John smiled at me across the room. How dare he. After avoiding me for almost two weeks, all but ignoring me in class, and running off right after—now he had the audacity to smile at me? And the worst part was: my heart seemed to forget its fury and skipped a beat. I quickly averted my gaze and stared at Professor Wolf instead. I need to be better.

As interesting as the lecture was, my thoughts couldn't have been further from the increasing salience of the conflict which eventually led to the Civil War. I could not believe him. Why did I even like this guy? I knew it the first day I saw him: he was a player. Hot one day and cold the next. John Jay was nothing like Liam. So what if Liam didn't make my body burn up whenever he was near? I was comfortable with him. He was a model student and dependable and emotionally balanced. All things John was not. And yet he had the nerve to send me this stupid dazzling smile of his that was never just a smile because just a smile wouldn't have made my stupid stomach flutter.

By the time class was dismissed, I was fuming. All of my things flew in my backpack haphazardly and my feet carried me out into the hallway to stomp off. A hand caught my elbow, stopping me in my tracks.

"Grace, a word?"

Staring straight ahead, I deadpanned: "That was three already."

He let go of my arm allowing me to turn around. "Come on, don't be like that. I want to see if you're okay."

I shouldn't be like this? Anger sealed my vocal cords and not a word came out of my open mouth even though I had a lot of thoughts. He seemed to sense the situation was about to get out of hand, so he gently pulled me in the direction of the exit. I didn't trust myself not to attack him if he were to insist I talk to him, so I quickened my pace and took the usual path toward the library. The idea of forced silence sounded like deliverance right about now. John and I needed different things: he needed to leave me alone and I needed to scream internally.

Of course, being the stubborn idiot that he was, he fell into step beside me. "You know I'll outrun you any day."

I swear to God. The sidewalk looked like it was covered in a thin coat of confectioner's sugar, and the temperature had dropped quite a bit since last week, so my chestnut brown faux-suede winter boots going into their third season had been the right choice—a gift for starting college from Grampa. Oh, if only he were here to help me make sense of this outrage.

As we took the shortcut across the lawn, John finally cleared his throat. "Are you going to keep ignoring me?"

"That's rich coming from you," I snapped, now pushing through the library entrance and keeping my eyes glued ahead. I stormed up the stairs.

"Would you stop?" he asked with irritation in his voice when we had reached the second floor and pulled me to a halt by my arm. Someone shushed him which he barely acknowledged. I ripped myself from his touch, but stood, scowling.

He lowered his voice, if only slightly. "Things got pretty crazy the other week. I want to know how you are. Check in."

The library was crazy busy at this time of the semester, and clicking keyboards and turning pages would have normally calmed me down, but I was too upset this time.

"Please, don't feel obliged. I know you have someplace better to be and someone better to see." My voice dripped with bitter venom of resentment.

Liam had stopped by my room the day after the incident, called and texted, he been worried sick about me. Jessica had comforted and supported me, even Devin had checked in. But all this time, not a word from John. On the contrary, he had looked like he would have taken back words that he had once said to me if he had been able to.

He sighed, looking at the shelves all around us lining the desks in a neat fashion. "Grace, come on. I'm sorry for going AWOL, but I think we both know we can't hang out anymore."

Even my whisper was too loud for the setting, but I couldn't have stopped the conversation now unless I fainted. "That's good to know, thank you. I bet I wouldn't have figured that out during the two weeks in which you avoided me like the plague."

"What do you want me to say? I'm sorry, truly. Let's talk about it over tea at the library café."

"I thought you couldn't hang out. Ugh, you're so fucking confusing all the time. So if that's all, I'd like to get started on my term paper now, if that's okay. So if there's anything else you want to say, speak now or forever hold your peace."

"I—fine." Finally, he lowered his voice to a volume that didn't allow bystanders to eavesdrop."You were right about what you said to me in the kitchen in New York, we needed to stop, and we damn near missed the final stop to get off that train." He took a breath. "I hope we can be friends again at some point."."

