Chapter 6

"You're cheating,"

"I'm not cheating. There's no way to cheat at this."

"You looked at the answer side."

"I didn't look at anything." Heath turned the card over and held it up so I could see both sides at once.

"Ask me again."

"That's not—" I pressed my lips together. "That defeats the whole purpose."

"Ask me again, Kattie."

I looked at him. He looked back. Three months and I still hadn't figured out how to win a staring contest with Heath Moore, which was irritating given that I won most things I competed.

"Marginal cost," I said. "Define it. Without looking."

He set the card face-down on the carpet and crossed his arms. "The additional cost incurred from producing one more unit of a good or service."

I checked the card. He was right.

"You did look"

"I did not look."

"Then how—"

"Because you've tested me on that card four times since October. We need a break" He reached over and took it from my hand, dropped it onto the finished pile.

We were on the floor of my bedroom — a Saturday afternoon in late winter, the radiator doing its best against the cold that had settled into our part of Croydon. My mum was downstairs. Heath had said hello to her in the hallway with so warmly she'd visibly relaxed, which I had noted. She kept offering him things — tea, biscuits, a second helping of whatever she'd cooked — and he accepted each one quietly, without making anything of it.

He was good at that. Making people feel seen without making a production of it.

That's what got you, I thought. That's the thing that got you.

"Fine. Twenty minutes."

~*~

The high street was drowning in that aggressive orange of old streetlamps, the kind of light that makes everything look like a vintage photograph. November had settled in early, turning the air into a physical weight. I was buried in his coat—a heavy thing that smelled of cedar, a scent I’d once complained about only for him to double down and buy the exact same brand. He knew my complaints were often just a way to fill the silence.

"You’re going to get the full scholarship," he said, his voice leveled.

"Don’t say that"

"It isn’t a wish, Kattie. I’m just stating a fact."

"You’re speculating."

"I’m looking at the data," he countered, glancing at me. "I know your mock scores. I know you’ve been prepping since before the sun comes up. I know how your brain works."

I kept my eyes fixed on the pavement, counting the cracks. "You don’t know how my brain works."

"You think in sequences," he said, as if he were reading a manual. "You won't touch step B until step A is solved and filed away. You eat the same lunch four days a week to save the mental energy of a decision. You spent twenty minutes alphabetizing those cards before you’d even let me deal. I know exactly how your brain works."

I had no rebuttal for accuracy. I stayed silent as we passed the corner shop. He vanished inside for forty-five seconds—I timed it—and returned with two Freddo bars. He pressed one into my hand.

"I can buy my own chocolate," I said, though my fingers were already curling around the wrapper.

"I know."

We ended up on Thornton Road, drifting toward the park by some unspoken gravity. The bench was a slab of ice against my legs, but he sat close enough that the cedar-scented warmth of the coat stayed trapped between us.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked.

"Depends."

"What’s the first thing you do when you’re afraid?"

I didn't have to think about it. "I make a list of every possible outcome, from the catastrophic to the ideal. Then I look at the probability of each one. Then the fear gets smaller. It becomes a simple math problem."

He went quiet. The silence stretched until it felt like a third person sitting on the bench.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. I’m just—" He broke off, shaking his head. "I think that’s the saddest and most impressive thing I’ve ever heard."

"It’s practical. Not sad."

"It means you’ve been managing your own terror since you were, what, ten?"

"Eight," I corrected.

He looked at me then. It wasn't pity—if he’d pitied me, I would have been halfway down the street already. It was a look of recognition, like he was finally seeing me.

"What are you afraid of right now?"

The chocolate went still in my hands. "I'm not afraid of anything right now."

"Katherine."

"Heath."

"You’ve been doing the thing all evening," he said, turning fully toward me. "The thing where you are guarding yourself."

I looked out at the dark field. A dog was a blurry shadow in the distance, chasing something only it could see.

"I’m not calculating," I lied.

"Then what are you doing?"

I was looking for the flaw. I had been looking for it all month—the inevitable moment where his patience would wear thin or his kindness would disappear. But there was nothing. Just three months of him knowing me, and three months of me being safe.

"I'm waiting for you to disappoint me," I said. "You keep not doing it."

He didn't flinch. "I’m not going to."

~*~

We went back at half past six. My mum's coat and bag were gone from the hook in the hall — she'd texted earlier about dinner at my aunt's, it had slipped through my mind. The house was quiet and dark except for the kitchen light I'd left on.

I left him at the doorstill, and went to put the kettle on. He leaned against the doorframe and watched me move around the kitchen with his coat still on me.

"You should take your coat back," i said, handing the coat I had just taken off to him.

"You should keep it."

I turned. His dark eyes like a whirlwind starting to rise. He was looking at me the way he sometimes did when he thought I wasn't noticing — when he wanted something more.

"Stop," I said.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're doing the thing with your face."

"What thing."

"You know what thing."

He crossed the kitchen. Not fast — he never moved fast when it mattered — and stopped in front of me.

"Tell me to go home," he said quietly.

I looked up at him.

My hands, still holding his coat together at the front, did not move.

"Tell me to go home," he said again. Softer.

I didn't say it.

He tilted his head, his forehead against mine, waiting — giving me the out, letting me be the one to decide. That was the thing. That was the specific thing that undid three months of arithmetic calculated distance and sensible thinking.

He always let me decide.

"Don't go home," I said.

He closed his eyes for exactly one second.

Then his hand came up and cupped the side of my face, and I stopped thinking in sequences.

~*~

Later, the house was still quiet. Mum hadn't gotten back yet.

I lay on my back looking at the ceiling. To my left I could hear the crack of the radiator, and near me…his breath was slow and shallow. We finally did it. I ran through no lists. There were no outcomes to calculate. There was just the ceiling, him and I, and it felt complete.

This is what it’s like, I thought as I laid there slightly  toughing his fingers. To be certain of someone.

I turned my head.

He was already asleep. One arm loose across the pillow beside him, face turned slightly toward me.

I watched him for a long time.

I fell asleep thinking I had finally stopped waiting for him to disappoint me.

He was still there when I did.

He wasn't there in the morning.