Three days.

That's how long I manage to avoid James Whitmore, which is approximately two days and twenty-three hours longer than I have any right to expect of myself. The problem with a school merger is that there's nowhere to hide. The hallways are too crowded, the classrooms too interconnected, the debate room too small for two people determined not to occupy the same space.

I become a ghost in my own school.

I slip into the library during lunch instead of the cafeteria. I take the long route past the art wing to avoid the main corridor. I sit in the back of debate practice, my body angled away from the front table where James and I used to sit, before everything became complicated and terrifying and real.

Because that's what the kiss did. It made everything real.

Before, I could rationalize the tension as intellectual sparring, as the natural friction between two competitive people at the top of their game. I could tell myself that the way my pulse accelerated when he entered a room was just adrenaline, that the way I found myself looking for him in crowds was just habit, that the way he made me want to be reckless was just a momentary lapse in judgment.

But that kiss—gentle and consuming and everything I've been terrified of—that made it impossible to hide from what's actually happening.

I'm falling for James Whitmore. Spectacularly. Catastrophically. In a way that defies all logic and self-preservation.

And I'm absolutely losing my mind.

Mom notices something's wrong when I call her Wednesday night, my voice too tight, my words too clipped. She has this superpower—the ability to detect emotional distress through the phone like some kind of maternal sonar. It's deeply inconvenient.

"Margot," she says, and there's that tone. The concerned tone. The I-know-you're-lying tone. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. School is fine. Debate is fine."

"You're using your debate voice. The one where you're trying to convince me of something you don't believe yourself."

I hate that she knows me this well.

"There's just... a person," I admit, picking at a thread on my comforter. "And I'm being stupid about it."

There's a pause. I can practically hear her settling in, the way she does when she's about to dispense maternal wisdom, which is either going to be incredibly helpful or incredibly annoying. The Schrödinger's cat of parental advice.

"Are they worth being stupid about?" she asks finally.

"No," I say immediately. Then, more honestly: "I don't know. Maybe. That's the problem."

"The problem is that you're scared," she corrects gently. "You've always been scared of needing people. Your father—"

"Mom, don't."

"I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying that you learned very young that caring about someone gives them the power to hurt you. And you've spent the last six years building walls instead of bridges."

"These walls have served me well," I argue, though my voice lacks conviction.

"Have they? Or have they just kept you safe and lonely?"

The question sits between us like something alive, something that won't die no matter how much I want to ignore it.

After we hang up, I lie in bed and stare at my ceiling and try very hard not to think about the way James's hands felt against my face, the way he said my name like it was something sacred, the way he looked at me like I wasn't too much, too broken, too impossible.

I fail spectacularly at not thinking about it.

Thursday morning, I'm cornered.

It happens in the parking lot after school, which is both inconvenient and entirely predictable. James has always been good at strategy, and he apparently decided that the parking lot—public enough that I can't make a scene, private enough that we won't be overheard—was the ideal ambush location.

He steps in front of my car with his hands in his pockets and his expression set in that stubborn line that means he's not moving until we talk.

"You can't keep avoiding me," he says without preamble.

"I'm not avoiding you. I'm simply prioritizing other things."

"You literally took the stairs instead of the elevator yesterday to avoid being in an enclosed space with me for forty-five seconds."

"The stairs are good for cardiovascular health."

"Margot." He steps closer, and I hate that my body immediately responds—pulse quickening, breath catching, that dangerous pull low in my stomach. "Talk to me. Please."

There's something about the way he says please that makes it impossible to maintain my ice-queen composure. Something about the vulnerability in it, the genuine need, the way it suggests that I matter enough to ask.

Damn him.

"Get in the car," I say, unlocking it with more force than necessary. "Before someone sees us."

He doesn't point out that I'm the one who just suggested we be alone together. He just climbs into the passenger seat and closes the door, and suddenly my car smells like him—sandalwood and amber and something warm that makes my chest ache.

I start driving without a destination in mind, just moving because standing still feels impossible. The afternoon is grey and heavy with the threat of rain, the kind of weather that makes everything feel more dramatic, more consequential.

"I'm scared," James says quietly, after I've been driving for ten minutes in silence. "Of this. Of you. Of how much I want something I'm not sure I'm allowed to have."

I don't respond. I keep my hands on the wheel, my eyes on the road, my defenses as high as they'll go.

"My family has a plan for me," he continues, and there's something different in his voice now—something raw and real that I've never heard from him before. "Whitmore men go to Yale or Harvard. We join the firm or go into politics. We marry the right girl from the right family, have the right number of children, live the right life. It's all very organized. Very controlled."

"Sounds suffocating," I murmur.

"It is." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Do you know what my father said when I told him I wanted to do debate? That it was a good extracurricular for my resume. Not that it was something I loved. Not that it was something I chose. Just that it looked good on paper."

