8 - Trying to Forget

As they walked away, I stood there in the silence, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I looked down at my hands and saw that they were still trembling. I pushed my glasses up with a shaking finger and leaned against the cold metal of the locker, trying to ground myself.

I hated him. I truly did. I hated his money, his arrogance, and the way he could walk into a room and make everyone else feel invisible.

But as I watched him disappear through the door, I realized that the hatred wasn't enough to keep me away from him anymore. The friction between us was turning into a fire, and I didn't know if I wanted to put it out or let it burn me alive.

I gathered my things and walked out of the locker room, avoiding the eyes of the other students who were still milling about.

As I stepped into the cool evening air, I thought about the way Callum had looked at me in those final seconds before Sean arrived. It wasn't just smugness or cruelty; there had been a raw hunger in his eyes, a desperate need that mirrored my own hidden longing.

I walked toward the campus cafe, needing some caffeine and some normalcy before heading back to the dorm. As I entered, I spotted Alice and Bea in their usual booth in the far corner. Alice was sketching in her notebook, her brow furrowed in concentration, while Bea was halfway through a very large slice of chocolate cake and was currently explaining something with great passion using a fork as a pointer.

Bea Kim was an Engineering major and essentially a human whirlwind. She was shorter than Alice but made up for it with an energy level that was bordering on pathological.

Her hair was usually tied back in a messy knot with a pencil stuck through it, and she often had streaks of grease or solder on her forehead from her latest project in the lab. She was chaotic, loud, and completely unfiltered, making her the perfect foil to Alice's grounded nature.

"Leo !!" Bea shouted, waving her fork in the air and nearly hitting a passing waiter. "Over here! You look like you just saw a ghost or had a very disappointing sandwich!"

I managed a small smile as I slid into the booth beside Alice. "Hi guys."

Alice looked up from her sketch, her eyes immediately scanning my face. She had this way of reading me that was both comforting and terrifyingly accurate. She saw the flush in my cheeks and the way I was gripping my bag.

"What happened?" she asked softly. "Was it Callum? Did he do something?"

I sighed and leaned my head back against the vinyl seat. "He's just... he's Callum. He exists in my space and suddenly everything feels like it's on fire."

Bea let out a loud snort and took another massive bite of cake. "Just punch him in the throat, Leo. That's what I do when my lab partner tells me my circuit design is inefficient. Well, not punch him in the throat, but I did once accidentally leak a small amount of solder onto his shoe. He didn't talk for an hour after that. Pure bliss."

Alice gave Bea a warning look before turning back to me. "you can't just let him get under your skin like this. He wants that. He feeds on your reactions because it's the only way he knows how to connect with people without actually being vulnerable."

"I know," I whispered. "But it's not that simple."

"It is simple!" Bea chimed in, pointing her fork at me again. "he's hot in an obnoxious way and you're a cinnamon roll who likes poetry. It's a classic trope! Just lean into it and make him suffer through some emotional vulnerability. That's the real torture for guys like him. Imagine Callum Reid having to talk about his feelings for ten minutes without mentioning his bank account. He'd probably explode into a cloud of glitter and entitlement."

I couldn't help it; I laughed. The tension in my chest loosened slightly as I watched Bea get increasingly animated about her theory of Callum's psychological collapse.

For a few minutes, I forgot about the locker room and the way Callum's chest had felt against mine. I forgot about the blue pen and the distance sets and the weight of the past.

As we talked, Alice reached over and squeezed my hand under the table. It was a small gesture, but it grounded me.

She knew about my history with Callum, not all of it, but enough to know why he was a trigger for me. She was the only person who truly understood that my kindness wasn't a weakness or a personality trait; it was a shield I used to keep the world at a distance so no one could see how broken I actually was.

I stayed at the cafe until the sun began to set, soaking in the chaotic energy of Bea and the steady presence of Alice.

But as I eventually stood up to leave, the dread returned. The walk back to room 312 felt like a march toward a gallows.

When I entered the room, it was quiet. Callum was already there, sitting at his desk and sketching something in a notebook he quickly closed as soon as I walked in.

He didn't say anything at first, but I could tell he was aware of me.

He was chewing the inside of his cheek again, his blue eyes tracking me as I moved toward my bed.

"You smell like cheap coffee ," he said, his voice returning to that smooth, arrogant drawl. "Did your little fan club give you enough attention to get you through the day?"

I didn't respond. I just lay down and stared at the ceiling, listening to the sound of him opening his sketchbook again. The silence between us was no longer empty; it was full of secrets and unspoken promises and a hatred that felt far too much like passion.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a world where Callum Reid didn't exist, where my mother hadn't been fired and where I hadn't spent forty seven seconds in the void of death.

As I drifted toward sleep, all I could see was a pair of piercing blue eyes and the jagged scar on a chin that I'd spent my entire life trying to forget.