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My phone buzzes, and I pull it out to see a message from Holden.
HOLDEN:Finished with practice. Are you free?
I gnaw on my bottom lip for a few seconds, debating my answer.
CASSIA:I’m at Daily Grind. Grabbing a coffee and then was going to study in the library…
HOLDEN:I’m almost to the student center. Be right there.
CASSIA:Okay.
CASSIA:Ran into Brooks here.
The dots take a few seconds to appear.
HOLDEN:Okay.
There’s not much to read into that response, so I pocket my phone and pull out my credit card to pay. Brooks tries to add my coffee onto his order but doesn’t push when I insist on paying for myself.
“How is TAing going?” I ask.
Brooks groans. “I jumped at the chance to leave campus for the weekend. I think that conveys the gist of it.”
I smile. “It’ll get better.”
“Or worse.”
My grin grows. “Is this the first time you’ve visited Richmond?”
“I toured it, back in high school. Since then, no. I know Finn comes up a few times a semester, and it’s always been an open invitation in the house. But Bailey was on campus…so I never had much incentive to leave.”
I nod, grabbing a straw out of the metal canister stuffed with them.
The two girls standing on the opposite side of the island that stores all the coffee shop necessities—sugar packets and wooden stirrers and extra lids, plus canisters of milk—start whispering.
After three years on this campus, my first instinct is to look for Holden. And I’m right. He’s running a hand through his damp hair as he joins the line in front of the register.
Brooks glances around, noticing the same phenomenon I’ve witnessed many times before.
Holden draws attention. Because of his looks. Because of his athleticism. Because he hasit, whatever that elusive, intangible quality is that’s more powerful than charisma.
“I figured that’s who you were texting.”
Clearly, my stealthy typing skills need work.
“We had plans to study…” I lie, because I still feel awkward about what I said earlier.
No guy has been brave enough to flirt with me since rumors started circling about me and Holden our senior year of high school. I’m automatically considered off-limits, because of some invisible code that Brooks’s ex Bailey could learn a thing or two from.
If my life was very different—if me and Holden had never met but Brooks and I had—I could picture us as a couple. Because we would match, line up like two pieces from the same puzzle. I think we would have the same steady, reliable relationship that I used to think was the ideal.
I love Holden because of our differences, not despite them.
And I’m no longer certainsimilarhas a solid outcome.
My parents were similar. Steady. Reliable. Until they weren’t.
It’s given me a new appreciation for the rollercoaster relationship I’m a part of. Maybe it means we face our issues head on, instead of letting little problems fester until they become big issues.
