Chapter six — “The Comment That Hung in the Air”

It was a Friday evening, and the group had gathered in the student lounge — a familiar mix of cheap takeout, background music, and the comfortable chaos of conversation.

Ellis was sprawled across the couch, laughing too loudly at something Trey said. Callum was trying to explain a game on his phone. Amelia sat next to Colton, leaning slightly into him, her fingers tracing lazy circles on the rim of her soda can.

Micah sat across from them, sketchbook in his lap, half-listening, half-silent — as usual.

He wasn’t the kind of person who spoke just to fill silence, but tonight, something in him felt unsettled.

Maybe it was how easy Colton made everything look.

Maybe it was how Amelia laughed — his Amelia, even if she wasn’t his — at something Colton whispered in her ear.

Micah’s pencil stopped moving.

“Bro,” Trey said, tossing a chip at him. “You zone out more than anyone I’ve ever met. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Micah looked up, smirked faintly. “Just observing.”

“Observing what?” Ellis teased.

Micah’s eyes changed from Colton to Amelia, then back again. “How some people just… have it all.”

The group fell quiet.

Colton shifted slightly, his arm tightening around Amelia’s shoulders. “What do you mean?” he asked with a half-laugh.

Micah shrugged, pretending the words meant nothing. “You, man. You always land on your feet. Star athlete, perfect grades, everyone cheering you on. Teachers love you. Girls love you. Even the universe seems to bend in your favor.”

It was said lightly, but the tone beneath was sharper than anyone expected.

Ellis blinked, unsure whether to laugh. “Damn, Micah, that sounded like a compliment and an insult had a baby.”

Micah smiled — a slow, almost unreadable curve of his lips. “No insult. Just admiration.”

But his gaze lingered too long on Amelia when he said it.

Her stomach tightened.

Colton chuckled under his breath, trying to smooth the air. “Guess I’m lucky, huh?”

“Yeah,” Micah said softly. “Lucky.”

The room fell silent again. Even Trey, usually oblivious, glanced between the two of them, sensing a tension he didn’t quite understand.

Amelia looked down at her drink, pretending to be distracted by the condensation dripping down the side. She could feel Micah’s words crawl under her skin, not because of what he said — but because of how he said it.

There was something under the surface. Something raw.

Ellis finally broke the silence. “Okayyy, that got awkward fast. Who wants to order pizza before we all start trauma dumping?”

Everyone laughed — except Micah.

He looked down at his sketchbook again, pretending to draw, though his mind was somewhere else entirely.

He could feel Colton’s discomfort.

He could feel Amelia’s eyes flick toward him for just a second before she looked away.

And for a moment, he hated himself for letting that bitterness slip.

Later that night, when the group split up, Amelia couldn’t shake the sound of Micah’s voice.

You always get the beautiful girls.

He said it to Colton, but it felt aimed at her.

She wanted to tell herself it meant nothing — just a passing comment — but her body remembered the way he’d looked at her as he said it. Not jealous. Not angry.

Something else.

Something that scared her a little.

Colton walked her home after, quiet for most of the way. Finally, he said, “You think Micah’s okay?”

Amelia hesitated. “Why?”

Colton shrugged. “I don’t know. That comment back there was… weird. Didn’t sound like him.”

She forced a small smile. “Maybe he’s just tired.”

“Maybe.” Colton squeezed her hand. “Still, I’m not sure I like the way he looks at you sometimes.”

Amelia froze for half a second. “Looks at me?”

“Yeah,” Colton said, not accusingly — just observing. “Like he’s studying you. Not in a creepy way. Just… intense.”

She laughed lightly, masking the sudden rush in her chest. “You’re imagining things.”

He smiled and dropped it.

But when she got home that night, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, Amelia couldn’t stop thinking about how Micah said it.

Not you’re lucky to have her.

But you always get the beautiful girls.

And in her bones, she knew it wasn’t luck he was talking about.

It was want.

Micah couldn’t sleep that night.

He sat in his room with the lights off, only the glow of his laptop illuminating the mess of papers and half-done sketches on his desk. His headphones hummed low instrumentals, the kind without words — because words only made his thoughts louder.

He shouldn’t have said it.

That comment at the table.

That stupid, bitter slip about how Colton “gets everything.”

The words had come out before he could stop them — and the silence that followed was worse than any scolding could’ve been. Everyone’s eyes had flicked between him and Colton like they weren’t sure if he was joking. And Colton, as always, brushed it off with that easy grin — the kind of smile that could smooth out any tension. For Amelia’s sake.

Micah saw her glance down at her plate, her brows knitting just slightly — that quiet discomfort she always tried to hide when things got awkward. He’d noticed it because he noticed everything about her.

That was his curse.

He leaned back in his chair now, running a hand through his hair, replaying the evening like a punishment. Every laugh. Every look. Every word that came out wrong.

Amelia hadn’t even done anything. She was just… being her.

