"I can't believe we went to a party and nothing even remotely exciting happened."

Cooper looked up from his slice of breakfast pizza to find Vincent and Calla both glaring at him. "Dude," Vincent complained. "Don't jinx it."

"I'm just saying." Cooper went in for another bite. "It was pretty tame, by our standards."

Calla's glare shifted to her pizza, as if the crust had somehow personally offended her. Knowing her, she likely had only one thing on her mind. And that thing just so happened to be a very mouthy class president.

Or...ex-class president? Cooper wondered with a frown. They never did clarify that. I'd guess criminal charges exempt you from planning the next class reunion...

"So," Natalie said slowly, nibbling on the edge of Vincent's leftover crust. "When Vincent went out for beer...that's why you two were so freaked. Because of..." She waved her hand in a vague gesture. "Everything else that happened, before."

Vincent had already done a pretty bang-up job of summarizing their less-than-stellar highschool experience: dead classmates, kidnappings galore, and the like. She'd accepted it as she'd accepted everything else—with a sympathetic smile.

"Yep." Cooper made a face. "Tripping over your classmate's dead body will do that to you. And then watching other peeps you've known your whole life get killed off one by one, knowing you're next—"

"Dude," Vincent said. "Dark."

"But getting dragged to the station because everyone thought I killed my ex-girlfriend had to be the cherry on top," Cooper continued cheerfully.

"He didn't, of course," Calla clarified at Nat's evident alarm. "It was our class president." She shot him a sly look. "Who Cooper made out with, if I recall correctly—"

"Calla!" he gasped, indignant.

"Yeah," Vincent mused, grinning up at him from his spot on the floor. "Wasn't that at the same party she tried to kill Tom?"

"Wow." Cooper tossed aside his slice of pizza. "There goes my appetite. Thanks."

"Alright. Enough of the dark and dreary." Natalie stood, tossing what was left of her crust on a spare paper plate. "Cold pizza's not cutting it this morning. Who wants bagels and coffee?"

Calla's hand shot into the air. "Immediately yes."

Vincent started to clear his plate. "I'll come."

"No, no." She brushed a kiss over the top of his head. "Stay. Catch up for a bit." She glanced at each of their faces. "Text me what you want. I'll be right back."

"Love you!" Vincent called. Nat blew a kiss in reply on the way to the door.

No one said a word after she left. Paranoid, perhaps, that she would come back any minute and find them planning a fun detour to visit their old, currently institutionalized class president. Cooper didn't envy Vincent that conversation.

"Well, since we're all thinking it..." Calla set aside her pizza and folded her arms. "What the hell does Steph want with Cooper?"

"Great question." Cooper smiled over at her. "Maybe she remembers what a good kisser I am—"

Calla groaned. "Oh, spare me."

"Spare me," Vincent mumbled around a mouthful of pepperoni.

"Close that gaping pie hole before I throw up all over my nice new carpet," Calla said, lip curled.

Cooper waved them down before they could tear into each other. "As Calla is always saying, can we focus, please?"

Vincent leaned forward. "Oh, I'm focused." He eyed Calla—not with any sort of malice, Cooper thought, but with something closer to clinical curiosity. "Why are you asking us what Steph wants? Out of the three of us, aren't you the most qualified to, like...speak sociopath?" At Cooper's pointed glare, he raised his hands. "I'm not saying that to be a dick. I genuinely don't understand how Stephanie's mind works. Like, why'd she bother helping Cory with the fairytale book shit? Why the hell didn't she turn Calla's ass over to the police the second she saw what happened to Tracy?"

"Oh." Cooper raised his hand. "I know that one. I'll take because she's a crazy bitch for five hundred, Alex."

"You're supposed to phrase it like a question," Calla mumbled.

Vincent threw up his hands. "Yes! Yes, I get it. I was being rhetorical." He rubbed his temples. "My point being, I don't get her or anything she does or why, and if anyone does, Calla, it's gotta be you."

"He does make a solid point," Cooper said quietly. Calla chilled him with a look. "He does, and you know it."

She relented after a long, awkward pause. "Look, I don't know either. I don't understand the motive here." Her fingers curled into fists in her lap. "Unless..."

"That sounds promising," Cooper murmured, trying to keep things light. He wanted so badly to reach for her, to eliminate the space between them and pull a blanket over their heads, hiding from Vincent and Stephanie and Michaels and the entire world. Maybe then they might be able to steal a few seconds more of peace.

But this wasn't a conversation they could put off, so he dismissed the urge and settled further into the couch, grumpily crossing his arms across his chest.

