Page 52 of Unbound
"The point is helping him think critically about legal issues so we can give a good presentation," I said, dropping into my usual spot near the window.
"Bullshit," Sam said from the kitchen doorway. "The point is that you're gone on him and you know pushing too hard will scare him off."
They weren’t wrong. Over the past two weeks, I’d catalogued every seismic shift in Jesse—the way his laughter burst free now when something genuinely amused him, how his arguments developed teeth as he learned to trust his own mind. And God, thetouching. The brush of his knee against mine under the library table, the way his fingers would linger when passing me a highlighter, that electric moment when he’d laced our hands together andheld on.
But I’d also memorized the aftermath—how his breath would go shallow after each contact, like he’d sprinted up five flights of stairs. The way he’d compulsively straighten his collar or adjust his watchband afterward, as if recalibrating his physical boundaries. Even now, after all this, his fingertips still trembled when they skimmed mine.
He wanted. But wanting wasn’t the same as being ready.
"He’s not ready," I said finally, pressing my thumb against the condensation on my Dr Pepper can—anything to ground myself.
Phoenix flopped onto the couch armrest. "For what? A torrid library makeout session? Because I’ve seen the way he looks at you. That boy is—"
"For the consequences," I interrupted. My voice came out sharper than intended. "Every time we touch, he’s not just deciding to touchme. He’s deciding to betray twenty-one years of doctrine. Every glance, every laugh—it’s another brick pulled from the wall his entire life is built on." I dragged a hand through my hair. "He needs to choose when it falls."
The room went quiet. Diana set down her knitting needles with deliberate care.
"You’re saying..." Elijah frowned. "You’re actually stopping yourself? Even though he’s initiating?"
I thought of Jesse’s hand gripping mine under the table—equal parts desperation and wonder. How he’d stared at our joined fingers like he was simultaneously horrified and enthralled.
"It’s not about stopping," I said quietly. "It’s about not being the one who pulls him over the edge. When he jumps—and he will—it has to be because he chose to." I met their eyes one by one. "No one gets to decide that for him. Not even me."
Especially not me. Not when I wanted it so badly my hands ached with the restraint.
Elijah closed his textbook and looked at me with that penetrating stare. "What changed? Two weeks ago, you were talking about strategic manipulation and forced intellectual confrontation. Now you're worried about his emotional well-being and moving at his pace."
I thought about Jesse's laugh on Friday night, about the way his eyes lit up when he understood a complicated constitutional principle, about the courage it had taken for him to research opposition arguments and admit they were weaker than he'd expected.
"I got to know him," I said simply. "And he's not who I thought he was. Or maybe he's exactly who I thought he was, but buried under so much programming that it took time to see it."
"But?" Elijah prompted.
"But he's also fragile. Not weak—fragile. Like someone who's been holding themselves together through sheer force of will, and one wrong push could shatter everything." I looked around at my friends, these people who'd become my chosen family. "I don't want to be the person who breaks him."
Diana was quiet for a moment, then said, "You're in love with him."
"I'm—" I started to deny it, then stopped. Because was I? Was this feeling in my chest, this protective tenderness mixed with fierce admiration and overwhelming attraction, love?
"Maybe," I admitted. "Maybe I am."
"And if he's not ready?" Sam asked. "If he chooses to stay in his current life, marry his girlfriend, live according to his family's expectations?"
The possibility hit like a physical blow. "Then I'll respect his choice. But I don't think he will. I think he's already too far down the rabbit hole to go back."
"What makes you so sure?"
I thought about Jesse’s hand gripping mine atop theObergefellbrief—how his fingers had trembled not from hesitation, but from the sheer force of his dawning realization. That moment when his thumb had traced my knuckles like he was mapping unfamiliar terrain, his voice gone rough as he admitted,"So legally… it’s the same violation."
The memory burned brighter than any triumph should. Because it wasn’t just intellectual surrender—it was the way his body had leaned into mine afterward, the way his knee stayed pressed against my thigh under the table like an anchor. As if touching me was the only way to ground himself when everything he knew was crumbling.
"He’s past the point of no return," I said, staring at the half-moon indents my nails had left in my palm. "Not because I manipulated him there, but because he’sincapableof unseeing the truth once it’s in focus. That’s who he is at his core—someone who follows logic to its conclusion, even when it terrifies him."
I looked up at their skeptical faces.
"Have you ever watched someone realize they’ve been starving their whole life? That’s what it’s like when Jesse engages with an idea without filtering it through doctrine first. Helights up. And yeah, part of him still panics afterward—straightens his collar like he can rearrange his entire worldview to fit the seams." My throat tightened. "But he keeps coming back. Keeps choosing to sit close enough that our shoulders brush when he turns pages. That’s not ignorance. That’s courage."
Friday night was our final prep session before presenting on Monday. Jesse arrived looking more confident than I'd ever seen him—shoulders relaxed, movement fluid, something that might have been anticipation in his expression instead of anxiety.
