Page 3

WILLOW

B laise unlocks the dorm room door, and I follow him inside, trying not to feel weird about how quiet it is without Knox here. Or how weird it is to be here period without my brother around.

"I'll grab us some water," Blaise says.

I swear his voice nearly echoes in this small room, and I follow him with my eyes as he walks over to the mini-fridge.

I stand awkwardly in the center, taking in the familiar-yet-unfamiliar space.

I've been here dozens of times, but always with Knox as a buffer. Without him, everything feels different and I can’t quite describe how.

The space is divided neatly in half and you can clearly see where the division lies.

Knox's side is much messier, including the way he’s hung his hockey posters on the way.

Blaise's side is meticulously organized with his bed made and his hockey gear put away.

Even his desk is organized to perfection with his color-coded notebooks stacked perfectly, laptop closed and centered, not a stray pen in sight.

It’s actually quite comical how different he is from Knox in this area, let alone me.

I would argue that both Knox and I rebelled a bit when we went to college in terms of how neat we needed to be because of the rules we followed at home.

While my room could be a little messy, it wasn’t like I didn’t know where everything was.

Unless I just forgot, which happened more often than I would care to admit.

I sway slightly, still feeling the alcohol, and decide sitting is probably wise. I perch on the edge of Knox's unmade bed, thinking it's safer territory.

"Here," Blaise says, returning with two bottles of water. He hands me one and sits on his own bed, facing me. "Drink this. All of it."

I accept the bottle with a mock salute. "Yes, sir."

He watches me take a long sip, his eyes never leaving my face. The intensity makes me fidget, but I can’t look away. Having him study my every move has me freaking out on the inside, but the alcohol running through my veins helps me to mask it.

"What?" I finally ask, lowering the bottle.

"Nothing," he says, then seems to reconsider before he speaks again. "Just making sure you're okay."

"I'm fine," I say automatically, then add more honestly, "Just... dizzy. And hungry."

"Food's on the way. Pizza. I ordered plain cheese. Hope that works."

"Pizza works," I confirm, taking another sip of water. "Thanks for... you know."

"No problem," he says simply, like helping drunk girls get home safely is something he does every weekend. Speaking of, why didn’t he just help me back to my room and leave me be?

"Why didn't you just take me back to my dorm?" I ask, voicing the thought before I can stop myself.

“Because you mentioned being out alone. Didn’t think it made sense for you to be alone depending on how drunk you are.”

"Oh," I say, feeling oddly touched by his concern. "That's... thoughtful."

He shrugs, looking almost embarrassed. "Just common sense."

The room falls quiet except for the sound of us sipping water.

I study him from across the small space between the beds, trying to reconcile this version of Blaise with the one I thought I knew.

The one who barely acknowledges me except when Knox is around.

The one who's always seemed very indifferent to whether I was in the room or not.

"You're staring," he points out, the corner of his mouth lifting.

"Sorry," I mumble, looking down at my water bottle. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"How weird this is," I admit, the alcohol making me slightly more honest than I'd normally be. "Us. Hanging out. Voluntarily."

He raises an eyebrow. "Is it that weird?"

"Kind of." I twist the cap on my water bottle. "We don't exactly... talk. Ever."

"We talk," he counters.

"No, we say hey in passing. That's different." I take another sip of water, feeling more clear-headed now but not sure how drunk I still am. It could be just a fluke.

"Maybe we should change that," Blaise says.

My eyes snap up to meet his. "Change what?"

"The not talking thing." He leans forward slightly and the move only draws more attention to his shoulders beneath his hoodie. "Maybe we should actually talk. Like real people."

I laugh, but it comes out sounding more nervous than I intended. "What would we even talk about?"

"I don't know. Normal stuff." He shrugs. "Like the fact that you're apparently a level sixty-three witch who hides her gaming habit from her brother."

"Oh fuck," I groan, covering my face with my hands. "I can't believe I told you that."

"It's not exactly a criminal confession," he says. "Though you did threaten to kill me if I told anyone, so..."

"And I stand by that," I say, pointing my water bottle at him. "Knox would never let me live it down."

"Your secret's safe with me." There's something in his expression that makes me believe him.

Also, I should have known when I admitted to being a gamer I’d drank too much. Rookie mistake.