"Steph told me once that she leaves nothing to chance." Calla slowly uncurled her fingers. "She could be...more involved in our lives than we think. Even now."

She lifted her eyes to his, to see if he caught her meaning. He grimaced in understanding.

Stephanie and Michaels. It doesn't seem possible, but...Michaels had to find dirt on Calla somehow. What if Michaels was Steph's Plan B? What if they've been in communication?

Vincent leaned forward with a heavy sigh. "I have a feeling I'm missing a few key pieces of the puzzle here," he said, interrupting their silent exchange. "And I won't ask for the specifics right now. But Coop..." He looked over at him, wary. "Steph put you on her visitor's list for a reason. Are you gonna go see her, or what?"

Cooper hesitated, unsure of himself. "I hadn't thought that far, honestly."

"I say yes," Calla chimed in. Unsurprising. She wouldn't miss a chance like this—a face-to-face with the girl she'd bested. Or at least, the girl she thought she'd bested. If Stephanie had somehow managed to ruin Calla's life from the safety of the psych ward...Cooper shuddered as he imagined Calla's fury.

"I have questions that need answers," Calla elaborated. "And if Steph's opening the door, we might as well step inside."

"Bullshit logic if ever I heard it," Vincent muttered, staring at the far wall. "But if you two are going, I want in."

"You don't have to," Cooper told him. "We can handle Stephanie."

"I know." His gaze lingered on Calla. "I know you can. But the bitch had me kidnapped and got off easy with that insanity plea." He smiled somewhat. "I think I'd like to see her in a place like St. Clementine's."

"Vindictive," Calla murmured. "Careful, Vincent. I speak from experience when I say that it's a slippery slope."

"It's not about...gloating," Vincent tried to explain. "It's more like...I don't know. Like if I can see her in that place, powerless, I'll finally be able to rest easy knowing she's not getting out, ever." He stared down at the rug between his feet. "I don't know about you two, but I still have nightmares about what happened."

Cooper knew a thing or two about nightmares.

"Huh. I've been sleeping like a baby," Calla mused, breaking the tension snaking through the cracks in their armor.

Vincent choked on a laugh. "Of course. Of course you have been."

Cooper cracked a smile, though when he looked at her—really looked at her—he could see shadows in her eyes, and he wondered.

Calla Parker was not afraid of monsters. But if not for monsters, what was there to fear?

Vincent excused himself then—something about helping Nat with the bagels—but Cooper had no idea what to say in the silence. Not about nightmares. Not about Michaels. Not about any of it.

"You're quiet," Cooper observed, acutely aware of the empty spaces inside him that longed to touch hers.

She stared ahead, gazing outside at the slate gray sky. "I'm...thinking."

"Looks painful."

He was rewarded with a small, barely perceptible smile. Her favorite. "Stephanie was right, you know."

Cooper tentatively stretched his arm across the back of the couch, itching to reach for her. "I really doubt that."

"You get everything wrong." Calla finally looked at him, and in her dark, fathomless eyes, he saw...nothing. Nothing at all. It chilled him worse than her cold fury. "That's what she told me. And she was right."

Cooper didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

"I thought I was so clever," Calla murmured, turning away from him to prop her chin in her hand, curled up on the opposite end of the couch. So close. So far. "Manipulating Cory's feelings for me, sneaking into Stephanie's room at the party to dig for evidence. But they were always one step ahead of me. Laughing. Stringing me along to feed my ego." She scoffed. "It's my weakness. I'm far too self-absorbed for my own good. And I think I'm making the same mistakes all over again."

"I..." Cooper chewed over his next words. "I don't understand. What mistakes?"

"Kevin and Olivia," she whispered, closing her eyes. "I can't explain it. But I think, somehow...they're helping Michaels."

Cooper didn't immediately process what she'd said. "Kevin and Olivia," he repeated in disbelief. "Helping Michaels...how?"

"Feeding him information. About me. About my schedule." She turned her eyes back to his. "And about you. How I feel about you."

He was a pathetic, hormonal piece of filth. He should have been worried about the possibility that Calla's support system in this town might be a farce, but he could barely process anything beyond the way she'd said how I feel about you.

How do you feel about me? He swallowed the words. Choked on them. Do you feel the way I feel? Because some days, I think I feel too much. And I'm afraid you might not feel at all.

"I sound paranoid." She'd taken his silence for doubt. "I know I do. But Michaels...he didn't just find me at work, Cooper. He beat me there. How did he know where to find me?" The longer she spoke, the brighter her eyes became. "The only person who knows my schedule is the Director. Kevin's father."

