4
By the time Ryan dropped me off at my dorm, it was late.
I thanked him and started toward the entrance.
Then I heard Ashton’s voice behind me.
“Chloe.”
I stopped.
Didn’t turn around right away.
When I finally did, my expression was flat.
“Call me Chloe Barrett. Isn’t that safer for your boundaries with other women?”
He shut his eyes for a second.
His chest rose and fell.
When he opened them again, his voice was rough.
“We haven’t broken up.”
I actually laughed.
It came out sharp and ugly.
“Then who exactly is your girlfriend right now?”
“The girl you’ve loved for years?”
“Or the girl you kept hidden in the dark?”
Guilt flooded his face.
Under the dorm lights, his eyes looked heartbreakingly soft.
Almost like melting moonlight.
The kind of face that could fool someone into forgiving anything.
He lowered his head.
“I’m sorry.”
The ache rushed straight up into my throat.
I nodded once.
“Apology accepted.”
“Now we’re done.”
I turned.
He grabbed my wrist again.
This time my body moved before my brain could.
The slap cracked through the quiet.
His face snapped to the side.
A red mark bloomed across his cheek.
He slowly looked back at me.
Tired. Sad. Weirdly patient.
“Feel better?”
That was the moment I broke.
Not dramatically.
Not prettily.
My tears just came.
Fast and hot and humiliating.
He lifted one hand like he wanted to wipe them away.
“Don’t cry, Chloe—”
I jerked back.
“Don’t touch me.”
I smiled at him, but my voice was shaking.
“It’s actually perfect.”
“No one knew we were together anyway.”
“So let’s pretend none of it ever happened.”
“From now on, we live our own lives.”
“We don’t owe each other anything.”
Then I turned and hurried into the building.
Behind me, Ashton called out one last thing.
“I know you and Ryan aren’t real—”
The wind swallowed the rest.
I didn’t know that after I disappeared upstairs, Ryan came back.
He’d apparently only driven a little way before turning around.
Later, Dylan told me what happened.
Ryan leaned against his car and looked at Ashton with a slow smile.
“Stop shouting under the girls’ dorms like some creep.”
“Yeah, fake. Today’s fake.”
“Chloe’s too clean to cheat.”
Ashton’s expression loosened a fraction.
Then Ryan added casually,
“But today being fake doesn’t mean tomorrow will be.”
When I got back to my room, I cried until I couldn’t breathe.
Then, exhausted, I got up and started cleaning.
Every picture of Ashton and me in my phone.
Deleted.
The sneaky matching things we bought together.
The sweaters. The gifts. The little things with private meaning.
All of it went into boxes.
I made trip after trip downstairs and stuffed everything into the dorm dumpster.
By the time I finished, it was almost overflowing.
I stood there staring at it.
At the graveyard of one stupid secret relationship.
Then I pressed my nails into my palm and told myself over and over:
Don’t look back.
Don’t soften.
Don’t be weak.
The second I returned to my room, Dylan video-called me.
Of course he did.
He was dying to gossip.
“I knew it!” he started. “You’ve been smiling at your phone like an idiot for weeks. I kept telling you something was up. But Ryan? Seriously? I never would’ve guessed Ryan.”
Then he frowned.
“You used to hate him. You literally said if you ever dated anyone, it’d be someone more like—”
He stopped himself too late.
More like Ashton.
Even hearing the name in my head made my chest tighten.
I cut in quickly.
“Dylan, don’t say stuff like that anymore. Ashton has a girlfriend now. People could misunderstand.”
My brother went quiet for a second.
Then he nodded.
“You’re right.”
He studied my face through the screen.
His voice got softer.
“Why are your eyes red?”
I didn’t answer.
He waited.
Then asked carefully, “Did you cry because Ashton got a girlfriend?”
I shook my head too fast.
“It has nothing to do with him.”
“Good,” Dylan said, but his expression didn’t relax. “As long as it’s not that.”
A few seconds passed.
Then he sighed.
“There are tons of men better than Ashton.”
“My sister deserves someone even better.”
“Ryan annoys the hell out of me, but objectively? He’s not bad.”
I turned my face away from the screen because I didn’t want him seeing me cry.
That was when something hit me.
Dylan had known.
Not everything.
But enough.
He’d known I liked Ashton.
And I’d thought I was hiding it so well.
Suddenly, another memory rose up.
My birthday last year.
After Ashton and I blew out the candles, he asked what I wished for.
I hesitated, then said in a tiny voice, “I want you to spend every birthday with me from now on.”
He laughed softly.
“What if you have a boyfriend? Won’t he get jealous?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t want another boyfriend.”
He went still.
Then slowly leaned closer.
There was something dangerous in his eyes.
Something hypnotic.
“What kind of boyfriend do you want, then?”
His breath brushed my cheek.
“Someone like your brother?”
I froze.
He leaned even closer, voice low and teasing.
“What about a boyfriend like me?”
It felt like fireworks going off inside my skull.
Years of secret longing exploding all at once.
I stammered so hard I could barely get words out.
“R-Really?”
He smiled.
“When have I ever lied to you?”
What a joke.
Back then, I nodded like an idiot, terrified he’d change his mind.
“You can’t take it back.”
He laughed, pulled me into his arms, and whispered, “If Dylan finds out, he’ll kill me.”
After that, I almost got caught so many times.
Dylan would squint at me suspiciously and ask, “Are you secretly dating somebody?”
“I’m telling you now, men are great actors. If you really like someone, bring him home. Let your brother inspect him first.”
And if I rolled my eyes, he’d slap Ashton’s shoulder and add, “If you don’t trust me, let Ashton check him for you. You like him more than your own brother anyway.”
Back then, Ashton would always bite back a smile and say, “Your brother’s right. Bring him to me first.”
And I used to laugh inside, wondering how stunned Dylan would be when he found out the boyfriend he wanted to vet was Ashton all along.
A few times, I told Ashton we should just come clean.
Every single time, he had another reason not to.
“You haven’t graduated yet. Dylan will murder me.”
“My career’s still unstable.”
“I want to show up properly before I ask for you. I want your parents to feel like they can trust me with you.”
I believed all of it.
I thought he was being thoughtful.
Responsible.
Planning for our future.
Now I knew the truth.
He never wanted to bring me into the light because there was always someone else still living inside his heart.
Some perfect impossible girl he couldn’t let go of.
And I was just the one standing beside him while he waited for that dream to come back.
The more I thought about it, the more it hurt.
Like a thousand needles pushing through the same place in my chest.
I choked on a breath and whispered to Dylan, “I’m sorry.”
He panicked immediately.
“For what? Don’t cry. Sleep, okay? In a couple days I’ll take you out somewhere fun.”
After that, I threw myself into the library every day.
Morning to night.
If I kept my schedule full enough, maybe my mind wouldn’t keep dragging me back to Ashton.
A week later, my roommate squinted at me and said, “Chloe, have you lost weight?”
I smiled.
“It’s spring. I’m dieting.”
She screamed.
“That’s offensive. You’re already skinny.”
I laughed with them.
Then blinked away tears before anyone noticed.