Chapter Two: Entry Two
Felix's thumb brushed a strand of hair back from Harper's face, slow, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world to do it, and for one suspended second neither of them moved, close enough that she could count the small chip in his front tooth from a bike accident in sixth grade, close enough that the bell over the coffee shop door seemed to ring from somewhere very far away.
"That's a lot of eye contact for a school project," she said, and her voice came out lower than she meant it to.
"Rule four," Felix murmured back, not moving either. "Natural contact only. I'm being extremely natural right now."
That was Saturday. First, there was Thursday's aftermath, and the very long walk to sixth period.
Jessica had not waited for an answer to well, this is new. She had turned on her heel and gone back to her own table with the particular grace of someone who had decided, mid-motion, that dignity mattered more than the last word, and Harper had spent the rest of lunch period watching Felix not watch her, which was somehow worse than if he'd stared.
"You okay?" she'd asked finally, when the bell rang and they stood to clear their trays.
"Yeah." Felix had shrugged, easy as always, though something in it had looked practiced rather than felt. "Jess gets weird about stuff sometimes. It's not a big deal."
It's a big deal to her, Harper had thought, watching him toss his tray with more force than necessary. And judging by how fast you changed the subject, maybe it's a bigger deal to you than you're letting on either.
She hadn't said that out loud. She had learned, over ten years of friendship with Felix Marsh, exactly which doors he didn't want opened, and that one had a particular kind of lock on it.
She thought about it anyway, the whole walk to sixth period, replaying the two seconds before Jessica had reached their table, the way Felix's hand had tightened around hers instead of letting go, as if some instinct in him had decided, faster than his brain could weigh in, that this was not a moment to be caught unprepared. She filed that away with the rest of the small, unexamined evidence she'd been quietly collecting since Tuesday. A drawer she was not ready to open.
The journal turned out to be worse than either of them expected, in the specific way that anything requiring honesty on a schedule tends to be worse than expected. Harper opened the shared document that night and found Felix's entry already sitting at the top, timestamped an hour earlier.
Day 1. Held hands in the caf. Witnessed by roughly the entire junior class and one (1) mildly hostile ex-crush. 10/10, would recommend for cardiovascular exercise if nothing else. Harper's hand was cold. She should get gloves.
She read it twice, half annoyed, half something else she didn't examine too closely, and typed her own entry underneath it before she could talk herself out of honesty entirely.
Day 1. Held hands in the cafeteria as instructed. Noted: this was significantly less strange than I expected it to be, which is itself the strange part.
She deleted the second sentence four times. She left it the fifth.
Felix texted her twenty minutes later. saw ur entry. "significantly less strange than expected." Sutter that might be the nicest thing you've ever written about me
shut up, she typed back, and then, because some reckless part of her wanted to keep the conversation going a little longer than the assignment strictly required, added, it's for a grade, Marsh. Don't get attached.
too late, he wrote back, and then, before she could decide whether that had been a joke, a follow-up: we still on for the coffee shop thing tomorrow? gotta log a "date" per the packet, might as well make it painless
Painless, she typed. Sure. Let's aim for painless.
thats the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me, he wrote, and then, a few seconds later, before she could reply, another message arrived, shorter, and something about its brevity made it land harder than the joke before it. for what it's worth I'm actually glad it's you. partner-wise. could've been way worse. could've been assigned to write a fake breakup with Deshawn Miller who still thinks Okafor's class is a prank show
Harper stared at that message longer than she meant to, longer than a joke about Deshawn Miller strictly warranted, and typed and deleted three different replies before settling on one that felt safe enough to send.
could be worse, agreed. going to bed. see you at the caf tomorrow
She did not sleep especially well that night, which she blamed, unconvincingly, on caffeine she hadn't actually had.
The Grind was the kind of coffee shop that existed specifically for high schoolers to be seen studying in, all exposed brick and background jazz and exactly one good armchair that half the senior class silently competed for, and Harper arrived Friday afternoon to find Felix had already claimed it, packet and journal laid out on the table like evidence for a trial neither of them had agreed to stand.
"I got you the caramel thing," he said, sliding a cup across the table without looking up. "The one you pretend you don't like and then finish in four minutes."
"I don't pretend anything."
"You absolutely do. It's very cute. Sit down, we've got a checklist." He tapped the packet. "One shared activity demonstrating relational investment. I think Okafor means, like, studying together, but I choose to interpret it as generously as possible."
He remembered my order, Harper thought, sitting, wrapping both hands around the cup mostly to have something to do with them. He's remembered my order since we were twelve. That's not the assignment. That's just him.
"So what's the generous interpretation," she asked, settling into the armchair across from him, "of a shared activity demonstrating relational investment."
"I was thinking we split a pastry. Very romantic. Very Okafor-approved." He slid the packet toward her, upside down, so she'd have to tilt her head to read it, a small, familiar habit of his that had annoyed her for exactly ten years and that she had never once told him to stop. "Also I brought the actual reading, because unlike some people, I intend to get an A in this class and not just an A in convincing my partner I have my life together."