She stood before he could answer her. Paced to the end of the rug. To the couch. And again. "Olivia knows everything about our..." Hesitantly, her eyes flickered in his direction. "Well, she knows. She let me borrow her damn car. If Michaels was looking for weak spots, she would know them."

Cooper stood. Tried to reach for her, grab her arm. Anything to get her to stop and listen. "Calla. How would they even know Michaels? What's the motive?"

"I don't know," she snapped, temper fraying. "But they tried to get Vincent away from us last night. First Olivia, then Kevin..."

"You may not have nightmares," Cooper said gently, snaring her wrist with his fingers. "But you've still got demons, and you're starting to see them around every corner."

"You think I'm losing it," she said flatly.

"I think," he said, threading his fingers through hers, "you're tired of playing the underdog. And it's making you overly suspicious."

"My overconfidence nearly got us killed before."

"That doesn't mean you need to doubt everything and everyone around you," Cooper said softly, risking another step closer. Her listless expression never wavered. "I just don't want to make any wild assumptions. Not without proof. Let's go home for a few days, get some sleep. Eat some good food—"

"If you're referring to the Diner," Calla said, a warning note in her voice, "I'll do terrible, unspeakable things, Cooper Daniels."

He smirked. "Oh? I'm listening..."

She surprised him by slipping an errant curl behind his ear. "I don't know what's going to happen," she whispered, slipping an errant curl behind his ear. "But I know this. You're going to live a long, happy life, Cooper Daniels. That's a promise."

Taken aback by her somber mood, he could only watch as she disappeared into her bedroom. If he had to guess, that was code for conversation over.

"Conversation not over," he muttered, petulant, and followed her into the bedroom. Coffee and bagels can wait.

An empty suitcase sat open on the bed, waiting to be packed. Across the room, Calla had thrown open the closet doors and now considered a seemingly endless rack of clothes, coordinated by color and fabric.

He left the door cracked—no need to give Vincent and Nat the wrong idea—and sat on the edge of the bed, beside the suitcase, mentally bracing himself for a tirade of questions about shoes and pants and should I bring this or that. The usual slew of questions he'd grown accustomed to from the many hours he'd spent sprawled out on Lauren's bed, waiting for her to decide on what felt like an endless combination of outfits and makeup and jewelry.

So he was surprised when Calla did nothing of the sort. She simply ripped specific items from their hangers and tossed them on her bed, half-covering him with sweaters and blouses and, he noted with a sly smile, a bundle of lacy underwear. He took it upon himself to inspect those with a close eye.

"Stop being a pervert." Calla snatched the red thong from his hands.

He knew his brand of humor would be the best cure for her dark musings, so he shrugged and said, "Nothing I haven't taken off before."

"You're a child."

"That raises some concerning questions about our relationship," he said without thinking. Embarrassed heat crept up his hairline as she looked at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Uh...our, um—"

"Michaels or no Michaels," she said, creasing a pair of jeans with impressive efficiency. "Olivia was right about one thing. I think it's time we defined the relationship."

"That sounds like a cheesy 90s movie," he mumbled just as the front door opened, Vincent and Nat's voices filling the space with their warmth and laughter.

"Bagels!" Vincent called.

"Five minutes!" Cooper called back. He thought he heard Vincent laugh. Something about only five minutes, huh?

Cooper scowled.

Ignoring them both, Calla held up a lacy bra with her forefinger. "If you ever want to see this again, you'll hit the brakes on the sarcasm for all five of those minutes."

He opened his mouth. Envisioned her wearing said bra. And promptly closed it again.

"That's what I thought." But she was blushing as she said it, he noted with some small satisfaction. She packed away her jeans and began folding a pair of sweatpants, looking as nervous as he'd ever seen her. Maybe even more so. "Okay. No grand speeches. I like you and I think you like me. Which is problematic on many levels, considering our history. Not that it matters. Actually, it doesn't matter. It's just—" She growled in frustration and braced her hands against the edge of her suitcase, eyes squeezed shut. "What I'm trying to say is—"

"Will you be my girlfriend?" Cooper blurted.

Out in the living room, Vincent and Nat's conversation ground to a sudden halt.

Cooper cleared his throat. "Maybe I should have, ah...closed the door—"

Calla tossed aside the sweatpants she'd been folding and crawled into his lap, cradling his face between her hands. He immediately wrapped his arms around her waist, breathing her in. "Yes. My answer is yes." She pressed her lips to the tip of his nose. "Relationship, defined."

