The next morning, Maya's research book sat open on her lap. She'd tried reading the same paragraph three times, got nothing, and closed it. Her laptop screen glowed blankly back at her.
Elena had gone to the mall. The room felt hollow without her. Maya could still smell the faint trace of Elena's perfume in the air.
Maya dragged herself out of bed, showered, made breakfast, ate. Then hurriedly went to the library because she needed a more appropriate atmosphere for her research.
She sat with her research notes for two hours and made some progress. Her phone buzzed at 11:22 AM and she looked. It was a message from Jake.
Just wanted to say good morning.
She put her phone face down. Stared at her laptop screen. The cursor blinked, waiting.
Then she flipped it back over.
Maya: Good morning.
She sent it before she could rethink it.
She stared at her phone, chest hammering.
The typing indicator appeared, disappeared, appeared again, then stopped. She felt sick from waiting.
Jake: How's the research coming along?
Maya: Slow. How are you?
Jake: Annoyed. Riley keeps bugging me about practice.
Maya: He just cares about you, tell him I said that's sweet.
Jake: I'm not telling him that.
Maya looked at the screen. It was the most ordinary conversation imaginable.
It made her feel giddy.
She put the phone away and went back to work.
They didn't see each other. He texted her occasionally, sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night. Questions about her day, her research, what she'd eaten. Small things. She answered. He answered back. It was low-stakes.
A few days later, he texted.
Jake:There's a taco place I've been wanting to take you if you're free.
She stared at the message for a while before replying.
Maya: okay.
Jake:Yeah tomorrow. 6 PM. I'll pick you up.
He was outside Spruce Hall at 5:58. Hands in pockets, eyes on his phone. Maya took in the sight of him, black leather jacket hugging his frame, hint of a watch on his wrist, hair in messy waves that worked for him.
He looked up, caught her staring, and smiled.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey." She fell into step beside him. " So where is this place?"
"MLK. It's about eight blocks from here. I figured we could walk, but if you want—"
"Walk's fine," she said.
They headed south, away from campus.
They turned onto a quiet street, tucked away from the main buzz. Maya liked this part of town. It was uncurated, with smaller houses and less polished restaurants.
The smell reached them halfway down the block, roasted corn, slow-simmered chili. Maya's stomach growled. She sped up, boots scuffing the sidewalk.
He stopped at a plain door with no sign. Just hand-painted numbers and a string of lights.
"What is this place?" she said.
"Marcus brought the team here after State qualifiers last year." Jake pushed the door open. "We've come back a few times."
Inside was small but warm. Eight tables, most of them full. A kid was clearing plates, and behind the counter a woman in her seventies. She glanced up, saw Jake, and her whole face lit up
"Mijo."
She came around the counter, then noticed Maya. Her eyes flicked between them, and her smile widened. She pointed to the corner table.
"Siéntense."
They slid in.
The menu was a beat-up laminated card, everything handwritten in thick marker. Maya scanned through.
"What do you recommend?" she said, not looking up.
"Carnitas."
"Why?"
"She makes them herself. Everything else you can get somewhere else, and they're my favourite, so I'm a bit biased."
Maya looked at the menu a moment longer. Set it down. "Carnitas it is."
He got the same.
The old lady dropped off two glasses of horchata and a basket of chips still sizzling from the fryer.
"These are really good." Maya said around the bite.
"I know."
"Does she sell them to go?"
"I asked. She said no."
"That's sad. I really like them." Maya ate another one. She wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin. "Tell me something about you I don't know."
Jake looked up from his drink, eyebrows raised. "What do you want to know?"
"Anything really."
He thought for a moment. "My first football play then," he said. "I was seven. Flag football. I fumbled the ball on the one-yard line and dropped it." He picked at the edge of the laminated menu. "My dad tore me a new one in front of everyone on the field, he told me 'You want to play football and you still can't hold onto the ball, Jake. How am I supposed to trust you with anything? The company someday? '"
He exhaled, "I've been trying to prove that wrong ever since."
