"Different how."
"Distracted. Quieter than usual, even for you." She glanced sideways at him, careful, reading him the way she always did. "I’m good at this, remember. I notice things."
"I told Vivian I’m fine. Same answer applies."
"I didn’t ask if you’re fine. I said you’re different." She said it plainly, no accusation in it, just observation, the same clinical precision she brought to grading his practice exams. "You don’t have to tell me why. I just wanted you to know I noticed, in case that’s useful information to have."
Jason walked in silence for a moment, turning that over, something in her quiet persistence landing differently than Vivian’s easy concern or Ben’s blunt questioning had. "It’s complicated. Stuff I can’t really explain right now."
"Okay." She accepted that without pushing further, the same restraint she’d shown once before, and they walked another block in comfortable quiet before she spoke again, lighter this time, deliberately shifting the mood. "For what it’s worth, whatever it is, you seem like you’re handling it as well as anyone could."
"You don’t actually know that."
"I know you well enough now to guess." She smiled slightly, and something about the simple confidence of it eased a fraction of the tension sitting in Jason’s chest, the same way her handwritten note had that first day, small and unearned and yet somehow exactly what he needed to hear.
They reached the corner where their paths split, and this time Bree didn’t invent an excuse or bolt in the wrong direction, just paused there, facing him properly.
"See you tomorrow," she said.
"See you tomorrow."
She held his gaze a second longer than the goodbye strictly required, something unspoken passing between them, and then turned and walked off in her actual direction this time, no detour, no panic, and Jason watched her go for a moment before continuing on toward his own building, the evening settling quiet around him.
He was climbing the last flight of stairs when his phone buzzed.
Sarah: hey. can i come over? need to talk about something
Jason stopped on the landing, the message sitting there with a weight that felt different from her usual texts, less playful, more deliberate, and something cold settled low in his stomach at the phrase need to talk about something, the same universally dreaded sentence that never preceded anything good.
Jason: yeah of course. everything okay?
Sarah: yeah just want to talk in person. on my way
He read it twice, turning it over, and let himself into his apartment with considerably less calm than he’d walked in with a moment ago, dropping his bag by the door and pacing a slow, restless loop around the living room while he waited.
What could this be about. He ran through possibilities fast, the same instinct that laid out chess positions now scrambling through worst-case scenarios instead. Did she find out something. Did someone say something to her. Did I slip up somewhere and not notice. He thought back over the last few days, searching for any moment he might have said the wrong name, left the wrong message visible, done anything that could have tipped her off to the quiet chaos currently running underneath his entire life.
He couldn’t find one. That didn’t make the anxiety sit any easier.
The knock landed fifteen minutes later, and Jason crossed the room fast, pulling the door open to find Sarah standing there, her expression harder to read than usual, something serious sitting behind her eyes that made his stomach drop another inch.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey. Come in." He stepped back, letting her past him into the apartment, and she crossed to the couch, sitting down instead of her usual immediate closeness, leaving actual space this time, and Jason felt that absence like a physical thing.
He sat down across from her instead of beside her, matching the distance, and waited.
"So," Sarah said, hands folded in her lap, the same posture she’d had that first night explaining her panic at his kiss. "I wanted to tell you something, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to say it all day."
"Okay."
"My roommate," she said. "The one you’ve never actually met, even though we’ve been together for a few weeks now."
Jason felt something shift, unexpected, the anxiety recalibrating toward a direction he hadn’t considered. "Okay."
"She’s been acting weird lately. Distant. Distracted." Sarah exhaled, choosing her words carefully. "I think something’s going on with her, and I don’t really know what, and I guess I wanted to ask you something, and it’s going to sound like a strange request."
"Ask away."
"Would you be willing to come by my place sometime? Meet her properly? I know it’s weird that you two have never met even though we live together, and honestly I think part of why she’s been off lately is that she feels like she’s being kept separate from my life, which isn’t what I meant to do, it just kind of happened that way because we always end up here instead."
Jason felt something loosen in his chest, relief flooding in fast enough to leave him briefly lightheaded, the dread from the last twenty minutes deflating all at once. That’s it. That’s all this is.
"Yeah. Of course. I’d like to meet her."
"Really?"
"Really. I didn’t realize it was even a thing you were worried about."
"I wasn’t, until today, when she basically snapped at me for not introducing you two yet, which isn’t like her at all. She’s usually pretty easygoing about that stuff." Sarah’s shoulders eased slightly too, some of the earlier tension in her posture finally settling. "I thought this was going to be a bigger conversation than it is, honestly. I’ve been anxious about bringing it up all day."
"I thought you were about to break up with me, if I’m being honest."
Sarah’s eyes widened. "What? No. God, no, why would you think that."
"You said ’need to talk’ and then walked in here looking like you were bracing for something. My brain went to the worst place immediately."
