I’M HOLED UP IN my office the next day, computer on my desk with my email open, phone displaying Harvard’s Twitter account, thumb compulsively refreshing the page. It’s three forty-five. The latest tweet says decisions will be posted at seven p.m. eastern, four p.m. for us. I set an alarm on my phone, more out of wanting to feel proactive than fearing I could possibly miss it. The newsroom is empty, the hallway outside echoing faintly with the orchestra rehearsing for their upcoming concert. It’s like a movie score playing over my anticipation. I’m fifteen minutes from the biggest moment of my life, and yet I’m unable to fully focus.
When I glanced over to Ethan in government today, I found him already looking at me. I held his gaze. Neither of us had a reason to stare at each other—we weren’t checking each other’s progress on a quiz or glaring just because. We stared anyway. We’d done okay pretending nothing had happened between us, but in that moment, I could practically feel his lips on my skin, his hands on my hips.
I haven’t stopped feeling them since. It’s funny. I honestly wish I was entirely devoted to freaking out about the Harvard decision instead of replaying memories I should find nauseating.
I refresh my email, hoping I can refresh my thoughts with it. The strategy works, my fear creeping back in. What if I don’t get in? What if I did everything right just to fall short? Who will I be if I fail at my biggest goal, the truest test of my abilities?
I’m contemplating dismal possibilities when, in my peripheral vision, I catch sight of Ethan outside through the window in my office. It’s like I conjured him from the effort of not thinking about him. He walks past the newsroom, then doubles back and hesitates in front of the door. I don’t know what he’s been doing on campus for the past forty-five minutes or why he’s here now. Regardless, I’m certain he knows when the Harvard decision is happening.
Despite myself, I wonder if he’s going to come in. I wonder if I want him to.
Before I have the chance to decide, he pushes the door open. I watch him walk toward my office, his eyes roaming the room purposelessly like he’s just wandered in here, one hand tucked thumb-out in the pocket of his chinos. Finally, he reaches my door and pulls it open. Without knocking, of course.
I look up, pretending I’m lightly irritated instead of on the verge of—I don’t know what. “Is there something you need, Ethan?”
“Harvard decisions come out in thirteen minutes,” he says simply. He drops his bag on the floor, then drops himself into the other chair in my office.
“Nervous?” I ask.
He scoffs. “I just want to see the look on your face when I get in and you don’t.” He props his white sneakers on my desk, which he knows I hate.
I get up and walk to the front of my desk, shoving his legs aside. It was the wrong move. With even the fleeting contact, I’m hit with images of the other night, the party, Ethan’s room upstairs. Sheets and hands and lips parted and—nope. “You can stay if you don’t try to make out with me,” I say, searching for scathing and landing on stilted. I’m prepared for some pompous denial.
Instead, Ethan somehow looks even more relaxed. “Yeah, we should probably discuss that.”
“Now?” My eyes widen. “Twelve minutes before Harvard decisions?”
“Did you have other plans?” He studies his nails, his whole demeanor dismissive, like this is just one more inconvenient edit I’ve given him.
It makes my pulse pound. Not just with heated memories. With jealousy. With competitiveness channeled into an increasingly familiar direction. I want to be the way he is right now. Unmoved. Careless. “There’s nothing to discuss.” I keep my voice lofty, so lofty I’m dizzy from the height.
Ethan pauses, one eyebrow rising in mocking disbelief. “Nothing?” He leans forward, and I swear the mocking shifts into something else. His features become intent, inquisitive.
I don’t trust the way his expression urges my heart to beat faster. “Kissing you—”
He interrupts me. “I’d call it hooking up. Clothing was removed, Sanger.”
Yeah, I’m very aware clothing was removed, Ethan. I furiously fight the flush in my cheeks, trying to act unmoved. “Hooking up with you was merely proof I’m still subject to hormones and reckless decision making. It’s something I hope to mature out of promptly.”
Ethan merely hmms, considering. It unnerves me. It’s very un-Ethan. I wait, in disbelief of how intensely I’m watching him for the slightest hint of what he’s thinking. “It’s irritating,” he finally says, his eyes meeting mine, “how often I find myself thinking about that night. How often I find myself thinking about kissing you again.” He wets his lips. “Worse, it’s distracting me from school. I could hardly get through a practice AP Physics exam last night for how often my thoughts turned to you.”
His words, and their precision and formal deliberateness, light a dangerous fire in my chest. I hope sarcasm will stamp it out. “Maybe we should hook up before the real exam, then. Make sure you’re distracted when it matters.” I lean against the desk facing him, our legs inches apart.
“Maybe we should,” he replies. “I’m confident I could leave you more unfocused than I.”
“Doubtful.”
“I’ve noticed you noticing me in class, Alison,” he says, no longer haughty. His green eyes haven’t wavered from mine. “This isn’t one-way.”
“I’ve been glaring.”
“You’ve been fantasizing.”