"Thanks," I say, and mean it. "So what other deep, dark secrets should we share since we're suddenly talking like real people?"

"I don't know if I have any deep, dark secrets."

"Everyone has secrets," I counter. "Even Mr. Perfect Political Science Major with the color-coded notebooks."

Something flickers across his face before he masks it. "My notebooks aren't color-coded because I'm perfect. They're color-coded because they have to be."

"Have to be?" I tilt my head, genuinely curious now.

He hesitates, like he's weighing how much to say. "I have anxiety. The organization helps. If things are in their right place, my brain... works better."

"Oh." I wasn't expecting that level of honesty. "That makes sense."

"Yeah." He shrugs, looking slightly uncomfortable. "It's not a big deal. Just how I manage things and the systems I create to get things done."

“I get that. I mean, not anxiety specifically, but... coping mechanisms." I chew my lip, wondering if I should say more. The alcohol has loosened my tongue already, but this doesn’t make me feel as uncomfortable as admitting I like to play video games.

"I have ADHD," I finally admit. "Diagnosed when I was in middle school. It was a struggle having the people in my life constantly tell me they think I should just try harder and that would solve all of my problems." I roll my eyes. "Like I haven't been trying my whole life."

I study Blaise’s facial expression and find no pity, just understanding. "That explains the gaming. Hyperfocus?"

"Yeah," I say, surprised he knows the term. "It's like everything else falls away. I can sit there for hours and not even realize time is passing."

"Must be nice sometimes," he says. "To shut everything else out."

"It is. Until I realize I've forgotten to eat or sleep or... you know, basic human functions." I laugh softly. "But it beats the alternative of bouncing between fifteen different thoughts in thirty seconds."

He smiles, and it reaches his eyes in a way that makes my stomach do that weird flippy thing again. "Sounds like we're opposite sides of the same neurospicy coin," he says. "My brain gets stuck on one thought and loops it endlessly. Your brain hops from thought to thought."

"Yeah, exactly. It's like my brain is a browser with fifty tabs open at once, and I can't close any of them."

"Mine's more like one tab that keeps refreshing with the same error message."

I laugh at that. "Wow, that's perfect. We're like the world's most dysfunctional web browser."

"Firefox and Chrome's neglected cousin nobody downloads."

"The one that crashes your computer if you try to stream video," I add.

We're both laughing now, and it feels... good. Easy. Like we've been friends forever instead of two people who barely acknowledge each other's existence outside of Knox's orbit.

A chime from Blaise’s phone interrupts us, and he stands up. "That's probably the pizza."

While he handles the delivery, I take another long drink of water and walk over to his desk.

The room still tilts somewhat when I move too quickly, but the sharp edges of drunkenness have softened, thankfully.

I should shoot Ari a text to let her know I’m fine, but I get distracted when Blaise reenters the room.

"Pizza delivery," he announces, holding up a medium-sized box that smells like heaven. My stomach growls audibly in response, reminding me just how long it's been since I've eaten.

"Oh my gosh, that smells amazing," I say.

I watch as he walks over to his desk. He uses his free hand to move his notebooks and laptop out of the way to put the pizza down on the surface. When he opens the box, I swear I could sink down onto the floor and cry. The pizza looks as good as it smells and it needs to get into my belly pronto.

"Grab a slice before I inhale the whole thing," I say, reaching for a piece before he can even offer. The cheese stretches in perfect strands as I lift it, and my stomach does another growl of anticipation.

"Whoa, slow down there." Blaise laughs as I fold the slice in half and take an enormous bite. "The pizza's not going anywhere."

I can't respond because my mouth is full of the most delicious thing I've ever tasted, or at least that's how it feels right now. The combination of warm cheese, sauce, and crispy crust is exactly what my alcohol-addled body needs. I make an embarrassing moan of pleasure that I immediately regret.

"That good, huh?" Blaise asks, a smirk playing on his lips as he takes his own slice.

I swallow before answering. "When you're drunk and haven't eaten since noon, cardboard would taste amazing. But this is definitely better than cardboard."

"Excellent." He sits cross-legged on the floor, his back against his bed, and gestures for me to join him.

I hesitate for only a second before sliding down to sit across from him. "So," I say after devouring half my slice, "tell me something else I don't know about you."