Chapter Text
She’s been pacing around her room for the last 10 minutes, checking her phone every two seconds for a reply. The screen lights up obediently each time she lifts it — 10:47, 10:47, still 10:47, as if time itself has decided to be cruel tonight. She can see that he's read her messages. The little "Read" receipt sitting there like a verdict of his indifference.
She'd watched Dean leave Malone's, being dragged away by Tucker and Beau. The door had swung shut behind him, and the noise of the bar had rushed back in to fill the space: someone's laughter, the crack of pool balls, a song she didn't know bleeding out of the speakers overhead.
She could have gone after him. She wanted to. She'd known that even then, in the moment, watching his jacket disappear through the door. It would have taken five seconds to run after him. Less. But Allie had stayed, finished her drink, the ice long melted by then, watering it down to something thin, flavourless slop. Then she'd turned to Hannah, who had been tactfully watching the pool table for the last five minutes, and touched her arm.
"I'm gonna head off." She'd reached for her coat. "Early shift tomorrow."
Hannah had turned to look at her, and whatever Allie was feeling, the confusion, the low hum of something unresolved, it didn't show. Or if it did, Hannah wasn't reading it. Her eyes were bright and a little glassy, cheeks flushed from the warmth of the bar and the two and a half drinks that had put a pleasant softness over everything.
"Want me to come with you?" Hannah had asked.
Allie had smiled back, "No, it's your night. You should stay and celebrate", she said, and meant it, and pulled her coat on, and left.
Back in her dorm, Allie sets the phone face down on the bed, then picks it up again.
Of course, she thinks, and then stops herself there, the way you press your tongue against a bruise. Of course, I kind of deserve this. The thought arrives with a particular quality of resignation, not quite guilt and not quite self-pity, but something quieter and more permanent living underneath both. She replays the conversation from earlier.
I didn’t complete the assignment.
She sits down on the edge of the bed.
Gets up again.
Allie stares at it for a moment after pressing send, the words sitting there looking smaller than she'd intended. More naked. I sound desperate. But she didn't have a lot of options left. Her last five phone calls have all gone directly to voicemail. Straight to voicemail. fuck
Then the three dots appeares.
She sits up straighter, her breath catching in a way that embarrasses her even with no one watching. The little ellipsis pulsing steadily, unhurried, and she watches it completely still, barely blinking. He’s typing. The dots disappear.
She keeps staring at the screen, certain they'd come back. Sometimes it took a minute to find the right words. Allie knew that. She was giving him that. The screen stayed still and white and empty beneath her last message, and she kept giving him the benefit of the doubt, kept waiting, her thumb hovering, until she had to admit to herself that they weren't coming back.
Dean had written something. Had looked at whatever it was, read it back, and decided against it. Had chosen silence over whatever he'd almost said, which somehow felt worse than sending her straight to voicemails, worse than the read receipt, worse than any of it.
She sets the phone down on the bed.
Picks it up again.
Allie reads it twice. Then a third time, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something more on the fourth pass. Bit busy. She turns that over slowly in her mind. Busy with what, exactly? It was a Friday night. She knew what his Friday nights usually look like.
Her thumbs hover over the keyboard.
If he wanted to play it like that, fine. She wasn't going to chase. She'd done enough chasing tonight, the calls, the messages, the pls don't leave me on read that she was already quietly cringing about. No. If he wanted cold, she could do cold.
She doesn’t check it again after that. Or she does, once, around midnight, but the screen is blank, and she puts it face down with a kind of finality that almost has her believing. Eventually, the night goes quiet, and she climbs into bed still in her clothes, telling herself she'd get up and brush her teeth in a minute.
She doesn’t
She wakes up to the soft buzz of her phone against the bedside table. The clock read 3:47 AM. She squints at the screen, her brain still thick with sleep, and sees his name across the screen.
The message read:
She stares at it for a long moment, tilting the phone slightly as if the angle might help. Then again. Cmpleetd the assignmnet.
She reads it again for a fourth time.
Allie doesn’t know whether to laugh or throw her phone across the room. But she does neither of those, setting it back on the bedside table, lying back down, and pulling the duvet over her head.
Completed the assignment.
She doesn’t sleep for another hour.
Her alarm goes off at six. She silences it before the second buzz, already half awake, and lies there for a moment in the thin grey light with the duvet pulled up to her chin. The drunk message is still there when she checks, unchanged, cmpleetd the assignmnet sitting in the middle of the screen. She looks at it for a few seconds, then puts the phone in her pocket without replying, and gets up.
