CHAPTER 7 -THE LIBRARY

Ezra told himself this was just the project. Nothing more.

He'd repeated it enough times on the bus ride over that it almost sounded true.

The library on Fifth Street was quiet the way it always was on Saturdays .... a few old men reading newspapers, a mother trying to keep her toddler from pulling books off the shelves. Ezra had been coming here since he was a kid. It felt strange, bringing Jace Ryland into it. Like letting something ugly into the one place that had never hurt him.

He picked the table furthest from the door and sat with his notebook open, half-convinced Jace wouldn't actually show. That would almost be a relief. He could do the whole project alone and never have to sit across from the boy who'd spent three years finding new ways to humiliate him.

At one o'clock exactly, the door chimed.

Jace walked in like he owned the place, hoodie, backpack, that same easy confidence that made people move out of his way without him even asking. A couple of girls at a nearby table looked up and whispered to each other. Jace didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he was just used to it.

He spotted Ezra and dropped into the seat across from him.

"You actually came," Ezra said.

"You say that like I had a choice."

"You always have a choice. You just usually choose to be an ass."

Jace's mouth twitched, somewhere between annoyed and amused. "Careful, Monroe."

"Why? Your friends aren't here to laugh."

Something shifted in Jace's face. He didn't answer that. He pulled out his laptop instead, and for a moment neither of them spoke.

Ezra kept waiting for it. The joke about his weight. The comment that would make the two guys near the magazine rack snicker. It was what always happened when Jace was around .... someone would say something, and someone else would laugh, and Ezra would sit there and take it because that was the only role he'd ever been given.

It didn't come.

They argued about the topic instead .... Jace wanted something he could finish in one afternoon, Ezra wanted something that would actually earn a decent grade .... until they landed on a compromise neither of them was thrilled about. It wasn't friendly. Ezra made sure of that. He kept his answers short, his tone flat, because the second he let his guard down was the second Jace would find something to mock.

But an hour in, Jace hadn't mocked anything.

He asked real questions. He pushed back on a point and then, astonishingly, admitted Ezra was right. At one point he said something dry about the school board that had nothing to do with Ezra's body or his name or his father's campaign, and Ezra laughed before he could stop himself.

He hated that he laughed.

He hated that his stomach did something warm and stupid when Jace glanced up, looking pleased with himself for causing it.

"What?" Ezra asked, too sharp.

"Nothing." Jace went back to typing. "You should laugh more."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Act like you care." Ezra's voice came out harder than he meant it to. "You don't get to be nice to me for one afternoon and pretend the last three years didn't happen."

Jace's jaw tightened. For a second Ezra thought he'd finally pushed hard enough to get the old Jace back, the one with the smirk and the easy insult. Instead Jace just looked at him, something unreadable behind his eyes, and said nothing at all.

They kept working until the librarian dimmed the lights.

Packing up took longer than it needed to. Neither of them rushed it.

Outside, the cold bit through Ezra's jacket. Jace walked beside him toward the parking lot, close enough that Ezra was hyper aware of every inch of space between their shoulders.

Two girls from school were coming up the library steps as they left .... Brianna and her friend, the kind of girls who floated easily between every social group. Brianna's face lit up the second she saw Jace.

"Jace! Oh my god, hi." She practically skipped over, ignoring Ezra completely. "What are you doing here?"

"Project," Jace said.

"With Monroe?" Her eyes flicked to Ezra, then back to Jace, like Ezra was a piece of furniture that happened to be standing there. "That's rough. You want to come hang out at Mia's after? Everyone's there."

Ezra's stomach twisted.

He knew this feeling. He'd felt it a hundred times watching Jace at school .... girls leaning into him, laughing too loud at things that weren't funny, touching his arm like they had some claim to it. It always made something ugly rise up in Ezra's chest, something he had no right to feel and couldn't stop feeling anyway.

Jace glanced at Ezra. Just for a second.

"Can't," he said. "Still got work to finish."

Brianna pouted, said something about texting him later, and pulled her friend off toward their car. Ezra kept his eyes forward, jaw tight, furious at himself for the relief flooding through him.

It wasn't his business who Jace hung out with.

It had never been his business.

"You okay?" Jace asked once they were alone again.

"Fine."

"You look like you want to hit something."

"I'm fine, Ryland."

Jace studied him a moment too long, like he could see straight through the lie, but he let it go. They reached the split in the lot .... his car one way, Ezra's bus stop the other.

"Same time next week?" Jace asked.

"Sure."

Jace nodded and turned toward his car. Ezra watched him go longer than he should have, hating the useless ache in his chest, hating that some small, stupid part of him had liked watching Jace turn Brianna down.

*It doesn't mean anything,* he told himself. *He probably just didn't want to be seen with you at a party.*

He didn't notice the phone lifted near the steps behind him. Didn't notice the flash.

By the time his bus pulled up, he'd already forgotten to check.

At home, Ezra lay across his bed replaying the afternoon in a way that embarrassed him .... the compromise over the topic, the laugh he hadn't meant to let out, the flicker of something in Jace's face when Ezra called him out.

*You should laugh more.*

He was still turning the words over when his phone buzzed.

He reached for it without looking, expecting Sophie.

**Unknown: You looked happy today. Until that girl showed up.**

Ezra sat straight up.

He read it twice. Three times.

**Ezra: Who is this?**

**Unknown: Someone who was at the library.**

**Ezra: How do you know what I looked like?**

**Unknown: I told you. I was there.**

His pulse climbed. He thought about the steps, the crowd of students always drifting in and out on a Saturday. Anyone could have seen them. Anyone could have seen his face when Brianna touched Jace's sleeve.

**Ezra: What do you want?**

**Unknown: Nothing. I just noticed the way you looked at him when that girl came over.**

Ezra's face went hot, then cold.

**Ezra: I don't know what you're talking about.**

**Unknown: You do. It's okay. I'm not going to say anything.**

**Ezra: Say anything about WHAT.**

The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

**Unknown: That you're jealous. That you like him. That you've probably liked him a long time, and it's killing you that everyone else gets to stand close to him and you don't.**

Ezra's hands weren't steady anymore.

He should have blocked the number right there. Instead he sat frozen, staring at words that had somehow reached inside him and said the one thing he'd never said out loud to anyone.

**Ezra: You don't know anything about me.**

**Unknown: I know he's cruel to you at school and you still can't stop watching him. I know that's not something you choose. I'm not judging you for it.**

**Unknown: Don't let him break your heart, Ezra. He will if you let him.**

Ezra stared at his name in the message. He hadn't given it.

His stomach dropped straight through the floor.

**Ezra: How do you know my name?**

No reply.

**Ezra: Answer me.**

The dots appeared one last time.

**Unknown: Goodnight, Ezra. Sleep well.**

Then nothing.

He sat there a long time, phone glowing in the dark, the silence in his room suddenly too loud. Across the street, Jace's bedroom light was still on.

Ezra didn't get up to check.

He told himself it didn't matter who was watching.

He told himself a lot of things that night that weren't true.