"Some people," Harper repeated. "You mean me."
"I would never presume to name names." He was already flipping to the right page, his handwriting crowding the margins in a slant she'd have recognized blind, notes on attachment theory tangled up with a doodle of what appeared to be a deeply unimpressed cat. "Okay. Attachment styles. Which one do you think I am, and be honest, because I already know it's going to be insulting."
"Anxious," Harper said immediately. "Avoidant when it actually matters, anxious about everything else. You worry constantly about whether people like you and then pretend you don't care either way."
"Wow. Okay. Didn't even flinch." Felix pressed a hand to his chest, mock wounded, though something in his eyes said the accuracy of it had actually landed somewhere real. "Your turn. And I'm allowed to be honest too."
"Go ahead."
"Avoidant. Full stop. You've built an entire personality around being the person who doesn't need anything from anyone, and it's very convincing right up until it isn't." He said it lightly, the way he said most things, but he was watching her closely enough that she understood he meant it. "I've known you ten years, Sutter. I've seen the gap."
He has, Harper thought, and the honesty of admitting it, even silently, felt like setting down something heavy she hadn't realized she was carrying. He's the only one who has.
They worked, actually worked, for almost forty minutes after that, trading notes on the unit's reading, and it was easier than she'd braced for, easier in the specific way old friendships were easy, full of shorthand and old jokes and a comfort that had nothing performative in it at all, until Felix looked up from his notebook and said, out of nowhere, "Can I ask you something and you don't get weird about it."
"That's an impossible ask, but go ahead."
"Do you ever think about April." He said it fast, like getting through it quickly would make it hurt less, both of them. "Like, actually think about it. Not the version where we just decided to be normal about it and never brought it up again."
Yes, Harper thought, and the honesty of the thought scared her more than the question had. Constantly. In April, and in May, and at random moments since, like right now, with you looking at me like you actually want the real answer instead of the easy one.
"Sometimes," she said instead, which was true and also nowhere near enough.
"Yeah." Felix looked back down at his notebook, and something in his shoulders settled, like he'd expected the smaller answer and had made his peace with it before he'd even asked. "Me too. Sometimes."
The bell over the door rang, and neither of them looked up right away, which was how they both missed Jessica walking in with two friends from the debate team, stopping cold at the sight of the two of them at the corner table, notebooks and coffee and a closeness that had nothing to do with a class assignment written anywhere on their faces.
It was the sound of her own name, half a laugh, half something sharper, that made Harper finally look up.
"Wow," Jessica said, to her friends, not quite quietly enough. "Guess the project's really method acting for some people."
Felix's jaw tightened, and this time the flare of temper on his face was not practiced at all. "Jess."
"I'm not saying anything." Jessica held up both hands, all injured innocence. "I just think it's interesting how convincing you guys are being for people who broke up in April and swore they were fine with it."
She knows exactly where the bruise is, Harper thought, watching Felix's whole face go carefully, deliberately blank in the way it only did when something had actually landed. And she just pressed on it in front of half the debate team.
"We should go," Harper said quietly, already gathering the packet, the journal, her cold coffee, the whole flimsy architecture of pretending this afternoon had been simple.
They didn't speak again until they were three blocks away, the coffee shop and Jessica and the debate team's curious stares all behind them, and it was Felix who stopped first, under the awning of the closed bookstore where they used to trade paperbacks in middle school, and reached out to catch Harper's hand before she could keep walking.
"Hey." His thumb brushed a strand of hair back from her face, slow, unhurried, and for one suspended second neither of them moved, close enough that she could count the small chip in his front tooth from a bike accident in sixth grade, close enough that the whole street seemed to go quiet around them. "She's wrong, by the way. About the method acting thing."
"Is she." Harper's voice came out lower than she meant it to, and she did not step back.
"Yeah." Felix's hand stayed exactly where it was, warm against her jaw in a way that felt nothing like the careful, comedic distance he'd built between them since April. "Because acting would mean I was pretending to feel something I don't actually feel, and I'm not entirely sure that's what's happening here."
Say something, Harper told herself, feeling her own pulse loud in her ears, feeling the specific, dangerous gravity of a boy who had never once in ten years looked at her exactly like this. Say something before it becomes obvious you don't want to.
Her phone buzzed against her hip before she could decide whether to lean in or step back, sharp and insistent, and then again, three times in quick succession, the particular rhythm of a group chat exploding all at once.
Felix's hand dropped. Harper pulled out her phone.
The first message was from Maren, a girl in her chemistry class she barely texted outside of lab assignments. It contained a single photo, grainy, clearly taken through the coffee shop window, of Felix's hand against her face under the bookstore awning, and a caption that had already collected forty-three replies in the six minutes since it had been posted to the whole junior class story.
is this real or is this the psych project because either way I have QUESTIONS