Malone's is quiet when she arrives, the way it only ever is on Saturday mornings. Allie unlocks the back door, flicks the lights on one by one, and stands for a moment in the low hum of the empty room, chairs still up on tables, the morning light coming in pale and watery through the front window and laying itself out across the floor in long flat strips.
She ties her apron, puts the chairs down, starts the coffee machine, and lets the familiar noise of it fill the room. There is something settling about the routine of it, and the morning settles into its rhythm. Allie moves through it on autopilot, the way she always does when Malone’s quiet enough to let her body take over. Wipe the counter. Stack the cups. Top up the filter coffee. Smile at the door when it opens, take the order, call it back. Her hands know what to do without being asked. Her phone buzzes against her hip.
Allie tucks the phone back into her apron pocket, carrying two plates of eggs out to the couple by the window. She sets them down, checks on the man with the newspaper, refills his coffee, and straightens a sugar caddy that doesn't need straightening. Then she slips into the little alcove behind the counter and types back.
Allie leans against the counter. Through the window, the street is starting to show more signs of life now, a group of girls in last night's going-out clothes picking their way carefully along the pavement, heels in hand, a cyclist cutting through the empty junction without stopping.
Allie snorts softly and pockets the phone. The door opens, bringing a rush of cold air and two women in running gear, pink-cheeked and loud, already mid-conversation. She straightens up and reaches for the notepad.
"Morning," she said. "Sit anywhere you like."
At five past one, Allie changes in the back, trading her apron for her jacket and pulling her hair out of the knot she's had it in since six that morning. She catches a glimpse of herself in the small mirror by the staff coats and looks away again before she can be too critical about it.
Outside, the air is cold and bright, the kind of Saturday afternoon that can't quite decide if it's winter. Allie spots them before they spot her.
"She lives," Dexter says, looking up.
"Barely," Allie replies
"You look tired," Hannah says, pulling back to look at her with the frank assessment of someone who had known her long enough to say so.
"Thanks, Hannah."
"I'm just saying."
Dexter holds the door open, and they file inside, into the warm noise of the lunch crowd. Hannah has picked a Thai place that opened a few months ago in the unit that used to be an estate agent, small and bright, with mismatched chairs and handwritten menus on a chalkboard above the counter. It smells incredible. She hasn't realised how hungry she is until the smell hits her.
They settle into a corner table, shedding jackets and scarves, and for a little while, the business of choosing food takes over in the way it always does: Hannah changing her mind twice, Dex asking questions about things on the menu, and then ordering something else entirely.
The food arrives, and Hannah’s halfway through her performance from the other night, when the door opens, and Allie looks up out of habit.
Sean.
He is with two guys she recognises from his ecom class. He looks surprised to see her, and for half a second, they just look at each other across the room. She doesn't bother with the plesantries, not even a courteous nod. Then he turns away and follows his friends to the other side of the restaurant, and that is that.
"How's that going, by the way?" Dexter asks, watching her with barely concealed interest. "The whole breakup ", he gestures vaguely.
"Fine," Allie replies
"You just made a face."
"I didn't make a face."
"You made a face," Hannah confirms, not looking up from her plate.
"I feel like an idiot."
"For breaking up with him?" Dexter asks.
"God no."
“But…?”
Allie hesitates. The thing is, it's nothing. It's barely anything. A comment Sean made, a throwaway line, and here she is, still turning it over weeks, days later like there's some truth to it. That's the part she doesn't want to say out loud, not because of Sean, but because of what it would reveal about her. That it got to her. That she let it.
"Sean said something that's gotten in my head."
Allie confesses.
"Do tell us more."
"I've been hooking up with someone. and-"
Dexter interrupts her, "And this is the first I'm hearing about it?"
"Well, I kind of fucked up."
Allie admits.
"Sean came by the dorm. I thought it was—" She stops herself, editing herself in real time, unsure what to give away..
"Mystery man?" Dexter offers.
Allie points at him. "Sure. Mystery man."
"When was this?" Hannah asks, her brow creasing as she tries to place it.
"Two weeks ago. After the fundraiser "
"Two weeks ago-" Hannah starts.
"Anyway." Allie cuts through it before the timeline becomes the whole conversation. "Sean put two and two together." She pauses. "He accused me of not being able to be alone."
