Chapter 2

Kayla pov

"Do you still want to speak with him? Maybe tell him it's you?" Priya suggested.

I nodded, still holding the cake, tears already gathering in my eyes, my heart shattering into pieces. I couldn't fight them this time. I let them fall freely.

Priya turned to look at me, saw the tears, and wiped them away hurriedly with the back of her hand.

"Come on, girl. How did you expect him to recognize you immediately? You guys were eight years old the last time you saw each other."

"Eight-year-olds don't forget people who mattered," I said, my voice cracking. "I didn't."

"You also didn't have a growth spurt, a completely different face, and ten years standing between you," she said gently. "Give the boy a break. Or better yet, give yourself one."

I wiped my face with my sleeve, feeling stupid for crying over a boy who probably didn't remember my name, let alone my face. The cake sat heavy in my arms, suddenly ridiculous, a decade of hope baked into chocolate and buttercream, and he hadn't even blinked.

"Maybe this was a mistake," I said.

"The cake, or the whole plan?"

"Both. Either. I don't know."

Priya sighed and looped her arm through mine, steering me toward the entrance before I could plant my feet and refuse to move. "It's not a mistake. It's day one. You've got a whole semester to make him remember."

"That's optimistic of you."

"I'm always optimistic. It's why you keep me around."

I let her pull me forward, past the wrought-iron gate, past the whispers still trailing in Cole's wake, past the Lamborghini gleaming smugly in the morning sun like it hadn't just witnessed the worst moment of my life.

The cake was getting heavier by the second. I didn't know yet that I'd be carrying it for the rest of the day.

As I got to my locker, the corridor buzzed with the chaos of everyone packing up for first period, lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking against the polished floor, the low roar of a hundred conversations happening at once. Priya was crouched beside her own locker, muttering about a missing textbook, when I saw him.

Cole.

He walked into the corridor like he owned the air in it, heading toward his locker without so much as glancing at the crowd parting for him. My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

This was my chance. My *actual* chance, no crowd of strangers, no roaring engine, just him and me and a cake that was starting to feel like the heaviest thing I'd ever carried.

"Kayla, wait…." Priya started, but I was already moving.

I caught up to him just as he reached his locker, my hands trembling slightly around the box.

"Cole," I said, and his name in my mouth after ten years felt like something sacred and stupid all at once. "It's me. Kayla. From Paris, the summer, the rink, you probably don't…."

He looked at me. Really looked, this time, unlike the parking lot. His eyes moved over my face like he was reading something written in a language he didn't recognize.

I kept talking, faster now, the words tumbling out clumsy and pleading. I told him about the ice, about him falling more than he skated, about the promise I never got to keep. I held the cake out a little further, like it might do the explaining my mouth couldn't manage.

He didn't say anything.

He just watched me, silent, unreadable, arms crossed,for the entire, excruciating length of my explanation, like he was waiting for me to finish so he could get back to his day.

Then he turned. Opened his locker. Pulled out a textbook.

And walked away without a single word.

The corridor had gone quiet enough that I could hear my own heartbeat, and I realized, distantly, that people were staring. A lot of people. Someone snickered. Someone else whispered something I didn't catch and didn't want to.

I couldn't move. My feet felt bolted to the floor, the cake box shaking slightly in my hands, my face burning hot enough that I was sure everyone could see exactly how humiliated I was.

Priya reached me in three strides, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, already glaring at anyone who dared to keep staring.

"Okay, we're leaving," she muttered, steering me around. "Chin up. Don't give them the….."

We collided with someone.

I stumbled, the cake tilting dangerously in my hands before a pair of hands shot out to steady it, and me.

"Whoa. Easy." 

I looked up. Where Cole's face had been all sharp edges and cold distance, this one was open, amused, warm in a way that caught me off guard. Dark hair, easy smile, the kind of face that looked like it laughed often.

"Sorry," I mumbled, still reeling, still humiliated, still holding a cake that suddenly felt like evidence of the worst five minutes of my life.

His eyes dropped to the box in my hands, then back up to my face, one eyebrow raised. "Is the cake for me?"

I blinked. Beside me, Priya made a small, startled sound.

I should have said no. I should have explained, again, the whole stupid situation, watching another boy's face do nothing while I made a fool of myself for the second time before homeroom.

Instead, something in me,humiliated, exhausted, and a little bit reckless, decided I was done explaining myself to Sterlings today.

I smiled instead, small but real, and nodded.

"Yes," I said.

At the exact same moment, Priya answered too.

"Yes."

We looked at each other. He laughed, a real laugh, easy and unbothered, like he had all the time in the world and nowhere better to be.

"Well," he said, taking the box gently from my hands like it had been his all along, "I'm Rhys. And I have to say, this might be the best first impression anyone's made on me all year."

Behind him, down the hall, I caught one last glimpse of Cole disappearing around the corner, not once looking back.

I swallowed hard and turned my attention to the boy in front of me instead, the one who was, at least, actually looking at me.