Chapter Eleven— He Knows Too Much

Amelia was making tea in her oversized hoodie when Ellis walked into the dorm kitchen and leaned against the counter with a quiet smirk.

“That’s my brother’s sweatshirt,” she said.

Amelia froze, teabag halfway to the cup. “What?”

“That hoodie. It used to be his… until I stole it. And then I gave it to you, because you were freezing one night while you were out at this party, Micah saw you shivering and I had already been drinking and couldn’t feel a thing, so I gave him the hoodie and he threw the hoodie around you.”

Amelia stared down at the fabric, her fingers instinctively gripping the sleeves tighter. The hoodie suddenly felt heavier, warmer, as if it carried someone else’s heat in the lining.

“Oh.” Her voice was too quiet, too careful.

Ellis didn’t break eye contact. “You didn’t know?”

She shook her head. “No, I—” But the truth tangled in her throat. No, she hadn’t known. Not exactly. Not officially. But something in her had always suspected the hoodie wasn’t just a random hand-me-down. The way it hung differently on her shoulders. The faint smell it had when she first got it—like cedar and sage. She’d washed it, of course, but some scents cling deeper than fabric.

She set the kettle down before it whined, but her hands lingered on the handle. “Why would you give me something of his?”

Ellis shrugged in that way she did when she didn’t put too much thought into things—shoulders lifting, but chin staying still. “Maybe I didn’t think it mattered, I didn’t know you at the time and you were cold.”

Amelia sinking into herself, with her thoughts.

Micah would mention things she never told him.

Like how she liked thunderstorms because they made her feel safe. Or how she once wrote a poem about a moth in a window and tore it up before anyone could read it.

“How did you—” she had asked once, laughing nervously, because it was easier to pretend it was funny.

“You mentioned it,” he lied smoothly.

But she hadn’t.

Amelia stirred the tea slowly, the spoon clinking against porcelain.

She could still picture that conversation—his voice steady, no hesitation, the way his eyes didn’t steer away. It wasn’t a lie he made up in the moment. It was one he’d already decided on before she asked.

And then it stopped feeling harmless.

She found food recipes in her cubby — her all time favorite dish. She’d never told anyone that.

Once, she caught him sketching in his notebook. When he turned it away too quickly, she still saw the corner of the page. Her eyes, drawn in pencil, shaded so carefully it was almost tender.

She started avoiding him. She started checking her locks twice before bed,she took the long way to class.

Still, some nights, she’d lie awake thinking about the way he’d once held her journal—not flipping through it, not mocking her, just holding it like something fragile. The way he knew her favorite coffee, the brand she didn’t even buy often because it felt like a splurge. The way he looked at her like she wasn’t background noise, like she was the only thing in focus.

She hated it.

Consumed with thoughts, Amelia dropped the Porcelain cup, breaking it.

Ellis yelling out dude are you okay bro?

Amelia reassuring Ellis that she’s fine and that she will just grab another cup and remake the tea “no big deal”

Ellis plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it. “You’ve been quiet lately.”

“I’m just… tired.”

“Mm.” Ellis’s tone was noncommittal, but her eyes glanced toward the hoodie again. “You know, he wore that all the time in high school. I remember him falling asleep on the couch in it, notebook on his chest. Sometimes I think he liked it better than his friends.”

Amelia forced a smile. “I doubt that.”

“I don’t.” Ellis’s voice was softer now, almost warning. “Micah gets attached to things. He doesn’t let go easily.”

The kettle began to hiss again, and Amelia reached to pour the water, grateful for the excuse to look away. The steam curled upward, dampening her cheeks.

“Is that supposed to mean something?” she asked.

“Yeah if he sees you in that hoodie he might ask you for it back, that’s one of his fave hoodies,” Ellis said, taking another bite. “So you should probably know—he notices everything.”

Amelia gripped the counter edge, the ceramic cup hot against her palm. She could feel the memory creeping in—the time she’d opened her dorm mailbox to find a folded scrap of paper with a single line from a poem she loved but had never posted or quoted anywhere.

It was the moth poem.

She’d torn it up the night she wrote it, but somehow, he had read it.

The tea steeped too long, going bitter, but she didn’t move to take the bag out.

The words settled heavily in the air between them.

When Micah called Ellis to see if she still had those notes for physics class, Ellis answered the phone letting him know Amelia was there and that they were currently going over the notes together.

Micah said okay and gradually hung up.

He kept thinking to himself how things with his feelings became so deep.

It started harmless enough — or at least, that’s what he told himself on nights when he couldn’t sleep and the guilt clawed just enough to keep him awake.

A sentence here. A sketch there.

A private document on in his mind labeled Observations.

It wasn’t meant to be creepy.

Not really.

It was just… fascination.

Every time she wore her hair down, he noticed she touched the ends three times per hour. Not two. Not four. Three, like clockwork, as if she were checking to make sure it was still there.

When she was sad, she chewed on the inside of her cheek. She did that a lot lately, and every time she did, he caught himself biting his own tongue without realizing it — mirroring her unconsciously.

She preferred the left side of the classroom because the sun didn’t hit her eyes from that angle. He knew because he’d once seen her squint on the right side, and the look of discomfort had stayed with him all day.

She hated overhead lights. Always used lamps at her apartment — warm pools of golden light instead of harsh fluorescents.

He only knew that last part because he’d once passed her window on the walk home.

Just once.

Maybe twice.

Three times, if he was being honest.

It didn’t matter. He never stared long.

Not long enough to make it… wrong.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

He just wanted to remember her exactly as she was.

The moment it began to unravel was small.

A comment.

Offhand. Casual.

Amelia was shelving books in the campus library, her oversized sweatshirt swallowing her frame, when Micah walked past. He didn’t stop, didn’t even glance directly at her. His voice was so quiet she almost thought she imagined it.

“You always smell like vanilla and rain,” he murmured.

She blinked, looking over her shoulder. “What?”

He froze mid-step. His shoulders stiffened, and for a second, there was a moment of something raw in his eyes — horror disguised under a mask of indifference.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I said the spine’s broken on that copy.”

He pointed vaguely to the row of books beside her. The one his finger landed on was perfectly intact.

She didn’t press him. Didn’t call him out.

But the words lodged themselves in her mind and stayed there like a splinter she couldn’t dig out.

You always smell like vanilla and rain.

The rest of the day felt… off.

She wasn’t wearing perfume. She never wore perfume.

The only thing that could be mistaken for a “rain” scent was her shampoo — a brand she’d been using since she was twelve because it reminded her of summer storms on her grandmother’s porch.

It wasn’t something she ever mentioned.

Not to friends. Not to Colton. Certainly not to Micah.

And yet, somehow, he knew.

That night, lying in bed, she found herself replaying the moment over and over again.

The way he’d said it, low enough that she had to wonder if he even meant for her to hear.

The way he looked right after — like he’d accidentally torn open a secret he’d been guarding for too long.

A strange unease curled in her stomach, mixing with something she refused to name.

Because beneath the questions — How does he know that? and Why was he even close enough to notice? — there was another thought she couldn’t push away.

One that made her cheeks warm in the dark.

How many other things does he know?