Cara had never been more grateful for Cian’s early morning classes before this moment, and truly, it was the small mercies in life that gave her happiness. As she ran out of the Uber and sprinted up the stairs the best she could, she already knew that her brother would not be home, so as she ran through the door, she started stripping on her way to the bathroom, dropping them in the hamper in her room. She would die if Cian found Kai’s sweatshirts and her ripped leather pants in there when he went to do the laundry, so she made the mental note to ensure that she did the laundry before he did.

She had already told the driver that she would pay him extra to stay till she made it downstairs, and according to her phone, she had seven minutes to get herself presentable to ensure that she had eight minutes to get to class. Thankfully, Cara was the type of person to get everything that she needed ready the previous night.

It might’ve been the fastest shower in her life, considering her muscles were sore enough to require an hour under the scorching hot water, but she managed to get downstairs within the seven minutes, and she grabbed a bottle of water and a banana on her way down.

Finally sitting in the backseat of the car, she threw her head back against the seat, catching her breath for a minute before pulling her phone out to check the messages and emails she had ignored since the previous night.

Misty had responded to her message from earlier, but there was also a text from Kai. From the notification bar, she could read that he wanted to set up a time for lunch so they could talk, but Cara immediately knew that she had to sort through what she wanted to do and say before she could talk to him. It was the fear in her acting up again, that much she was aware of, but she didn’t know what else to do. The feelings she had for him scared her, but so did he. He had the power to break her heart, and that in itself made her feel uneasy.

She’d never had a one-night stand with a guy she truly liked — hell, the last time she had one was freshman year of college — and Cara didn’t want to leave it as a one-night stand. She truly enjoyed herself with him, and she could tell that there was a connection between them that had formed, or maybe even was already there — she was just too blind to see it. She saw it in his eyes when she called him by his real name, the way his eyes had focused in on hers with that gleam in his eyes when he said he didn’t want her to have any regrets.

Cara didn’t regret it, not at all.

But the last twelve hours had to be packed away into a box and stored in the back of her mind because she did not have the time to deal with this. So, with a heavy heart and guiltiness filling her up, she responded to Kai to tell him that they were going to have to push that lunch back.

All he responded with was a single okay. It was one word, but it had the power to make something twist in her gut.

~~~

“So,” Misty started, and then never continued. Cara sighed as she took a bite of her sandwich. She already knew what her best friend was going to ask even before she had said it, so she knew what was coming.

“Spit it out, Misty.”

“How was it?” she asked, leaning in with wide eyes. One would think that Misty was trying to live vicariously through Cara, but really, it tended to be the opposite. Misty went out more and had been in a few relationships, so Cara was the one that was hearing about the dates and the . Cara just figured that her best friend was excited that it was finally her turn to be nosy and pry for the details. Of course, Cara was never this invasive, but she didn’t mind. She trusted Misty, and that was enough.

“It was something,” Cara vaguely responded, being difficult on purpose. She didn’t really mind telling Misty the details, but she wanted to keep them to herself for a bit longer. Maybe even at least until she had a chance to talk to Kai, which after her morning class, was probably not going to happen for a bit thanks to her upcoming midterms and assignments. As more time passed since leaving Kai’s apartment, the weird feeling in her gut just kept getting stronger and made her stomach twist even more. Maybe it was a sign that she should finally listen to. Her heart was telling her to go after Kai, and it was right.

She needed to talk to him, and she needed to get this feeling off her chest. Misty was right — had been right — about how she needed to talk to Kai and figure out this situation, especially because Cara was beginning to believe that her feelings were reciprocated. She considered this earlier this morning too, and yet it didn’t bother her until Kai had barely responded to her.

It didn’t even hit her that he might be feeling something like her since then.

She ran out on him, not the other way around. He tried to reach out to her; she avoided him. He texted her again; she canceled the plans.

“Okay, and was that something mind blowing?”

Instead of answering her question, Cara focused on a tree behind Misty as everything else fell away to background noise. Looking at her best friend, she knew that she could easily spill her thoughts to her and get some advice, but Cara also knew that she had done more than enough of that when it came to Kai.

"I'm going to tell him.”

“What?” Misty asked, the confusion clear in her voice. Cara looked back at Misty to find her confused expression slowly turning into horror. “Please don’t tell me that you’re going to tell your brother about the ,” she warned.

“Oh god no. Are you insane?” Cara retorted, her head jerking back at even the thought of discussing her life with her brother. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know!” Misty exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air before dropping them back down. “You looked off into the distance like something was wrong and then in response to my question about the , you just said that you were going to tell him. What the hell does that mean?”

Cara dropped her voice to a whisper, “I meant that I was going to tell Kai about my feelings, you idiot. Not my brother that I had with Kai. And why don’t you say that a bit louder? I don’t think everyone heard you.”

“If you already knew you were going to tell him then why the hell did you need me?”

“I don’t know!”

“You calling me an idiot is rich considering you’re one too.”

“I think it comes with being your friend. I’ve lost IQ points since meeting you.”

“It’s because you’re finally on my level now.”

Cara stared at her with a blank look. “And you think I was going to tell you everything.”

That brought a reaction out of Misty, and Cara stifled the urge to laugh. “Wait! No! I want to know!”

Cara closed the take out box that held her sandwich, and she stood up. “Too late,” she sighed, “I need to go to the library.” 

“You didn’t even finish eating, stop lying,” Misty challenged, narrowing her gaze at her.

She was lying, but she also technically wasn’t because she did need to go to the library. Just not immediately.

“I’m not,” she insisted. “You lost your chance to ask me.” Messing with her best friend was too much fun.

Misty glowered but let it go anyway. “I’ll get it out of you one way or another. Besides,” she said, slyness seeping into her voice, “if you were going to go talk to Kai, there will be repeats of last night.”

Cara’s face burned as the memories of last night flooded her because oh my god, Misty was right. If things went well, there would be repeats.

“And I can see that you know I’m right,” Misty said with a gleeful grin on her face.

“You’re horrible, and I’m going.”

“Love you too!”

~~~

The universe really was against Cara talking to Kai.

Granted, she could’ve talked to him over the phone or through text, but the conversation she needed to have with him wasn’t something that felt comfortable to do anywhere but in person.

However, thanks to their conflicting schedules because of exams, assignments, extracurriculars, and preparing for job interviews, things were getting intensely hectic. All they had time for were texts here and there where they talked about how classes were going and how they wanted to sleep for the next year, but they both skirted around the truth of what they really wanted to talk about. It seemed that they had silently agreed to wait until they could see each other in person.

It didn’t happen until almost a week before Easter weekend. Cara didn’t celebrate, but she knew that Kai participated due to the charity egg hunt for kids that his parents held every year. 

He mentioned it to her in a phone call one day, a rarity for them. Typically, the two of them prefered to talk through text be