"Fuck him. Not literally." Dexter chimes in.
"But it really got into my head, together with something Joanna Maxwell said, when we were running lines."
Allie concede.
"What did she say?"
Hannah asks.
"She implied that I basically replaced Sean with mystery guy."
Neither Dexter nor Hannah says anything, sharing a look between them.
"Even if that's true, is that so bad?" Dexter asks.
"It is not."
Hannah replies.
"It's not — I don't know. Maybe not." Allie shakes her head. "But we'd agreed to keep it casual. And I think I convinced myself I was fine with that. Like I needed to prove something. That I wasn't the girl who always has to be in something, who can't just be alone."
"But I fucked it."
"Do you want my advice?" Dexter doesn't wait for an answer. "Stop taking shitty advice from other people."
Allie laughs, a real, genuine laugh.
“Noted. Hannah?" She turns. "What do you think?"
Allie laughs, a real, genuine laugh.
“Noted. Hannah?" She turns. "What do you think?"
Hannah has been quiet, in that way she gets when she's actually thinking rather than just waiting to speak. "Okay, first—" She puts her drink down. "I cannot keep saying mystery man with a straight face. Just tell me his name."
"Not happening.”
Hannah looks at her suspiciously. "Okay. Is it over between you two?"
"He's been sending me to voicemail." Allie shrugs, aiming for casual. "So it's not looking great."
Hannah is quiet for a moment. "Do you actually want to be casual? Or is it just something you decided you should want?"
Allie opens her mouth. Closes it. "No." A beat. "I mean, yes. Maybe. I don't know."
Hannah gives her a look that is not unkind. "Then maybe that's where you start." She turns her glass in her hands. "Allie, you've basically gone from one relationship to another since you were what, fifteen? You've never really just been you. On your own."
"That's not—" Allie starts.
"I'm serious. Your routines. Your work. Your own life, on your own terms. You don't have to swear off people forever, but maybe figure out who you are when there isn't always someone else orbiting you."
"Don't be your own worst enemy." Dexter points at her with his glass. "You do it better than anyone else does it for you, and that's really saying something."
Allie looks between them. She wants to argue, which probably means there's nothing to argue with.
"Okay," she says finally. "Fine."
Allie points her fork at both of them. "Let’s just eat." Allie drops the subject after that, and Dexter moves on to ask about their plans for the break.
All the while, she feels her phone burning a hole through her pocket.
She texts Dean when they’re leaving the restaurant.
He doesn’t reply.
The next day, when she wakes up, she sees the notification.
Winter break comes faster than she expects. By the end of the following week, she on the bus back home. The house feels smaller every time she comes back, or maybe she just gets bigger. Her dad is asleep in his chair again, the TV murmuring to no one, and Allie sits on the kitchen counter the way she's always done and stares at the Christmas lights her aunt strung up last week because her dad can't manage the ladder anymore, and Allie hadn't gotten here in time.
It's fine. Everything is fine.
She picks up her phone. Sets it down. Picks it up again.
She had mentioned to Dean about her dad and his illness. It had been their fifth hook-up, at his place, afterwards they'd lain there in the dark, the room quiet in that specific way it gets at two in the morning, and somehow, she still isn't entirely sure how, it had come out. Her dad. The MS.
Dean hadn't moved, hadn't reached for his phone, hadn't done any of the things people do when a conversation turns heavier than they signed up for. He'd just stayed there, in the dark, and listened while she talked about the way the disease takes things so gradually you almost convince yourself nothing is changing, about the guilt of being three states away and cycling through the same reassurances on loop: he's fine, he has people, there's nothing you could do anyway.
He hadn't tried to fix it. Hadn't offered the usual well-meaning things people say when they don't know what to say.
Allie sets her phone face-down on the counter.
She gets down from the counter. Checks on her dad. Pulls the blanket up a little higher, turns the TV off, and stands there in the dark for a moment listening to him breathe.
She doesn't call
Allie tells herself he just needs time. That's when he's ready; he'll reach out. That the kindest thing she can do is wait.
She's not sure she believes it, but it's easier than the alternative. That he doesn't like her anymore. The thought shouldn't bother her, but it does. He'd agreed to it, hadn't he? Casual, undefined, no claims on each other. That was what they had both wanted.
