I frowned slightly.
“What does that mean?” I demanded nonetheless.
“It means what it means,” he said. “You were different around him.”
I didn’t answer. Levi pushed off the railing.
“Look,” Levi added more quietly, “you can overthink it all you want. But if you keep doing nothing, you might lose something good without even realizing you were holding it.”
That was all he said. He didn’t pressure or lecture me. Then he walked back inside, leaving me alone with my coffee and the sound of wind moving through the yard.
I stared down into the cup for a long moment.
Something good.The words lingered longer than I expected them to. Seth was certainly that. The worst part was, I wasn’t sure I disagreed.
Actually, if I was honest with myself, maybe I was the one responsible for putting this wedge between us. Perhaps I’d misread things.
Maybe I’d decided on “distance” like it was a clean solution instead of a slow undoing. My grip tightened slightly around the cup.
Now I was stuck in the space between not knowing what Seth felt and being too aware of what I felt. Which was, unfortunately, a problem.
I finished my coffee in a few long sips, but it didn’t really help clear anything. If anything, it made me more awake, more stuck in my own head. The obvious solution flickered in briefly.
Text Seth something simple. Something normal, literally anything that wasn’t me spiraling alone in my backyard like an idiot. My thumb hovered over my phone again.
I unlocked it. Seth’s name sat there like it always did. A second thought followed immediately after.
Maybe I should just go to the café. I could see him in person, reset things properly, so that would stop the silence stretch between us.
Then I pictured it walking in without warning.
Seth behind the counter wearing that careful expression again. That slight shift in how he spoke to me now, like we were both pretending not to notice something had changed.
I would be standing there with my head full of too many thoughts and not enough clarity. That would go badly, I could feel it.
I wasn’t in the right state of mind for subtlety right now, or for reading anything correctly. I exhaled sharply through my nose and locked the phone again.
“Yeah, no,” I muttered to myself.
A shout came from inside the house. My mom’s voice drifting through the open kitchen window.
“Dane! Do you want more coffee?”
I leaned my head back slightly toward the house.
“I think I ate too many pancakes,” I said instead of answering her question. “I’m gonna go for a run.”
There was a beat. Then my mom replied, amused, “You should wait for an hour at least before going running.”
“Nah, I feel like running now.”
“Be back in time for lunch!” She yelled back.
“No promises.”
I set the empty mug down on the outdoor table, and decided to commit to my run.
I stripped off my shirt first, then my shorts, folding them automatically out of habit. The air felt cooler against my skin now, but it didn’t help much.
