Chapter 5: Yes dad- Ethan pov

He was still awake at one in the morning.

Not unusual. Ethan had never been a good sleeper. His brain did not know how to stop. It just kept running through things …Conversations, Moments, Things he should have said, Things he should not have said…like it was afraid of what would happen if it went quiet.

Tonight it was running through one thing.

The way she had said, keep it this month.

No. That was Maya's father. He had no idea why he knew that. He had no idea why he was lying in the dark thinking about a girl he had known for four days and the way she moved through the world like she was carrying something heavy that she had decided a long time ago nobody else was allowed to touch.

He stared at the ceiling.

Jake was breathing slowly on the other side of the room. The even careful breathing of someone pretending to be asleep. Ethan had shared a room with Jake for three years. He knew the difference.

"I know you are awake," Ethan said.

A pause.

"I was almost asleep," Jake said.

"You were not."

"I was close."

"Jake."

"What."

"Nothing." Ethan put his arm over his eyes. "Go to sleep."

"You go to sleep."

"I am trying."

"You are staring at the ceiling. That is not trying. That is marinating."

"I am not marinating."

"You have been lying there for an hour thinking about her."

"I have been lying here for an hour thinking about nothing."

"Same thing."

Ethan said nothing. Outside the window the campus had finally gone quiet. That particular two in the morning quiet that felt different from all other quiets. Emptier. More honest.

"My dad called today," Ethan said.

Jake was quiet for a moment. "What did he say?"

"The usual. Internship applications open in January. He knows someone at a firm in the city. He has already spoken to them. They are expecting my name."

"What did you say?"

"Yes."

"To which part."

"All of it."

Jake was quiet again. The careful kind of quiet that meant he was thinking about how to say something.

"Do you want to work at a firm?" Jake asked.

"I want to go to sleep."

"Ethan."

"Jake."

"Just answer the question."

Ethan moved his arm off his eyes and stared at the ceiling. The same ceiling he had stared at for three years. He knew every crack in it. He had memorised it the way you memorise something to avoid looking at other things.

"I do not know," he said.

"That is not a no."

"It is not a yes either."

"What would you do? If nobody had a plan. If your dad had never said anything about the firm or the degree or any of it. What would you actually do."

Ethan opened his mouth.

He had an answer ready. He always had an answer ready. He was good at answers. He was good at filling silences with something that sounded like an answer even when it was not one.

This time nothing came out.

He closed his mouth.

Jake did not push. That was the thing about Jake… he knew when to push and when to let something sit. He let this one sit.

The silence stretched out between them. Not uncomfortable. Just honest.

Ethan thought about his father's voice on the phone. The way he had talked for eleven minutes without once asking how Ethan was doing. Not because he did not care. Because it had not occurred to him that Ethan might be something other than fine. His son was at a good university on his way to a good career. What was there to ask?

He thought about saying yes three times. How easy it was. How the word just came out smooth and automatic like a machine that had been running so long it did not need anyone operating it anymore.

He thought about Maya sitting on the corridor floor reading a textbook nobody had assigned her yet.

He almost smiled.

"She reads ahead," he said.

Jake made a sound. Not a word. Just a sound that meant he was listening.

"For fun. She reads the textbook before it is assigned because she wants to understand it before anyone tells her she has to." Ethan paused. "Nobody told her to do that. Nobody has a plan for what she reads. She just decided she wanted to know and so she found out."

The room was quiet.

"Must be nice," Ethan said. Quietly. More to the ceiling than to Jake.

Jake did not say anything for a long moment.

Then: "It does not have to only be nice for her."

"My dad would disagree."

"Your dad is not here."

"He is always here Jake. That is the problem."

Jake was quiet again. Ethan could feel him thinking. Could feel him choosing his next words carefully the way Jake did when something actually mattered.

"What would you study?" Jake said. "If it was just you choosing."

Ethan thought about it. He let himself think about it properly for the first time in longer than he could remember. Not the answer his father would want. Not the answer that made sense on paper. The actual answer.

"I don't know," he said. "Something that felt like mine."

"That is a start," Jake said.

"It is not a degree."

"Not yet."

Ethan said nothing. He put his arm back over his eyes. The ceiling could wait. His father's plan could wait. The internship and the firm and the eleven minute phone calls could all wait.

He thought about Maya's notebook. The way she dated the top of every page before class started. The way she had a system for everything because she had decided what mattered to her and built her whole life around protecting it.

He wondered what it felt like to know what mattered to you.

He wondered if she knew he had been thinking about her for four days straight.

He wondered if she had been thinking about him.

Jake had said yes. Last night in the dark Jake had said yeah I think she does.

He held onto that.

His phone lit up on the nightstand. A notification. He turned it over without looking.

Then he turned it back.

A text from an unknown number.

This is Maya. Bisi gave me your number. I wanted to say… the coffee was good. Do not do it again.

Ethan stared at the screen.

Then he read it again.

Then he put the phone face down on his chest and stared at the ceiling and felt something so wide and warm move through him that he did not have a word for it yet.

Jake's voice came from across the room. Dry as a bone.

"Who was that?"

"Nobody."

"Your whole face just changed."

"Go to sleep Jake."

"Ethan"

"Goodnight."

He was smiling at the ceiling. He could not stop.

Across campus in a room he had never been to, a girl had just

done something she told herself she would not do.

He did not know that yet.

But he would.