"I was bracing because I felt weird asking you to meet my roommate, not because I was planning some huge breakup speech." She laughed, short and relieved, and finally crossed the space between them, sitting down properly beside him this time, the distance from earlier dissolving. "You’re an idiot sometimes, you know that?"
"I’ve been told."
"Good. Glad we’re on the same page." She leaned into him, the tension from the last hour fully draining out of the room now, and Jason let himself relax into it too, grateful beyond what the moment probably warranted for something as simple as good news arriving instead of bad.
"So when do you want me to meet her," he asked.
"This weekend, maybe? I’ll check with her, make sure the timing works, but I think she’d actually really like that. She’s been kind of a mess the last week or two, honestly, though she won’t tell me exactly why. I think meeting you might actually cheer her up, weirdly enough. Give her something normal to focus on instead of whatever’s stressing her out."
Jason nodded, filing the plan away, some quiet unease still sitting underneath the relief, though he couldn’t quite place why.
"Sounds good. I’ll clear my schedule."
"You better. I want this to actually happen, not get pushed off for three weeks because you’re both busy." She settled more comfortably against him, and for a while neither of them said anything else, just sitting there in the quiet of his apartment, the earlier anxiety fully replaced now with something steadier.
"Hey," Jason said eventually, the thought arriving unplanned. "I love you, you know. In case today made that unclear somehow."
Sarah tilted her head up to look at him, something soft in her expression. "I know. I love you too. Even when you’re being an idiot about imaginary breakups."
"Especially then."
She laughed again, and pulled him into a kiss, easy and familiar now, and for a while the countdown sitting quietly in the corner of Jason’s vision faded into the background entirely, the way it sometimes did when he let himself actually be present in a moment instead of constantly running calculations about all the ones still ahead of him.
They stayed like that for a while, the evening settling in slow around them, and eventually Sarah pulled back, checking the time on her phone.
"I should head back," she said. "Early class tomorrow, and I still have to actually ask my roommate about the weekend before I promise you anything concrete."
"Go. I’ll survive without you for twelve hours."
"Barely, probably." She grinned, standing, gathering her bag. "I’ll text you once I’ve got a day locked in. And Jason?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for being willing to do this. I know meeting a roommate isn’t exactly a thrilling Saturday plan, but it means a lot to me that you didn’t hesitate."
"Of course I didn’t hesitate. You’re important to me. That means the people important to you matter too."
Something in her expression softened further at that, and she leaned down to kiss him once more before heading for the door, pausing there the way she always did lately, a small habit that had become its own quiet ritual between them.
"Bye, boyfriend."
"Bye, girlfriend."
She left, the door clicking shut behind her, and Jason sat there in the quiet aftermath, the relief of the evening slowly giving way again to the low, persistent hum of everything else still unresolved.
Six days.
He glanced at the corner of his vision, the number having ticked down again without his noticing exactly when.
Meeting Sarah’s roommate this weekend. A project with Nadia starting soon. Bree not running from me anymore. Vivian noticing something’s off without pushing. Alex offering coffee at exactly the wrong moment for it to feel entirely innocent.
He leaned back against the couch cushions, staring at the ceiling, turning the whole tangled mess over one more time, the same way he turned over everything, methodical, patient, looking for some clean answer sitting underneath it all.
I’m not going to use any of them.
The thought arrived firm this time, more certain than it had been in days, something settling into place now that the immediate anxiety of Sarah’s visit had passed.
Whatever the system wants, whatever the penalty ends up being, I’m not going to treat another person like a box to check. I did that once by accident with Sarah, almost, before any of this started, back when I was running math on rewards instead of actually seeing her. I’m not doing it on purpose to someone else now.
So what happens when the six days run out.
He didn’t have an answer to that yet.
He sat with the absence of one for a long moment, the apartment quiet around him, the evening finally settling into full dark outside his window, and let himself feel the weight of it fully instead of pushing it aside the way he usually did.
I’ll figure it out.
He stood eventually, crossing to the kitchen to find something for dinner, the countdown still sitting there patient in the corner of his vision, unmoved by his resolve, uninterested in his conscience, counting down toward a deadline that didn’t care in the slightest what kind of man he was trying to be while it ran.
His phone buzzed once more as he pulled open the fridge, and he glanced at it, expecting Sarah, already smiling faintly at the thought.
It wasn’t Sarah.
Unknown Number: hey, this is bree. got your number from nadia’s group chat export lol. is it weird that i wanted to text you outside of study group?
Jason stared at the message for a long moment, the fridge door still open, cold air drifting out into the kitchen, and felt something complicated settle into his chest, not guilt exactly, not yet, but something adjacent to it, waiting patiently for permission to fully arrive.
He typed back slowly.
Jason: not weird at all
He hit send before he could think too hard about it, and stood there in his quiet kitchen, the fridge humming beside him, the countdown ticking somewhere just out of sight, six days now and closing, and no closer to an answer than he’d been an hour ago.
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