I pretend I’m indignant, instead of deeply guilty. “Like you could be the object of my fantasies.” I remember with grating fondness when my only fantasies of Ethan were academic. Watching him see me win valedictorian. Him confusing the War of the Roses with the Hundred Years’ War or fumbling to remember which play Polonius comes from. Good fantasies. Nice fantasies. “We kissed, hooked up, whatever you want to call it. It wasn’t exactly earth-shattering,” I lie.
The remark hits Ethan right where I’d hoped. His whole expression darkens. “Yes it was,” he replies immediately.
“You’re so full of yourself,” I say, pleased to have found a weakness. “You really think you’re that good a kisser.”
“I know I am.” His mouth flattens.
I laugh. Pushing myself off the desk, I put distance between us, unable to face him. “Honestly, Ethan, your skills are average.” It’s not true. Just saying it is forcing me to recollect how not true it is. I’ve kissed enough people to know Ethan’s, well, above average.
“Fine. Redo,” he says. “Right now.” I whirl, incredulous. He’s standing up now, on the other end of the office. The old Chronicle copies and awards I’ve hung up frame his confrontationally crossed arms. I don’t understand until he continues. “Kiss me, and then try to tell me it’s average.”
I open my mouth and find I have no response. He’s actually affronted. What’s more, he’s not joking. He wants to kiss me right here, in my office at school, despite days of avoiding any reference to what’s going on between us. He walks forward, slowly and deliberately coming closer.
“What happened to ‘this won’t happen again’?” I ask, repeating his promise from his bedroom.
He stops, then, like he’s testing something, he carefully runs his hand all the way down my arm, lightly twining his fingers in mine. “I did try,” he says softly. “Every night since, I’ve tried. I don’t—you know this”—his lips curl—“I don’t enjoy failing, Alison.”
I meet his eyes, taking my time trying to parse the emotions in them. There’s disappointment, but larger than that, yearning. I don’t find the satisfaction, the calculated poise that accompanies his tricks. He’s being honest. It terrifies me, electrifies me. My chest is so tight, it hurts to breathe. I don’t step away.
“This is failing,” I whisper, brushing my other hand against his. He catches my fingers, both of our hands clasped together.
“Is it? I’m beginning to wonder. For a little while, it might be . . .” He leans closer, his breath tickling the corner of my mouth. “Fun.”
Every cell in my body is at war with itself. I want to turn him down, or I want to want to turn him down. I don’t know which. Either way, I don’t have the chance to muster the strength. In my head I hear, like a weeks-old echo, the clang of us making contact with the metal locker doors in the empty hallway. I smell Ethan’s off-white sheets, feel the uneven folds of his comforter under me while he pressed us chest to chest and kissed me. I—
My phone chimes on the gray plastic surface of my desk. Four p.m. In the same moment, I hear Ethan’s phone go off in his pants pocket. Of course he also set an alarm.
I say nothing. Neither does Ethan.
It shatters whatever spell was drawing us closer. I rip my eyes from him and reach for my phone, heart pounding in a whole new way. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ethan pull his phone out. In synchrony, we log into our portals. I don’t let myself hesitate. I click through to the decision.
I am delighted . . . On the third word, I know. The rest of what’s written vanishes in a haze of euphoric realization.
Every exam I reviewed for until my eyes watered, every project I put hours into polishing, every night in the newsroom and resolution I fought for in ASG—it worked. I was as confident as possible facing impossible odds, and yet, it’s kind of incredible that I decided what I wanted and proved I was worth having it.
When I look up, I find my wild exhilaration mirrored in Ethan’s eyes, and everything changes. I’d been counting on graduation to end this rivalry. Counting on Harvard to free me from our competition. But I know from the way Ethan’s eyes dart now from his phone, to me, to mine—both of us got in. There’s no winner, only four more years together and no end in sight. It’s not just our competition we’ll have the alarming chance to continue, either—it’s the impossible attraction I’m fighting to pretend doesn’t exist.
“Congrats,” I say.
“Yeah, congrats,” he repeats.
We’re both awkward and uncomfortable. I don’t need my Harvard-worthy GPA to know it’s because he’s realizing exactly what I have. There’s no escape from each other now, no easy out. Ethan’s eyes, which had been fixed on mine for the past five minutes, now point determinedly everywhere else. He’s holding his phone, his whole posture off.
“Well,” he says, “I should probably call my parents.”
I nod. Without saying more, he walks out.
I don’t move, paralyzed under warring elation and foreboding. In the past whenever I felt pressured by my workload or frustrated with Ethan, I would imagine myself on the opposite coast under the towering trees and redbrick walls of Harvard Yard. Now I have no choice. I have to imagine Ethan there with me. It’s one more kind of fantasy he’s invaded.
He was right. We do need to talk about whatever this is. But I don’t know how, not when I was ready to kiss him again, thoughts of Harvard temporarily obliterated from my mind.