Chapter 4: The Announcement

MAYA

I did not tell Liam about the text that night.

Not because I was hiding it, but Because I wanted twenty four hours to think about what it meant before I handed it to someone else to think about, and that was a habit I had built so deep into myself that I did not even question it anymore. I processed first. I shared second. It had kept me functional through things that should have broken me and I was not about to change it because of a four word text from an unknown number.

I forwarded the screenshot to my own email, saved the number twice, and went to dinner with Priya.

She talked about her comparative literature seminar and a boy in her economics lecture who kept borrowing her pen and never returning it and whether that was a personality flaw or a flirting strategy. I ate my food and responded at the right moments and let her voice fill the space where my thoughts were running underneath, and by the time we walked back to the dorm I had a cleaner picture of the situation.

Someone had known about the meeting at Greystone fast enough to text me before I reached campus. That meant either they had been physically present at the coffee shop, or they had a source close enough to one of our families to get information in real time. Both options meant the threat was closer than a stranger. Both options meant the engagement needed to go public faster than we had planned, because a public announcement was harder to quietly dismantle than a private contract.

I texted Liam at ten that night. We need to move the announcement forward. Tomorrow if possible. My building steps, noon, east courtyard. I'll explain the reason when I see you.

He replied in two minutes. Confirmed. What changed.

I'll tell you tomorrow, I said.

A pause. Then: Are you safe tonight.

I looked at that question for a moment. Yes, I said. See you at noon.

He sent nothing else and neither did I and I put my phone face down and went to sleep.

In the morning I told Priya the part she needed to know.

We were at our usual table in the campus cafe, twenty minutes before her first lecture, and I set my coffee down and said, "I need you to be on the east steps of Harlow Hall at noon today. Just be there with me. Be yourself. React naturally to whatever you see."

She looked at me over her cup. "React naturally."

"Yes."

"To what specifically."

"To something that is going to look surprising."

She was quiet for exactly four seconds. "Is this about Liam Cross."

"It is related to the situation, yes."

"Maya." She set her cup down. "I am your best friend. I have been your best friend since orientation week when you lent me your umbrella and never asked for it back. I have kept every single thing you have ever told me in confidence. I need you to tell me something real right now, even if it is small, because I am starting to worry about you in a way that is keeping me up at night."

I looked at her across the table. Priya Anand, who had been the first person at Upton to treat me like a person rather than a last name. Who noticed when my coffee order changed and understood that the change meant something. Who had three times this week asked me if I was okay in the specific tone that meant she already knew the answer was complicated.

"Liam and I have an arrangement," I said carefully. "It is practical and contracted and it is going to be public starting today. I cannot tell you everything yet. But I need you at those steps and I need you to trust me."

She held my eyes for a long moment. Then she picked up her coffee. "I will be there at noon," she said. "And you are telling me everything the moment you are able to."

"Everything," I confirmed.

Liam arrived at the east steps at noon exactly. Dark jacket, no tie, that specific quality of unhurried certainty he carried into every space. I was already on the steps with Priya and I watched him cross the courtyard and felt the shift in Priya's posture beside me, a small involuntary adjustment, which told me that whatever constructed idea she had of Liam Cross, the reality of him crossing a courtyard toward her was doing something different.

"He is very," she started.

"Don't," I said.

"I was going to say focused."

"Sure you were."

He reached the steps and did the thing I had told him the previous night. He said hello to Priya first. Used her name. Gave her his full attention for thirty seconds before he turned to me, and it was the right move executed so naturally that it did not look like a move at all, and I noted that with a particular kind of attention I was not ready to name.

Then he looked at me and the shift in his expression was small and complete, a quiet warmth that landed with enough ease to make me work to remember it was constructed.

Then he reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

That was not in anything I had told him.

Light, brief, completely natural, and my processing stalled for two full seconds in a way I hoped did not show. I recovered. He said quietly, only for me, "Ready?" and I said yes and we walked down the steps together and he took my hand at the bottom and behind us Priya made a sound that was small and involuntary and deeply expressive.

We crossed the courtyard. I felt the campus notice in real time. The pause in conversations. The recalibration of attention. Two people who should not logically be together, together, in the middle of a Thursday afternoon in full view of everyone.

The Digest had three angles by evening.

The hand hold. The hair tuck, slightly blurred in one frame which made it look more intimate than a sharp photo would have. Two anonymous sources confirming we had been seen together multiple times that week, which was accurate enough to hold.

I silenced my phone and stared at my ceiling.

Priya came in without knocking, sat at the foot of my bed, and folded her arms. She had the expression she used when she had decided that waiting was more effective than asking.

"How long," she said.

"A few weeks," I said. The prepared version, clean and simple.

"He is a Cross."

"I'm aware."

"Your father."

"Is handling it."

She looked at me steadily. "You seem very calm for someone who should be either very happy or very afraid."

"I'm a calm person."

"Maya. I have watched you cry at a badly edited movie trailer. You are not a calm person." She tilted her head. "Something is wrong. Not with the relationship. With the situation around it."

I held very still. Priya was too perceptive for a half-truth to survive a direct look and she was giving me a very direct look.

"There are some complications," I said carefully. "Nothing I cannot handle. I promise you I am not in danger."

She looked at me for a long time. Then she moved up the bed and put her head on my shoulder and said nothing further because she understood that this was the version of me that needed presence more than questions.

We sat like that while outside the notifications kept rolling in and the internet constructed our love story from two people crossing a courtyard and one gesture that had not been in any plan.

I thought about the hair tuck.

I thought about the unknown number this morning. You should walk away.

I had not walked away. I had walked directly across a courtyard in front of the entire campus and held his hand and let it be photographed.

Whoever sent that message was watching the news the same as everyone else right now.

I wanted them to be watching. I wanted them to see that it had not worked. Because people who sent anonymous warnings and stayed hidden were people who needed the target to be frightened, and I was not frightened.

I was paying attention.

And I was very good at paying attention.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I reached over without disturbing Priya and looked at the screen.

Unknown number again. Same one as yesterday.

This time just two words.

Last warning.