Cooper couldn't help the grin that split his face. "Really?"

"No. I'm a dirty little liar—"

He silenced her with a kiss. She curled her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck, drawing a groan from deep within his throat.

"Get a room!" Vincent called. Nat immediately shushed him.

Cooper pulled away long enough to shout back, "I'm already in a room, jackass."

Calla slid off his lap with a low laugh. "Business, Vincent. Mind your own." To Cooper, she said, "Help me pack. I'm hungry."

"We can pause for a bagel break," he pointed out, gathering up every scrap of lace he could get his hands on. "There." He piled her underthings in his lap. "My contribution to the effort."

"Thank you for your sacrifice," she said dryly, appraising her near-empty suitcase with a critical eye.

He watched her for another long minute, savoring this moment with her. Committing the angles of her face to memory; the fall of her hair over her shoulder; the small, barely perceptible tilt to her lips as she tried and failed to hide the same happiness he felt when he watched her, knowing she was his and he was hers.

Yet it wasn't enough.

I want more than this. Her brows furrowed as she contemplated the stack of clothes piled at her elbow. More than one moment. More than a hundred moments. I want a thousand. A hundred thousand. And I'm still not sure it would be enough.

Cooper propped himself up on his elbows. "What medicine do you want to go in?" He sounded desperate. Deranged. But he had to know. He had to know everything. Before...

Before what? Calla was going to be fine. He was going to be fine. They were going to be fine.

So why, then, did he suddenly feel as if their time had run out?

She tossed a sweater over his head, effectively blinding him and chasing off the worst of his morbid thoughts. "I don't know. Cardiology, maybe."

"Hankering to hold a human heart in your hands, huh?" he asked, dragging her sweater into his lap.

"Something like that." She glanced at him, mildly amused. "Nice hair."

"Medical experience," he mused. "Is that why you took the job at the funeral home?"

Her smile faded somewhat at the question. "Mortuary," she corrected automatically, eyes falling back down to her suitcase. "Yes. Something like that," she said again. "What's with the rapid-fire interview?"

Because of that empty look in your eyes. Like...like this was all the time we had. And I don't intend on wasting any of it. "I don't know. I guess I just realized..." He shrugged, fingering the sweater she'd thrown at him. "I never asked before."

"Fine. As long as we're on the subject..." She looked him over. "What about you? Headed to law school?"

"Oh, something like that," he teased.

"Ass." She snatched a sock from the suitcase and chucked it at his face.

He plucked it out of the air in a surprising display of dexterity. "Alright. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?"

Calla huffed. "I hate twenty questions."

"I'm serious!"

"Greenwitch," she deadpanned. When he just glared at her, she rolled her eyes. "I don't see why any of this matters."

I want you to want this, Calla. I want you to want a future. Like I do. He would do anything, ask anything to make her see that. To see something beyond Michaels and his deadlines. "How else are we supposed to figure out where we're gonna live after college?" he demanded weakly.

That's right, he thought as her expression transformed into one of deer-in-the-headlights surprise. After college. Because there will be an after. For you, and for me.

"We're going to have to coordinate med school and law school, which is gonna be a pain in the ass..." He trailed off when she'd still said nothing. "What?"

She set aside the turtleneck in her hands. "Nothing." Shoved it, unfolded, into her suitcase. "Where do you want to live?"

"Somewhere warm," he said immediately. "I'm sick and tired of the snow."

"Number of kids?" she teased, pretending to grill him as he'd done to her. He couldn't tell if she actually wanted an answer, or if she just wanted to chase away the shadows lingering around them.

He gave her his answer anyway. "One. Or three."

She frowned at him, clearly bewildered. "What's wrong with two?"

"Meh. Don't like the number."

Calla gave up on the suitcase and plopped down on the bed beside him, twisting so that her back was tucked firmly against his chest. "How are we going to make this work?" she whispered.

He wished he could see her face, her eyes. Then he might be able to understand the pain in her voice.

He pressed his lips to the curve of her shoulder. "I don't know what's going to happen," he said softly, borrowing her words from before, "but I know I want to figure it out with you."

He wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her close. He barely dared to breathe while he waited for her answer. He thought she might not bother with one at all. But then—

"Oxford," she said at last, the words low and unsure. "Somewhere far, far away from here."

He exhaled, long and slow. "Far, far away it is," he murmured. After a short silence, he added, "As long as we're together."

She tensed, her breath coiled tight. "Together," she promised, the world strangled and whisper-thin.

Cooper closed his eyes and pretended that her promise wasn't a lie.