I risk a glance at him. He's looking out the window, his jaw tight, his hands clenched in his lap.

"Debate is the only place where I get to be myself," he says. "Where I get to think my own thoughts, make my own arguments, exist on my own terms. And then you showed up and you were so brilliant and so fierce and so completely yourself, and suddenly debate wasn't just an escape anymore. It was something else. You were something else."

The rain starts then, fat drops that patter against the windshield. I turn on the wipers and pull into a quiet overlook that I used to come to when I needed to think, back when I was still figuring out who I was.

"I'm going to hurt you," I say, and it's not a question. It's a statement of fact, a warning, a plea for him to run while he still can.

"Maybe," James says. "But I don't think you will. I think you're terrified that I'm going to hurt you, and you're trying to preemptively destroy this before it can destroy you."

"That's very perceptive of you," I say coldly. "Did they teach that in your privileged private school?"

"You're deflecting."

"I'm being realistic."

"You're being scared," he corrects, and there's no judgment in his voice, just understanding. "And I get it. I really do. But you don't have to be scared alone."

"My father left my mother," I hear myself say, and the words feel like they're being pulled out of me against my will. "When I was twelve. Just... packed a bag and left because he decided he wanted a different life. A different wife. A different version of himself that didn't include us."

James doesn't say anything. He just listens, which is somehow worse than if he tried to comfort me.

"And my mother," I continue, my voice getting smaller, "she spent years trying to be enough to make him stay. Trying to be smaller, quieter, less ambitious. She sacrificed everything and he left anyway. And I swore I would never do that. I swore I would never need anyone that much, because needing people is how you get destroyed."

"Margot—"

"So yes, I'm scared. Because you make me want to need you, and that's the most terrifying thing I can imagine."

The rain intensifies, drumming against the car with increasing urgency. The world outside becomes a blur of grey and water, and inside this small metal box, there's only James and me and the truth hanging between us like something tangible.

"I'm not your father," he says finally, and his voice is steady and certain in a way that makes my chest crack open. "I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to realize I want something different. I'm not going to decide you're not enough."

"You don't know that."

"I do," he says. "Because I know you. I know the sharp version and the sarcastic version and the vulnerable version you're showing me right now. I know the way you argue like you're trying to save the world. I know the way you bite your lip when you're thinking hard. I know the way you smell like bergamot and cedar and something that's just entirely you. And I'm not going anywhere."

I'm crying, which is humiliating and unexpected and entirely unwelcome. I never cry. Crying is a luxury I can't afford, a sign of weakness that I've spent years training myself not to indulge.

But James reaches over and gently turns my face toward him, and his thumb brushes my cheek, catching a tear before it can fall.

"Stop," he says softly. "Stop letting other people's fears become your truth. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. And I want all of it, Margot. The sharp version and the scared version and every version in between."

"You're going to regret this," I whisper.

"Maybe," he says. "But not today. Not tomorrow. And probably not for a very long time."

He reaches over and takes my hand, threading his fingers through mine. His palm is warm and solid, and it's the most terrifying thing I've ever felt—this small gesture of connection, this promise of presence.

Outside, the rain continues its assault on the car, creating a cocoon of sound and isolation. Inside, everything is quiet except for the beating of my heart, which feels like it might actually explode.

"So what do we do?" I ask, and my voice sounds small and uncertain in a way I don't recognize.

"We try," he says simply. "We take it slow. We figure it out as we go. We don't have to tell anyone yet if you're not ready. But we stop pretending that this isn't real."

"Slow," I repeat, testing the word. "That's going to be difficult."

"Why's that?"

"Because I'm not good at slow. I'm good at fast and hard and all-consuming."

He smiles, and it's warm and knowing and makes my pulse accelerate in ways that have nothing to do with fear and everything to do with want.

"I'm aware," he says. "But we can try. For States. For the team. For..." He squeezes my hand gently. "For us."

For us.

I've never had an "us" before. I've never wanted one. The concept has always felt like a liability, a weakness, a crack in the armor that I've spent so long constructing.

But sitting in my car in the rain with James's hand in mine and his scent surrounding me, I find myself wanting to believe that maybe, just maybe, there could be an us. That maybe I'm not destined to be left behind. That maybe I could be chosen.

"Okay," I say quietly. "We'll try."

He brings my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to my palm, and the gesture is so tender, so intimate, that I feel it in my chest like a physical blow.

"Thank you," he whispers.

"For what?"

"For trusting me. For letting me in. For being brave enough to take a chance."

I want to tell him that I'm not brave, that I'm terrified, that every instinct I have is screaming at me to push him away before he can leave. But instead, I just hold his hand and listen to the rain and let myself believe, for just a moment, that maybe this could work.

Maybe I could be enough.

Maybe I could be chosen.

The rain continues to fall around us, a steady percussion that feels like a promise, like a beginning, like the first moment of something that might actually matter.