Chapter 3

My document pouch fell from my hands.

Pencils, erasers, and identification papers scattered across the floor. My exam pass slid several feet away.

“Sorry. Didn’t see you.”

Mason had bumped into me.

I crouched to retrieve the pass. Before my fingers reached it, his shoe came down on the paper.

Mason wore the expression people used when they thought an insult counted as a joke.

“Do you really still get dizzy, or have you gotten used to everyone taking care of you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

I gripped the edge of the paper, but he did not move his foot.

“You look completely fine. Using last year’s concussion is getting a little old.”

People nearby began watching.

“Move your foot.”

“I’m only saying you should give Ethan some space. You always need rides or someone waiting for you. Is that fair to him?”

“What happens between Ethan and me has nothing to do with you.”

I pulled harder. Mason shifted his shoe, and the paper tore down the middle.

“I didn’t mean to do that.”

Before he could finish, someone shoved him aside.

Ethan stood there, his face cold.

“What are you doing?”

“She was the one pulling,” Mason said. “I already apologized.”

“Standing on her property is your idea of an apology?”

Ethan gathered my supplies and picked up the torn pass.

“Come on. I’ll take you to the proctor.”

As we passed, Mason muttered, “She’s good at making you fix everything.”

It was the same voice I had heard outside my apartment.

Ethan walked me to the testing room, still holding my torn exam pass.

“Thank you,” I said, taking it from him.

Before, I would have caught his sleeve and told him everything Mason had said.

My fingers tightened around the document pouch instead.

“Another student stood on my pass, and it tore when I tried to retrieve it,” I told the proctor. “I have both pieces and my identification. Can I still take the exam?”

She checked them and nodded.

“Yes. Come inside.”

Ethan turned toward me.

“Avery, do you—”

“Candidates only, please,” the proctor said.

I thanked him again and went to find my seat.

Ethan watched her walk away. She was still gripping that pouch the way she always gripped his sleeve when she was upset. He couldn’t understand why she hadn’t stayed beside him for another moment.

After the state merit scholarship exam, the entire school relaxed.

That evening, I checked my phone and saw Chloe’s new post.

A midnight-blue controller with silver buttons sat beside her headset.

It was the same limited edition I had bought Ethan.

Her caption read, Back in the game. Thanks for the new controller, Ethan!

I stared at the photo, then called him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Did you give Chloe the controller I bought you?”

“Yeah. Hers broke, and my old one still works.”

I looked at the photo again.

“But you said you wanted that one.”

“I did. I just didn’t need two.”

“It took me two weeks to find.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Avery, I didn’t know. You should’ve said.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“I did like it.”

“You gave it away.”

He let out a breath.

“Can we not argue about a controller?”

I hadn’t been angry when I called. I had wanted him to tell me I was wrong about the photo, or at least understand why it hurt.

“I bought it for your birthday, Ethan. I didn’t expect to see it on someone else’s desk.”

“So now I have to check with you before I do anything?”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Then what do you want me to say?”

My eyes burned. I no longer wanted to explain how excited I had been when I finally found it, or how carefully I had wrapped the box.

“Forget it.”

Then he repeated almost the same words I had heard outside prom.

“You make everything feel suffocating.”

The call ended.

I sat on the edge of my bed, holding the silent phone.

After that, Ethan and I stopped speaking entirely.

Near the end of spring semester, our class organized a graduation dinner.

I did not want to attend, but it was one of our final events together. My parents encouraged me to go, and Melissa asked Ethan to make sure I arrived safely.

It was the first time we had been alone since our argument.

During the drive, Ethan seemed irritated. I tried to start a few conversations, but he answered with “yeah” or “okay.”

Eventually, I stopped trying.

We spent the rest of the ride like strangers who happened to know everything about each other.

The restaurant was loud. Televisions played above the bar, the overhead lights were painfully bright, and conversations overlapped from every direction.

Everyone discussed games, basketball, graduation trips, and a beach party. None of it gave me a way into the conversation.

I wanted to leave almost as soon as we arrived.

Halfway through dinner, someone suggested truth or dare.

The bottle passed several classmates before stopping in front of Ethan.

“Truth,” he said.

The person asking smiled.

“Ethan, you’ve always taken such good care of Avery.”

He glanced at me, then looked back at Ethan.

“Do you like her?”