Maya watched him, her hands wrapped around her glass.
"In eighth grade," she said, "I got a pair of jeans from Goodwill. I loved them. A girl named Madison Porter made fun of me in the cafeteria."
Jake stayed quiet.
"My best friend Kennedy—well we weren't really friends yet—stood up, pointed at Madison, and told her to go fuck herself and punched her in the nose."
Jake blinked. "Wow."
"She got suspended for it," Maya looked up. "I felt so bad I baked her slightly burnt snickerdoodles and took them to her house." Maya smiled. "She looked at them and said, 'They suspended me, not killed me. Are those snickerdoodles?' We've been best friends ever since."
Jake laughed. "I need to meet her."
Maya smiled. "Yeah, there was also a time we went dress shopping, and the fitting room lady kept bringing us wrong sizes on purpose. Kennedy held up another wrong size, looked her dead in the eye, and said, 'I think you might be confusing me with someone who asked for your opinion.' The lady wanted to say something, but Kennedy cut her off saying 'Ma'am, deal with your attitude before you come back in here.'"
Jake was grinning now. "I genuinely need to meet this Kennedy."
"Maybe." Maya set her glass down. "But she's still a little mad at you, honestly. For everything that happened."
He blinked. "She knows about—"
"She knows everything."
He nodded slowly. "I can fix that."
Maya raised an eyebrow. "Can you."
"I can be quite convincing."
"We'll see about that."
The food arrived, and they just ate in silence for a while.
"I saw the Hemingway in your room." Maya said eventually.
"You never said anything."
"Well, I was basically snooping around, so..." She reached for a chip, her smile sly. "Have you ever actually written any of it? The stuff you were talking about at the press conference."
Jake's expression turned thoughtful.
"Yeah."
"Since when?"
"A while now, maybe a year or two." He looked down, a hint of vulnerability creeping in. "Never showed anyone."
"Why not?" Maya asked, her voice soft.
"Because I don't feel it's good enough."
She knew that feeling all too well.
"Show someone," she said, her voice firm.
Jake's eyes flicked to hers.
"The guys who end up doing what you want to do – most of them have never actually played. They can describe a formation, but they don't know what it feels like." Maya felt a lump in her throat. "You know that. That's the whole thing."
Jake stared intensely at her for a moment, and she felt her cheeks heat up.
"Stop looking at me like that," she said, her voice low.
"Like what?" he asked, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
"I don't know. You're looking at me weirdly."
"It's just that you're really really pretty," he said, his voice low.
Maya looked away, her heart racing. "Eat your food," she muttered.
He smiled at her
They took the long way back. Past a laundromat with one lit window, a barbershop with a hand-lettered sign, a park empty except for a yellow lamp over a wet bench. The cold bit through her coat. Jake's collar was turned up.
"When did you know?" Maya asked.
"Know what."
"That the medical school wasn't for you."
"Freshman year in anatomy lab. We were dissecting, and the TA was explaining the procedure and every person in the room was fascinated, and I was like, I'd rather be watching game film than do this. Guess that was my sign."
"Did you tell anyone?"
"Yeah, Riley."
"That tracks."
"What about you? Psychology?"
"Sophomore year, someone trashed my locker," Maya said, her gaze fixed on the ground. "I didn't cry, just wondered what made them tick – were they always like that, or did something make them this way? Can people change?"
Jake was quiet.
"You try to understand the person who hurt you, instead of letting the hurt consume you," he said finally.
Maya's eyes flicked to his, and she knew he wasn't just talking about the locker incident. "Doesn't always work, though," she said.
Jake sighed, his shoulders sagging.
"I know I've said this a million times." He stopped walking. "But I'm truly sorry, Maya. And I'll keep proving it to you."
She looked at him for a long moment, then started walking again. He fell into step beside her.