“Special” in a guy’s vocabulary often means “convenient.” The Reality The next morning, he made me coffee in a mug that said “World’s Okayest Brother.” Walked me to the bus stop. Kissed me goodbye like we’d done it a thousand times.

I turned my head. “Does it matter?”

Afterward, we lay there in the dark. His arm under my head. The ceiling fan clicking on every rotation.

“My room’s five minutes away,” he said. Not a question.

I met him at the “Welcome Back” house party during syllabus week. I was nursing a truly disgusting hard seltzer, wearing a sundress that was probably too short for September, and trying to remember the name of the girl from my Psych 101 lecture.

“What’s your biggest fear?” (Spiders. And graduating with no plan.) “What’s a memory you’d relive?” (My dad teaching me to drive stick shift.) “Who broke your heart first?” (A boy named Liam. Sophomore year of high school. Cliché.)

And then he texted: “Had fun. Let’s keep this low-key though? You know how it is.”

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