His to Claim,Mine to choose

“Happy Birthday”

The candles were still lit when I found them.

Twenty one of them, stuck in a cake I’d picked out myself, still burning on my desk like nothing was wrong. Peter had his hand fisted in Lisa’s hair. She had her back against my bookshelf, the one with all our photo strips taped to the side. Neither of them heard me open the door.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t drop my bag or make some big, dramatic sound that would give them a reason to spin around and see my face crumble first. I just stood there for one long second, watching smoke curl off my own birthday candles while my boyfriend’s mouth was on my best friend’s neck.

That’s the thing about me. Even now, even in this exact moment, some small, stupid part of my brain was already thinking about how to make this less awkward for everyone else in the room. Fix my face. Don’t be too much. Don’t make a scene they’ll have to deal with.

I hated that part of me. I hated it so much I finally let myself say something.

“Cake’s getting cold,” I said.

They jumped apart like I’d thrown ice water on them. Peter’s face went through about four emotions in two seconds, shock, guilt, and then, unbelievably, annoyance, like I was the one being unreasonable for walking into my own room. Lisa didn’t even try to fix her shirt. She just stared at me with her hand pressed over her mouth, eyes already wet.

“Kalissa, it’s not what it looks like,” Peter said, which had to be the single dumbest sentence a human being had ever spoken out loud.

“It’s exactly what it looks like.” My voice came out flat and steady, and I was almost proud of that, even while my chest felt like it was folding in on itself. “You don’t need to explain the physics of it to me.”

“We didn’t plan this,” Lisa said, and I actually laughed, one short, ugly sound.

“You’re in my room. On my birthday. Under the banner I made.” I looked at the banner. Someone had knocked one corner loose. It hung crooked over the bed now, half the letters sagging like they were embarrassed too. “That takes a little bit of planning, Lisa.”

She started crying for real then, which somehow made this about her, which was so on brand for him I almost laughed again. Peter reached for me, actual audacity, like he thought I needed comforting through this. I stepped back before his hand landed.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t touch me and don’t follow me. I mean it.”

I grabbed my jacket off the chair, the only thing in that room I still wanted, and walked out while they were still finding words. My hands were shaking by the time I hit the stairwell, but I didn’t cry. Not there. Not where anyone from my hallway might open a door and see.

I didn’t even know where I was walking until the noise hit me, bass thumping through someone’s floor two buildings over, a party I hadn’t planned on going to because parties like that weren’t really my thing. But going back to my room wasn’t an option, not with them still in it, probably deciding who got to look more wronged. And I didn’t want to be alone with what I’d just seen. Not yet. Maybe not for a while.

So I went in.

The place was packed, red cups and bad lighting and someone’s playlist trying too hard. I didn’t know half these people, but apparently some of them knew exactly who I was.

“Wait, isn’t that the girl Peter’s with?” a voice said behind me, not even bothering to whisper.

“Was,” someone answered, and laughed.

Word traveled fast on this campus. Faster than I could even process what had happened to me. I grabbed a drink I didn’t really want just to have something to hold, something to look busy with, and that’s when I saw him.

Jay Michael, who was leaning against the far wall like he owned the building, one shoulder against the brick, a girl talking at him who he clearly wasn’t listening to. Everyone knew who he was. Hockey captain, the guy half my hallway had a story about, and never a good one. Reckless, a user, the kind of guy older girls warned freshmen about at orientation like he was a weather pattern you had to plan around.

He looked up right then, like he felt me staring, and found me across the room without even trying.

I thought about every single warning I’d ever heard about him. My roommate telling me he never called anyone twice. The rumor about the girl who cried in the dining hall after. The way people said his name like it came with a footnote.

Then I thought about Peter’s hand in Lisa’s hair, and how I’d stood there thinking about making things easier for both of them, and how tired I was of being the reasonable one, the manageable one, the girl who never made anyone else uncomfortable.

I set my cup down.

Every girl on this campus had a story about him that ended in regret. I decided I wanted one too.

“Everyone’s Warning”

He looked at me like he already knew how the night ended.

I walked up to him anyway. That wasn’t like me. I usually waited to be noticed, waited to be picked, waited for someone else to make the first move so I never had to risk looking foolish. Tonight I didn’t care about looking foolish. Tonight I wanted to be the one who chose.

“You’re staring,” I said.

Jay Michael looked down at me, slow, like he had all the time in the world. “You walked over here to tell me that?”

“I walked over here because you looked bored.” I nodded at the girl who’d been talking at him a minute ago, now gone, chased off by whatever look he’d given her. “I figured I’d give you something better to do.”

“Bold,” he said. “Most people wait for me to talk first.”

“I’m not most people tonight.”

Something flickered across his face, amusement, maybe interest, I couldn’t tell yet.

“No,” he said. “You’re really not.”