Chapter Three: Count Something

POV: Haley

I wake up to find Avriel standing by my bedside, sunglasses on indoors, looking at me like I've personally ruined her morning.

She pushes her sunglasses up into her hair. "This is the semester I finally drag you to a party. You, in the same room as tequila."

Avriel has been threatening to make me interesting since freshman orientation. So far, her success rate is questionable, but her persistence is almost admirable.

"Come on, before you find another excuse."

I grab my bag and follow her out.

Up ahead, across the courtyard, I see a woman fussing over her daughter's dorm boxes, refolding a shirt that's already folded. The kind of unnecessary care that means she doesn't know how to say goodbye yet.

My mother used to be careful like that. Right up until the year after my diagnosis, when careful turned into gone.

---

"Keep staring like that," a voice says, close enough to make me jump, "and I'm gonna have to start apologizing on your behalf."

I turn.

Kai is standing there, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"I wasn't staring."

"Sure." He almost smiles. "Careful, though. Keep it up, you'll fall and lose a tooth."

Avriel leans in close enough that only I catch it. "Okay, damn. Your friend is fine."

"He's not my friend."

"Could've fooled me." She checks the time, then straightens like she's just made a decision. "You know what, new semester, new soul. I'm getting to Voss early for once." She's already backing away, eyes flicking meaningfully between me and Kai, voice pitched so loud that he'd have to be deaf not to catch it. "Find me at lunch. We're talking about the mysterious guy."

Then she's gone, and it's just the two of us, and neither of us mentions what she just said.

"So." I clear my throat. "We're seeing you tonight?"

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about." He rubs the back of his neck. "I'm not coming."

"Hi, baby." Nathan comes up beside me, kissing my temple, cardboard tube tucked under one arm. He pulls back, studying my face. "You look stressed."

"I'm fine."

"Well, I'm not." He exhales like he's been holding his breath since this morning. "Crit's in three hours. Dutta better like the cantilever, or I'm dropping out and becoming a fisherman."

A cluster of girls passes, slowing just enough to whisper and giggle, their eyes on Kai the whole way.

Nathan watches them go, grinning. "Not easy being a hot billionaire's son, huh."

"You'd know," Kai says. "You get half the attention just standing next to me."

"Yeah. The pity kind."

"Anyway." Kai turns back to Nathan. "I was just telling Haley, you guys aren't gonna see me tonight."

"Why not?"

"I've got a place lined up already. I'm just early. Figured I'd grab a hotel for the week instead of being a burden to you guys. Plus, when I agreed, I didn't know she was gonna be here too."

His eyes flick to me before returning to Nathan. For some reason, I suddenly feel too aware of where I'm standing.

Nathan blinks. "First off, I've never seen you as a burden. And you sure? Haley wouldn't mind."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks though."

Kai's phone buzzes in his pocket.

He glances at the screen, and whatever amusement was on his face disappears.

He silences it fast enough that I almost miss it.

Nathan looks down at the cardboard tube still tucked under his arm. "Well, I should go. Model's not gonna glue itself." Another kiss, quicker. "Love you."

He's jogging backward toward the studio before I can answer.

"So." Kai rocks back on his heels once Nathan's gone. "Aren't you gonna show me around? Give me the tour? Don't want to get lost on my first day."

"I can't even if I wanted to. I have Literature right now."

"Wait." He tilts his head, feigning surprise badly. "I think I do too."

---

The Literature building is on the far side of campus, which means we have a decent walk ahead of us.

Professor Hale is deep into a poem about grief by the time we sit down, something about letting go.

Normally I'd take notes on the extended metaphor. Instead there's a pressure building low in my chest, the kind that means today isn't going to stay ordinary much longer.

I raise my hand for a bathroom pass. Hale doesn't bother to look up.

I make it into the hallway and barely get the door shut before my legs give. I catch the wall on the way down and end up sitting on the floor.

Footsteps. Then, "Haley?"

Kai. Of course it's Kai.

I don't turn around. Can't, really, not without losing the wall.

"Hey." He's crouched in front of me before I finish processing he's there, already grabbing for my bag. "Where's—bag, give me the bag."

He drops it. Swears. Grabs it again.

"Jacket pocket," I manage.

He finds the bottle, fumbles the cap, then finally gets two pills into my palm. I take them dry. He doesn't say anything about that, just watches me swallow like he's not sure it's going to work.

"Breathe." His voice isn't steady either. "Count something. Anything."

I count his shoelaces, both of them, because it's the first thing in front of me, and somewhere around the fourth pass my chest starts loosening its grip.

Neither of us says anything until it does.

"You need to actually see someone about this. Today."

"I have doctors, Kai."

"Then see one of them." Sharper than he means it, I think, because he immediately looks like he regrets it.

He glances down the empty hallway, then back at me. "Next time, you call me before it gets this bad. I'm not doing this from a distance."

"Kai—"

"I mean it. Promise me that much."

I look at him for a moment longer than I mean to, then look away.

"You can't tell Nathan."

"Haley—"

His phone rings and he ignores it, jaw tight.

It rings again immediately.

"Kai, answer your phone."

"Fine." He answers before I can say anything else. "Dad."

I can't hear the other end, just the shape of Kai getting smaller with every second he listens.

"I'll be there," he says. "Yes, sir. I heard you perfectly well."

He hangs up. Doesn't look at me right away.

"I have to go."

"What? Now?"

"I wouldn't if I didn't have to."

"You said you weren't doing this from a distance." My voice cracks on it. "You said next time I call you."

"I know what I said." He's already standing, reaching for his composure like he can pull it back into place. "I'll send someone. A driver. He would take you to urgent care, make sure you're actually okay."

"I'm not going anywhere with a stranger."

"Haley."

"I mean it. I'm not going, and you're not calling Nathan, and you're leaving anyway, so I don't actually know what you want me to do with any of this."

He holds my gaze.

For a second, I forget about his father. About Nathan. Everything except the look on his face.

Then he looks away first.

"I'm sorry." No excuse attached to it and that's almost worse. "I'll call you tonight."

"Don't."

He stops in the doorway.

"Don't call. Don't come near me again if this is what it looks like." I don't fully mean it, or I mean it completely, I can't tell which. "Go. Your dad's waiting."

Some small, stupid part of me is still hoping he'll ignore that. That he'll stay anyway, father or no father, and prove the promise meant something.

He doesn't move. Long enough that my traitor heart starts believing it might actually work.

Then he's gone, his footsteps fading until I can't hear them anymore.

It tastes a lot like being left again.

—