently.
Maybe my chance for Blake Hawthorne to finally see me as more than a little girl.
Either way, I couldn’t wait to find out what came next.
FALL SEMESTER IN COLLEGE, SEPTEMBER 2017, AGE 18
What came next turned out to be both a dream and a nightmare.
While living together at college offered us unlimited time over the summer to prank each other, watch our favorite movies, and create new traditions like our Sunday dinners, it hadn’t been a gateway I’d hoped for with Blake.
I’d spent most of our summer beside him on the couch, staring at the giant elephant in the living room known as mysecret feelings. Not acknowledging it nearly drove me to madness.
Because we had moments.
Brief, all-too-fleeting moments where I swore he felt something, too. He often rushed to share news with me first. His eyes lingered on me longer than usual when I walked into a room. And sometimes, he even tensed like touching me affected him, too.
But he never admitted it.
I lost count of how many times I got my hopes up when he opened his mouth and didn’t profess his undying love. Heoften said something so completely out of left field, he seemed oblivious to my feelings. But there was no way he hadn’t noticed.
Because while Blake could brush his sock-covered feet against my bare legs and resume eating cereal without a care in the world, I didn’t share that talent.
He could touch my bare skin without a full-fledged crisis happening inside him.
I required three-to-five business days to recover.
Unfortunately, no matter how many mornings he tucked in beside me on the couch, even when he noticed I wore my cutest pajamas, nothing changed.
