Page 33 of Echoes of Us

A shley's head throbbed with each step across the courtyard.

She'd barely managed to change into leggings and an oversized Yale sweater, the most effort she could muster after waking up fully clothed on top of her covers, courtesy of Ezra's almost gentlemanly act last night.

The morning sun felt like needles against her closed eyelids, and the whispers didn't help at all.

"...carried her out of the party..." "...Ezra Martinez and that physics girl..." "...saw them by Sterling Memorial..."

The fragments of conversation followed her like persistent ghosts, but her hangover-addled brain couldn't quite piece them together. She was too focused on putting one foot in front of the other and making it to her morning class without throwing up or dying - whichever came first.

She didn't register someone falling into step beside her until a hand closed around her elbow, steering her off the path. Through her headache fog, she recognized the route to Marsh Botanical Garden - that quiet corner of campus where century-old trees created pockets of absolute privacy.

"What the f-" she started, but Ezra's expression stopped her. She'd never seen him look so thoroughly annoyed.

He led her deeper into the garden, past the greenhouse and through a grove of maple trees until they were completely hidden from the main paths. The morning light filtered green through the leaves above them, and somewhere nearby, water trickled from one of the garden's fountains.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he hissed, releasing her arm.

"Shh!" Ashley pressed her palms against her eyes, willing the world to stop spinning. The most humiliating hangover of her life wasn't helping this conversation. "What are you talking about?"

"Why is Jackson calling me pussy-whipped?" His voice dripped with barely contained rage. "Why does everyone suddenly think we're together?"

"How should I know?" But even as she said it, the memories started coming back in hazy flashes. Ezra's arms around her, the world tilting as he carried her past Sterling Memorial.

And then - giggles. High-pitched voices cutting through her drunk fog.

"Wait," Ashley pressed her fingers to her temples, the memory crystallizing. "There were these two second-years. By the library." She squinted against the morning light, trying to catch the fragments. "One of them had pink highlights. They were taking pictures..."

"Pictures?" Ezra's voice turned sharp.

"Yeah, they..." She swallowed hard as more details surfaced. "One of them runs that stupid Yale gossip account. Yale Afterhours or something?"

"Fuck." Ezra yanked his phone out, fingers flying across the screen.

His curse was soft but vicious as he found what he was looking for.

"Seventeen thousand likes. 'Even players have hearts.

Spotted: Yale's resident bad boy carrying his new conquest home.

'" He turned the screen toward her, showing a series of dimly lit photos - his arms cradling her against his chest, her face pressed into his neck, his expression softer than she'd ever seen it.

"I'll handle it," Ashley said quickly. "I'll tell everyone you were just being nice, that I was-"

"That you were what?" A new voice cut through the garden's quiet. "Drunk? Desperate? Both?"

Ashley's blood ran cold. She turned to find Cole standing at the garden's entrance, face unreadable in the dappled morning light. He moved toward them with deliberate steps, each crunch of leaves under his shoes making her headache spike.

"You know," he continued, his voice carrying that dangerous calm she remembered from their confrontation in the lab, "when Marie showed me the post this morning, I actually laughed.

The idea of Ezra Martinez playing knight in shining armor was too ridiculous.

" His eyes fixed on where Ezra still held his phone, a screen displaying the damning evidence. "But here you are."

"Cole-" Ezra started, but Cole cut him off with a sharp laugh.

"I see the rumors are true." His voice carried across the garden, precise and cutting.

"Careful buddy, this one bites. Not necessarily in a bad way.

" The reference to their moment against the wall made heat rush to Ashley's cheeks.

She'd only done that because he'd liked it, but she wasn't about to humiliate herself further by saying so.

Cole's gaze shifted to her, and something in his expression made her want to sink into the earth beneath her feet.

"And you. How easily you ditched us brothers and moved on to this manwhore.

" His laugh was sharp enough to cut glass.

"Your savior complex is off the charts. No wonder you're into behavioral psychology.

Good luck with him. Just make sure to test for STDs every now and then. "

"Hey man, not cool." Ezra's voice had lost its anger, replaced by something that sounded almost like defense. He shifted slightly, putting himself between her and Cole.

"Oh, sorry." Cole's smile was all teeth. "Did I offend the lovebirds? My deepest apologies. But then again," he glanced at his own phone, "seventeen thousand people can't be wrong, can they?"

He turned on his heel, leaves crunching under his feet as he walked away, his dismissal more devastating than his anger.

"Well, shit." Ashley sank onto a nearby stone bench, dropping her head into her hands.

"Seems like your plan worked, sweetheart." Ezra's words came through clenched teeth. "You're my girlfriend now."

"No." Ashley looked up at him, immediately regretting the movement as pain lanced through her temples. "This is too toxic, even for me."

"Then fix it!" He stepped back, running a hand through his already messy hair. The morning light caught his overly expensive watch, throwing angry sparks. "Because thanks to your drunk ass, those photos, and this lovely performance, nobody’s going to believe me when I say these rumors aren’t true."

He walked away, leaving her alone in the garden with a headache that somehow felt worse than before. The fountain's gentle trickling felt like mockery now, the dappled sunlight through leaves too bright for her aching eyes.

Her phone buzzed - another notification from Yale AfterHours.

She didn't need to look to know it was probably a follow-up story about their morning "lovers' quarrel" in the garden.

Everything she'd tried to fix had somehow gotten exponentially worse.

Now, she was apparently dating the one person at Yale who might be more emotionally unavailable than Cole Westwood.

Perfect.

* * *

Sarah was waiting outside her behavioral psychology class, phone in hand and murder in her eyes.