"I won't be available whenever it happens to be convenient for you. I value myself more than that."

"No, I know. I want to be friends like we used to, but... it's difficult right now."

"What the fuck, John. You obviously have more to say, so spit it out, because I'm tired of beating around the bush."

His gaze finally met mine and eyed me for a couple of seconds before he said: "I know you have a crush on me and I need you to know I never meant to hurt you.."

Within a second, the thought carousel in my head, which had been going dangerously fast anyway, spiraled off its hinges. Figures broke loose, children screamed and fell off into the grass. The happy melody from the speakers turned into an off-pitch tune. My breath rattled in the back of my throat, all warmth draining from my palms. Then my eyes narrowed into slits.

"This is bullshit and you know it. I do have feelings for you, but I'm not the only one. And you won't be able to salvage your relationship as long as you keep lying to yourself." I mustered all my courage to not turn away, irritated that my eyes were beginning to glaze over.

His warm hazel eyes grew wide and I could practically see his mouth go dry as he swallowed hard.

"What about salvaging your own relationship?"""You know—" I stopped myself.

"Know what?" His eyebrows knitted together. When I didn't answer, he probed: "Does Liam know you slept at my place that night? About your... feelings?"

"No! And I swear, if you say anything... I've failed him more times than I can count. Now I'm trying to be good enough for him for once and that meansgetting over my unreciprocated feelings for you. Or are you telling me they're not?"

John's mouth opened and closed again, then his eyes moved to the ground.

"Right," I croaked before my throat closed up.

Despite trouble breathing, I brushed past him and sat at a desk near the panorama window offering a spectacular view of the town and the Green Mountains that I couldn't enjoy today. It was tough to enjoy the scenery when your chest was being ripped open like velcro and then your heart was being torn out, trampled on, haphazardly brushed off, and then put back in, dirty and ill-functioning, infusing every cell of your body with prickly toxins with every beat. Not even my eyes would flush out the toxins in their salt water, so all I was was a pitiful appearance.

I needed to be better, but if being better was this painful, what was good about it?

***

For the next week or so, I threw myself into studying for my finals. I thought it might be difficult to focus, but surprisingly, studying the concept of social dominance orientation and revising the consequences of the 19th century expanding republic for political communication took my mind off the dumpster fire that was my personal life. The C on the social psychology midterm was still an open wound and I would not make a habit of getting bad grades. I couldn't afford it. Jessica was right, my focus had strayed lately. No man was more important than my future and it was time I acted like it again.

A pleasant side effect of my academic immersion was that I didn't have acknowledge how few people I could have talked to about my whole love triangle (or square?) debacle—not John, obviously, definitely not Liam, Devin had specifically asked to be kept out of it, Linh and Greg simultaneously knew too much and too little about what was going on, and I would have rather had the ground swallow me than to call Grampa or, worse, Dad. I was too ashamed. Jessica was the only one who was on my side. She was always on my side.

Which made it strange that she didn't support my decision to stay with Liam.

'It wasn't your decision, Grace. He just didn't let you go.'

Perhaps that was true, but what did it matter now? He was right not to give up. I had done wrong by him so many times, and even the parts he knew about were more than enough reason to leave me. But he hadn't. So the least I could do was to try harder. Be better. So if studying my butt off kept me out of trouble, that was what I was going to do.

Per Jessica's suggestion, I refrained from meeting Liam during those days, to focus on myself and my academics. I ate my meals with Jessica and spent the nights in her room where we shared her favorite large fuzzy blanket and worked our way through her holiday romance watchlist. Some days it was torture to me, all the more so because they made me think of John, but I couldn't ditch my best friend for our holiday tradition because I'd been stupid enough to fall for a taken man. Jessica asked if I was punishing myself by watching Prince Richard make dreamy eyes at Amber in A Christmas Prince, but I insisted I was fine. Maybe she should have majored in psychology and I in Spanish and German. Sehr gut.

