"Maya."
The sound of her name turned her spine to ice.
She froze mid-step, one foot im front of the other as the late afternoon crowd poured out of the art building. The books in her hand no longer had any weight as her mind ran with thoughts. And there it was -- his voice, Damien Cross -- few steps behind her in the hallway.
Like he knew the last thing she wanted was to her his voice that she couldn't ignore.
"Hey," he said when he got closer, his voice unreadable.
She didn't trust herself to speak, so she just blinked, adjusting the books in her arms.
Damien fixed his eyes on her. "Can we talk?"
Maya hesitated, then followed him without a word to a more private space under the elm trees by the fencing studio. The breeze picked at her hair, tugged at the edges of her denim jacket, but the chill she felt came from something else entirely.
He turned to face her, rubbing the back of his neck. "So… I figured we should clear the air."
She stared at him, every part of her alert -- bracing for something she didn't have words for yet.
"That whole thing on stage," he said, forcing a casual shrug, "the kiss… I mean, you saw the crowd. They ate that up."
Maya blinked.
He didn't look at her when he said it -- his eyes tracked a nearby squirrel, then the lawn, then nothing at all.
Her throat tightened. "Right," she said quietly. "They did."
It was a perfectly fine response. Distant. Empty. The kind of thing someone would say if it hadn't left their hands trembling when they walked offstage. The kind of thing someone would say if they didn't still feel his hand at their waist hours later.
"I mean, it worked for the ending," he added. "Big romantic climax, everyone swoons -- classic stuff."
She nodded once, but something stung behind her eyes. She dug her nails into the spine of her sketchbook just to feel grounded.
Damien glanced at her then, and for half a second, the mask slipped. There was something else there -- something unspoken, unsure. Like he wasn't as indifferent as he wanted to be.
But he caught himself.
"And anyway," he said more lightly, "no pressure, right? It's not like it meant anything."
Her stomach turned.
He said it so easily. Like it hadn't changed something between them. Like it hadn't lingered in the corners of her thoughts every second since it happened.
She pressed her lips together. "Of course not."
His eyes flicked to her, studying her face like he was trying to read her thoughts -- but she wasn't about to let him.
Not when she was the only one wondering if it meant something real.
He stepped back a little, his voice softening. "You good?"
Maya nodded automatically, even though her heart wasn't sure.
"Cool," he said, offering a brief smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "See you around."
And just like that, he turned and walked away, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders tense despite the show of ease.
She didn't call out to him. Didn't chase after any kind of explanation. She just stood there, heart thudding, face still tingling with the memory of his hands around her waist -- of that kiss that felt nothing like a performance and everything like something dangerous.
He made it sound simple. Like it meant nothing. Like the way he'd looked at her before their lips met had been nothing more than good acting.
But it hadn't felt simple.
Not when her pulse still hadn't calmed. Not when her thoughts were spinning with questions she couldn't voice.
She turned and started walking, slower than before, like the weight of what had just happened was dragging behind her with every step. Leaves crunched beneath her shoes, and the soft breeze tugged at strands of her hair as she moved toward the dorms.
Her mind was still there -- in that room, under that spotlight, with his breath brushing against her cheek and his fingers tightening at her waist.
There'd been something real in that moment.
She knew it. Felt it. And she hated herself a little for how badly she wanted to believe that.
But if he could pretend so easily…
She clenched her jaw.
Maybe she was the one who'd imagined the flicker in his eyes. The way his hands lingered, just a second too long. Maybe she was just one of those girls -- those naive girls -- who mistook attention for something deeper.
Still, even as she told herself all those things, her body betrayed her. Her lips still remembered the pressure of his. Her chest still tightened at the sound of his voice in her memory.
And yet, she had to stay guarded.
Whatever it was -- it wasn't real. He made that perfectly clear.
As the path curved toward her building, her gaze drifted toward the sidewalk ahead -- and for a split second, everything in her stilled.
Logan.
He was standing across the street, just barely visible in the orange glow of the streetlight. Hands in his pockets. Watching her.
Maya's pulse skipped.
She kept walking, pretending not to see him. Pretending that her skin didn't crawl with the feeling of being observed. Pretending she didn't know exactly what that look on his face meant.
She thought back to the last time they spoke -- the subtle digs, the way his tone had shifted from pleading to something colder. Possessive. Obsessive.
And now he was just standing there.
Watching her.
She forced herself to look forward, to stay steady, even as unease coiled tighter in her gut.
The entrance of the dorm came into view. A few students lingered by the front doors, chatting casually, unaware of the strange electricity crawling up Maya's spine.
She didn't look back.
Didn't dare.
But her hand tightened around her keycard as she reached the scanner. The beep sounded like salvation.
Behind her, the quiet pressed closer.
Something told her that moment wasn't the end of anything.
It was the beginning.