"What the actual fuck?" She thrust the screen in Ashley's face, showing yet another angle of last night's princess carry moment. Someone had even added a romantic filter. "I leave you alone for twenty minutes, and you end up as Yale's newest power couple?"

"Can we not do this here?" Ashley glanced around at the students filtering past, some not even trying to hide their stares. Her hangover had evolved into a persistent throb behind her eyes that made every whispered comment feel like a physical blow.

Sarah grabbed her arm and dragged her to their usual study corner in the library's basement - a windowless nook between Ancient Philosophy and Medieval Literature where no one ever ventured. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Sarah crossed her arms, waiting.

"It's not what it looks like," Ashley started.

"Really? Because it looks like you got wasted, made Ezra Martinez carry you home like some rom-com heroine, and now the entire campus thinks you've somehow tamed Yale's most notorious player." Sarah's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Please, tell me how that's not exactly what it looks like."

Ashley slumped into a chair, letting her head fall onto the dusty table. "I'm going to fix it."

"How exactly? Those photos are everywhere. Marie's already texting me about how you've 'moved on so fast.'" The air quotes were audible in Sarah's tone. "And Cole-"

"I know what Cole thinks," Ashley cut her off, remembering his cruel smile in the garden. "I was there for that delightful conversation."

"So what's the plan?" Sarah sat across from her, her anger softening into concern. "Because being tied to Ezra Martinez, even just in rumors... that's not going to help anything."

"You think I don't know that?" Ashley lifted her head, wincing at the movement. "He's Cole's best friend. He's probably slept with half the female population of Yale. He's..." She gestured vaguely. "Ezra."

"Exactly. He's Ezra." Sarah leaned forward. "Which means this isn't just going to blow over. People have been trying to catch him in a real relationship for years. You're like... gossip gold right now."

"I'll figure something out," Ashley said, turning her phone face-down. "I'll tell everyone it was just him being nice. I'll-"

"You'll what? Because from where I'm sitting, you have two options.

" Sarah held up one finger. "One: you lean into it.

Let people think what they want until something bigger comes along.

" Another finger. "Two: you publicly deny it, which will only make people more interested and probably piss off Ezra in the process. "

Ashley stared at her friend's raised fingers, remembering Ezra's words in the garden. Get used to it.

"There has to be another way."

"Maybe," Sarah said softly. "But whatever you decide? Do it fast. Because right now, you're caught between your ex's best friend and your ex himself. And from what I saw this morning?" She nodded at Ashley's phone, which was buzzing again. "Neither of them is handling it well."

Ashley closed her eyes, wishing she could go back to yesterday when her biggest problem was just a broken heart. Her head throbbed with each pulse of the fluorescent lights above.

"I need to talk to Dale," she said suddenly, gathering her things.

"Are you sure that's-"

But Ashley was already moving, leaving Sarah mid-sentence. She found Dale in his usual spot in the physics lab, bent over equations that probably made sense to exactly three people in the world. He looked up as she entered, his expression carefully neutral.

"I need your help." The words tumbled out. "Not as Cole's brother or Ezra's friend, but as... as my friend. If we still are that."

Dale set down his pen, giving her his full attention. The late morning sun caught his glasses as he studied her, making it impossible to read his eyes. "What do you need?"

"Tell me what to do." She sank onto a lab stool, the cool metal grounding her. "Because right now, I can't fix this one."

She told Dale what happened. He was quiet for a long moment after she finished, his fingers absently turning his signet ring - a gesture so like Cole's it made her chest ache. Finally, he spoke.

"Actually," Dale said, straightening in his chair, "I might have an idea. What if we did something like this summer? A small get-together at my place, just the physics crowd. Neutral territory."

The suggestion hung in the air for a moment before Ashley caught his meaning. A chance to talk to Cole at the last place they were still friends before everything went downhill.

"You'd do that?"

"Consider it my contribution to restoring equilibrium to the universe." His smile turned wry. "Besides, someone needs to save my brother from his own stubbornness. Might as well be you."

Three days later, Ashley stood in Dale's kitchen, arranging snacks with probably too much attention to detail. The apartment felt smaller somehow than during their summer study sessions, more intimate. Or maybe that was just her nerves making everything feel more intense.

"The chips don't have to be geometrically aligned," Dale commented, passing by with a stack of cups.

"Shut up," she muttered but smiled despite herself. Everything had to be perfect. She'd rehearsed what she'd say to Cole a hundred times - about the department, about her feelings, about all the misunderstandings that had spiraled out of control.

The first few people arrived - Mike with his favorite NASA shirt, Lisa carrying her signature brownies, and Eddie looking as serious as ever. The familiar faces and easy chatter helped settle Ashley's nerves. This could work. This had to work.

Then the door opened again, and Ashley's heart stopped.

Cole stood in the doorway, looking unfairly good in dark jeans and a gray henley that brought out his eyes.

But it was Marie beside him that made Ashley's carefully arranged chips suddenly look absurd.

Marie, wearing a dress that could have come from Ashley's own closet, her hand tucked into Cole's arm like it belonged there.

Marie, who wasn't even part of their physics group. Who had no reason to be here except...

"I didn't know she was coming," Dale whispered, appearing at Ashley's elbow. The apology in his voice made it worse somehow.

The speech Ashley had practiced died in her throat as Cole's eyes found hers across the room. For a split second, something flickered in his expression - surprise, maybe even guilt. Then his arm tightened around Marie's waist, and Ashley understood.

He'd known she would be here. And he'd brought Marie anyway.

Or maybe because of it.