Page 176 of Well That Happened

I bite my lip, trying to keep the smile from slipping. “Yeah.”

“And what happens after graduation? You’re moving to San Diego. You think Hunter’s gonna drop his NHL dreams? Or Grayson’s gonna follow you across the country? What about Caleb’s future?”

Something in my stomach twists.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly. “I haven’t thought it through.”

“No kidding you haven’t,” she says, not unkind but unrelenting. “Because if you had, you’d know I’m right. Play it out, Ri. This ends messy.”

I shake my head. “You don’t get it.”

“Maybe not. But I do know you. And I know you think this feels real because you’re in the middle of it. But sometimes the heat of the moment can feel a lot likemore, when it’s really just… heat.”

I try to change the subject, ask about her ex, or her classes, anything to steer away from the tightening in my chest. But her words cling to me, sticky and heavy.

Back in their arms, itdoesfeel real.

But Lexi’s voice is louder in my head than I want it to be.

Hot sex will do that to you, the sarcastic part of my brain offers.

And for the first time in weeks, doubt slips in like a draft through the door I thought was sealed.

* * *

Two days later, finals start, and I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff with the ground crumbling under me.

It’s everything I’ve worked for over the last four years—every sleepless night, every exam I thought I failed but somehow passed, every shift where I held someone’s hand while they cried or coded or bled. And now it’s here. The end. Or close to it.

And I’m cracking.

My body aches with exhaustion I can’t sleep off. My notes blur. I second-guess everything and forget things IknowI know. It doesn’t help that Lexi’s words echo in the back of my brain like a cruel soundtrack.

You can’t actually think this is serious, do you?

Hunter notices first. He always does.

“You’re not eating,” he says one night, crouched in front of me with that tight line in his brow.

“I’m studying,” I mumble, eyes glued to the laptop screen.

He takes the laptop from my lap.

“Hey!”

“You need ten minutes to be a human,” he says, voice low but firm. “Just ten.”

I’m too tired to argue. Or to do anything but let him pull me off the couch.

Grayson brings me a protein bar without saying a word and kisses the top of my head. Caleb wraps a blanket around me like I might shatter and says, “You’re allowed to be tired. We’ve got you.”

I don’t deserve them.

But I let myself lean.

Because in this moment, when the weight of graduation and Lexi’s doubts and my own fear of the future are all trying to crush me—theyare the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

And maybe that’s what love looks like.

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