Chapter 54: Darcy Leans In

Georgia

He shows up exactly when I’m lonely enough to let him.

It’s Thursday, two days after the ache behind my sternum first bloomed out of nowhere, two days of watching Puck disappear around corners like I’m something he’s allergic to. I’m sitting alone at a corner table in the library, our lit project spread out in front of me, Puck’s hurried handwriting from Liam’s folder still tucked inside my notebook, and absolutely no partner to work on it with. I’ve read the same three pages of criticism so many times the words have stopped meaning anything, just black shapes swimming on white paper.

My fingers drift to my collar out of habit, the way they’ve been doing all week, reaching for the small silver pin Mandi fastened there before the gala. It isn’t there. I don’t remember taking it off. I don’t remember losing it either, and something about that blank space in my memory sits wrong in my stomach before I shake it off and go back to my book.

I don’t hear him cross the room. One second the table is empty across from me, and the next he’s just there, like he knew exactly which corner to check first.

"You look like you’re losing a fight with that book," Darcy says, amusement curling through his voice.

I look up. He’s standing at the end of the table, hands in his pockets, wearing the kind of easy, unbothered smile that doesn’t ask anything of me at all.

"I am," I say. "It’s winning."

"Mind if I referee?" he asks, already reaching for the chair.

He doesn’t wait for an actual answer. He pulls out the seat across from me and drops into it like he belongs there, like this was always where the afternoon was headed. My shoulders loosen without my permission. There’s no static in the air when he sits down, no heat radiating off him that makes my skin feel like it’s standing at attention, no silence that stretches too long and means too much. He’s just a boy in a library chair, and for the first time in days my chest doesn’t hurt.

"What are you working on?" he asks, tilting his head to read the spine of my book.

"Group project," I say, dry as chalk dust. "Except my partner’s decided group projects are apparently a solo activity now."

I say it lightly, like a joke, but something in my voice must give me away, because Darcy’s eyebrows lift a fraction before he smooths his expression back into easy amusement.

"His loss," he says, simple and unhurried, and doesn’t push further.

He doesn’t ask who. He doesn’t ask why. He just reaches across the table, turns my book to face him, and starts reading like he actually cares what it says.

That’s the thing about Darcy. He never pushes. I’ve noticed it before, and I notice it again now, the way he lets a subject drop the second it turns uncomfortable, the way he never corners me with a question I don’t want to answer. It’s such a relief after weeks of feeling like every conversation with Puck was a locked door I kept throwing myself against.

We work for almost an hour. He’s smarter than I expected, or maybe I just expected less of him because his charm is so loud it drowns out everything else about him. He picks apart a passage of symbolism with an ease that makes my own notes look amateur, and when I disagree with his interpretation he doesn’t get defensive.

"Prove me wrong, then," he says, grinning like disagreement is a game he enjoys losing.

By the time we pack up, the library has gone quiet around us, most other students already filtered out for dinner. I realize I’ve laughed more in the last hour than I have in the last week combined.

"Walk you back?" he asks, already standing, already holding my bag out for me like the answer is obvious.

I take it from him. "Sure."

The walk across campus is cold air and long shadows and Darcy filling the silence with stories that don’t ask anything of me. He tells me about his old school, about a disastrous ski trip, about a teacher who apparently hated him on sight for no reason he’s ever figured out. I don’t have to work at any of it. I don’t have to decode anything, don’t have to wonder what he isn’t saying, don’t have to feel the weight of some enormous secret pressing against the space between us.

*This is what normal feels like*, I think, and the ease of it startles me - no heat crawling under my skin, no silence that means too much.

It’s nice. That’s the word that keeps surfacing, over and over. Nice. Uncomplicated. Easy. I let myself sink into it the way you sink into a warm bath after a long day, grateful for something that doesn’t demand anything back.

We reach my dorm. The porch light is on, throwing a small yellow circle over the front steps. Darcy stops at the bottom of them instead of walking me all the way up, which feels like exactly the right amount of distance, not too much and not too little.

"Thanks for today," I say. "I actually got something done."

"Anytime." He smiles, warm without trying too hard to be. "We should do it again. Minus the group project, if you want. Just the coffee part."

"Maybe," I say, surprising myself by meaning it.

He nods like that’s enough for now, unhurried, and turns to go. Then he pauses, glancing back over his shoulder, and his eyes catch mine in the porch light with a gentleness that doesn’t quite match the rest of him.

"You look tired," he says, quiet, almost tender. "You should sleep better."

It’s such a small thing to say. It sounds like concern, the kind of throwaway kindness you’d expect from anyone who noticed the shadows under your eyes after a long week. I smile and nod and tell him I will, and I mean to. I really do mean to go inside and fall straight into bed and sleep the way normal people sleep.

I just wave and climb the steps, already thinking about nothing more complicated than my pillow, and let the door close behind me.