Studying also helped me suppress the knowledge that I would go to my mom's for Christmas. I wasn't sure how I felt about the fact that Dad and Grampa were invited, too. On the one hand, I was glad I wouldn't be alone with this family of almost strangers. On the other hand, Mom and Dad hadn't been in the same room for longer than the occasional pick-up or drop-off or quick cup of coffee in years. Grampa had told me not to worry about it, they were adults after all, but he couldn't fool me.

One secret I had discovered as I had grown older was that adults were just children who had lived longer. I had every right to doubt their encounter would be thoroughly civilized. No one had said so, but I knew they had agreed on this as a courtesy to me so I would spend the holidays with the family at all. The stunt I had pulled on Thanksgiving, staying with another family, had evidently made an impression. At least Grampa would be there as a buffer.

When all finals were over and done with and probably aced, the night before we all left for break, I went to Liam's place. Lying beside each other in his bed, we had finished the first episode of the Cold War documentary miniseries his cultural history professor had recommended and now rested in the darkness of his room. The fan of his laptop was blowing quietly. A couple of his housemates laughed in the living room, but the noise was muffled through the walls. An undoubtedly icy wind ruffled through the maple tree in front of his window, and he was breathing above my ear. I was cuddled against his chest and could have fallen asleep this way if he hadn't picked that moment to speak.

"I can't believe I won't see you for three weeks."

"Time objectively passes quicker on break than during the semester," I murmured, eyes closed.

He shifted and pulled me closer into his chest. "Not objectively. I didn't see you at all this past week."

"Don't pout. You'll know it was worth it when I get As on all of my finals."

He grumbled an agreement.

After a couple of seconds, he asked: "Are you falling asleep?"

"No," I replied sleepily, eliciting a chuckle from him.

He kissed my temple softly, then the side of my mouth.

"Do you want to stay the night?" he whispered.

I groaned. "No, I should probably head back."

"You sure?"

"Mhm-hm." I lay there for another couple of seconds before I stretched and yawned, then rose from the bed. As I sat on the edge of the bed, Liam threw his arms around me from the side and burrowed his face in my tousled hair.

"Stay." His voice was so low I felt its reverberations on the skin of my neck.

"Liam," I said kindly and ran my hand along his arm. "I have to get up early tomorrow to catch a ride with that girl from Maine."

He sighed, then sat up after a couple of seconds. "Okay, then let me at least walk you to your building."

He held my gloved hand in his all the way up to my building where he took off his gloves and so did I. Jessica had been right to encourage me to focus on studying, but I should have at least texted him these past days. I did enjoy spending time with him, and I had chosen him.

"Thanks," I suddenly said out of this bizarre mood.

"For what?" asked Liam in confused amusement.

"For putting up with me, I guess. And being so patient and kind."

Liam's grin was so wide it threatened to split his face. Gently, he took my hands into his. "You already said that last week. What's up? You're not usually this compliment-y."

I pulled away one hand and covered my face with it. "I'll shut up now."

"I didn't say I didn't like it."

Carefully, he removed my hand from my face and held it in his again.

"I'll miss you," he whispered.

"I'll miss you, too," I replied and meant it.

"Call me, okay? Not just text. I'll call you, too."

I nodded, then leaned forward and kissed him. My stomach fluttered. Good. This was what it was supposed to feel like. When we broke apart, I looked into Liam's warm, brown irises and smiled. He cupped my face in his hand and kissed me again, this time pulling me closer into him. His lips were cracked from the cold, but warm and gentle on mine. His tongue on my bottom lip made my head spin ever so slightly.

When we broke apart, he looked at me like I held all the stars of the universe in my eyes.

"Good night, Liam. Have a good break." Getting on my tiptoes, I pecked him on the lips one last time.

"Good night, Grace. Merry Christmas."