Chapter 4
Adrian was doing worse than I had imagined.
Not worse in the ways that made people cruel.
Worse in the ways that made your chest ache because nobody should have to live inside that much fear.
Back when we had first matched online, the app’s ridiculous compatibility feature had flashed ninety-eight percent.
I had laughed at it.
But the longer we talked, the less funny it became.
He had told me, carefully and only in pieces, that something had happened when he was little. Enough to leave him terrified of face-to-face interaction. Of crowds. Of being looked at too long. Of saying the wrong thing and watching somebody’s expression change.
There was no neat official diagnosis he ever gave me.
Just a quiet confession that the world, in person, often felt too sharp.
So he had hidden in the internet.
And somehow, in that strange hidden place, he had found me.
At first, I had only felt sympathy.
The same kind of instinct that makes you want to crouch down in the rain and coax a trembling cat out from under a car.
But sympathy is a flimsy roof.
What grew between us was not flimsy.
It was terrifyingly exact.
We liked the same books, the same melancholy movies, the same weird little pieces of music with too much silence in them. He always caught the emotion I had not said out loud. Even during the worst year of my life, when school was crushing me and I was one bad exam away from a breakdown, he had become the person I leaned on most.
There were math problems he had typed out line by line just to walk me through them.
Thousands of words.
Patient, precise, careful.
My roommate Mia used to stare at me in the mirror and say, “Explain this to me. You look like you could pull a boyfriend in the cafeteria line. Why did you go get one from the internet?”
And every time, I would sound exactly like the hopeless romantic I swore I was not.
“It’s different.”
Because it was.
Pretty faces had never impressed me much. My family was full of beautiful people. After a while, beauty becomes wallpaper.
But a mind?
A soul?
A person who fits into your thoughts like they had been there all along?
That is different.
Now, sitting next to Adrian in class, I talked enough for both of us.
That was not unusual.
I have always narrated life like it is trying to escape from me.
Most people would say, “I got off the train and somebody stepped on my shoe.”
I could somehow turn it into a ten-minute saga with emotional arcs and supporting cast members.
By the time class ended, my throat was dry.
Adrian reached over silently and handed me a bottle of water that was already open.
It was the perfect temperature.
Of course it was.
I took a huge drink and sighed. “You are ridiculously thoughtful. Thank you, boyfriend.”
His ears went pink again.
“You’re welcome,” he said, each syllable slow and deliberate.
I nearly melted on the spot.
I reached over and smoothed a hand through his dark hair. It was soft as silk.
“It’s okay if you don’t talk much,” I told him lightly. “I talk enough for six people. I’ve got us covered.”
His lashes lowered.
And very softly, almost too softly to hear, he said, “Okay.”