The way she laughed softly at something Colton said. The way she listened — really listened — when anyone spoke. The way her hair caught the light like it had a heartbeat.

He’d been admiring her for so long, quietly, harmlessly, like she was a poem only he could read between the lines of.

But lately, admiration felt too small.

He opened his sketchbook again, flipping past pages of old drawings — trees, faces, random scribbles — until he landed on the one he’d done weeks ago.

Amelia, sitting under the bleachers. Her head tilted, eyes distant, lost in thought.

He hadn’t meant for it to look so much like her. But it did. Too much.

He picked up his pencil, tracing the outline of her jaw. His hand trembled slightly.

He told himself it was nothing. That he just liked the way she carried herself. That it was an artist’s instinct — the way he studied light and form and movement.

But that was a lie.

He wanted her.

Wanted her in ways he couldn’t even articulate.

He wanted to protect her, to make her laugh, to feel her eyes linger on him for once — even for a second. He wanted her to see that he wasn’t just the quiet one in the background, that he noticed things about her that no one else did.

He broke the pencil tip pressing too hard, the sound sharp in the stillness.

“Of course,” he muttered, tossing it aside.

The crack across the page — right through her drawn shoulder — made him stare. The line looked like a wound. Like something he’d done to her.

Maybe he should stop drawing her. Stop thinking about her.

But then he imagined what it would feel like if he did — if he just erased her completely.

The idea felt unbearable.

He rubbed his face, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

He didn’t understand what it was about her. He’d dated before. He’d tried. But every time, it ended the same way — a fight, a cold silence, a girl accusing him of being somewhere else even when he was standing right in front of her.

They weren’t wrong.

He was somewhere else.

He was here.

In this dark room, thinking about her laugh, her eyes, her warmth.

The next morning, he saw her across the campus courtyard — sunlight pooling over her like it belonged to her. She held a coffee, talking to Colton about something that made her laugh.

It should’ve been a normal sight. Just two people together.

But Micah felt something twist in his chest — that same quiet ache that no amount of logic could shake.

He turned away before she noticed him, forcing himself to keep walking.

He told himself it didn’t matter.

That she wasn’t his to think about.

That she was just another girl.

But when he caught his reflection in a window, he saw it in his own eyes — the truth he couldn’t hide anymore.

He wasn’t jealous of Colton’s charm.

He was jealous of his permission.

A few days passed.

No one mentioned it — not the dinner, not the comment, not that flicker of silence that had rippled through the room after Micah spoke.

It was like it had dissolved into the air that night and drifted away.

Micah made sure of that.

He carried himself the same as always — a steady, quiet calm that smoothed over any suspicion. He joined study sessions, hung out in the quad, offered small smiles in passing. His voice never wavered, his tone never hinted at anything strange.

And because of that, everyone believed him.

They believed there had never been tension.

Never a moment when the air had gone still after his words about Colton — the one where admiration had sounded just close enough to envy.

Everyone except Amelia.

She felt it still, a hum beneath the surface whenever he was near.

He didn’t look at her the way he once did — open, intent — but now and then, she caught it. A glance too long. A pause too heavy. The ghost of something he wasn’t saying.

They sat in a café one afternoon, the group scattered around a table littered with cups and notes. Amelia pulled out a book.

Micah’s voice came soft, casual.

“You’ve been reading again,” he said. “That’s good. Feels like you when you’re doing that.”

She smiled faintly. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

Across from them, Colton was lost in a game highlight. Ellis was laughing about something else.

No one noticed the quiet pulse of tension between Amelia and Micah.

No one but them.

And that was enough for Micah.

Later, when the café emptied and the laughter faded into the street, Micah stayed behind for a while.

He sat at their empty table, staring at the ring of condensation his cup had left.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

He hadn’t forgotten that night — the comment, the awkward silence that followed. He’d seen the way Amelia’s eyes flickered, searching for meaning she didn’t want to find.

But he’d buried it effortlessly, the same way he buried everything he didn’t want exposed.

He’d smiled.

He’d joked.

He’d made them all feel like they’d imagined it.

It was control — quiet, invisible control.

Because the moment everyone stopped questioning him, he became harmless again. And the moment he became harmless, he could get closer without anyone noticing.

He traced the edge of his empty cup with a finger, his thoughts wandering back to Amelia.

The way she brushed her hair behind her ear when she read.

The way her voice softened when she said something she didn’t mean.

The way she smiled at Colton, not because she was happy, but because she wanted to be.

He could see through all of it.

He always had.

Micah leaned back in his chair, a faint smirk touching his lips — the same one that made people think he was thinking about nothing at all.

But behind his calm expression, the thought lingered like a confession he’d never speak aloud:

“I never take back what I say. I just learn how to make people forget I meant it.”

And for the first time in days, he let himself remember Amelia’s face from that night — startled, uncertain, curious.

He didn’t regret the comment.

He regretted stopping there.