Christmas at her aunt's place in Queens is loud, warm, chaotic in the way only a house with nine pre-teens can be. Allie loves them, though the Nintendo Switch gets pulled out before the plates are cleared and doesn't go away again. She slips outside at some point, sits on the stoop in the cold, and FaceTimes Hannah.
Allie sees her old high school friends and fills in the gaps from the past two years over coffee and bar tabs. She even runs into her high school boyfriend, looking like NYU had gotten hold of him and made a few unfortunate adjustments; she never liked a moustache. She's polite about it.
Her dad’s deteriorating health occupies most of Allie’s thoughts, watching him move through the house, the careful way he manages the stairs now, the things that are harder than they were in September and harder in September than they were in May.
Allie cancels her New Year's plans without telling him why, invents a cold, and he accepts it. He’s a man who knows when not to ask questions. They order takeout, and she picks the movie, The Philadelphia Story, and he's asleep before Cary Grant gets through his second scene. She lets him sleep but wakes him just before midnight so he doesn't miss it.
They watch the ball drop together.
It's not the worst New Year's she's ever had.
It is, she realises, the first since high school that she hasn't had anyone to kiss at midnight.
By the 5th of January, she can feel her body craving normality. Allie texts Della, her manager at Malones.
Later, she facetimes Hannah while booking her bus ticket back to Briar.
"I've reorganised the kitchen three times in five days, Hannah." Allie says, "I'm craving normality"
"When does the bus leave?" Hannah asks.
"7 am tomorrow morning."
"I'll be back Tuesday. Could you water my plants before then?"
"Yeah, no problem," Allie replies.
"Check the schedule on my board."
Allie laughs once, short and tired, "I’ll check your plant schedule."
"How's your dad?"
"Better. My aunt's been here every day, looking in on him."
Despite Allie telling her aunt it wasn’t necessary, but she insisted, and Allie was grateful she had. It took a huge mental load off her shoulders.
"How's Indiana? I’m happy you’re able to go back home.” Allie asks, changing the subject. "Missing Garrett already?"
"Yes", Hannah admits sheepishly.
"Distance makes the heart grow fonder." Allie rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling.
"I'm sure he's missing hockey more than me," Hannah says jokingly
"Did Dean or Hunter ever get in trouble for the fight?" Allie asks, keeping her voice carefully neutral and hoping Hannah doesn’t pick up on her sudden interest.
"From what I heard, neither got suspended from the team, but Dean’s stuck coaching the Hurricanes the entire next semester." Hannah pauses. "Garrett says he got off lightly."
"I'm sure he did."
A beat of silence, then: "Hey, I have to go help my mom with dinner, but call me when you get back on campus?"
"Of course."
"Love you, Allie.” There's the muffled sound of a door opening somewhere on Hannah's end, her mom's voice a distant murmur in the background.
"Love you too, Hannah."
The bus back to college is loud and smells like old cardboard and stale coffee, but she puts on Sombr in her headphones and watches Brooklyn disappear behind her through the scratched window. Streetlights blur into long streaks of gold as the city slowly gives way to dark highways and quiet towns, and for a while she lets the music drown out the noise of the engine and the conversations around her.
Walking across campus with her headphones in, the world reduced to a low, steady beat and the crunch of her steps on the path. People blur past in her peripheral vision, shapes and movement without meaning. She keeps her gaze forward, half-absorbed in her own thoughts.
Then someone shouts her name.
It cuts through the music. Allie slows, frowning slightly, unsure at first if she hears it right. Her head tilts just a fraction as she looks around, confused, pulling one earbud out.
Her eyes land on the source. Her expression tightens.
Hunter Davenport.
He has clearly spent the break somewhere sunny; his tan partly hides the dark bruise around his eye. Hunter notices her looking at his black eye.
"If you think I look bad, you should see the other guy." He says, laying on the charm.
“What do you want?” Allie asks.
“I never got your number”, Hunter continues.
“What part of meaningless one-night thing did you not understand?” Allie turns away, already stepping out of it before the Hunter can respond properly. Her shoulders stay tight as she moves, jaw set. Behind her, Hunter only laughs to himself, watching her walk away.
The following week, Hannah's back from Indiana, though Allie rarely sees her. Between picking up extra shifts at Malone's and their course load for the term, it's rare for them to have time together. She turns down Hannah's first three invitations to parties with reasons that get progressively less convincing. The fourth time, she can't think of anything at all. Which is how she ends up at a party at the Hawks' house.
Deans still hasn't texted her since before Christmas, and she has stopped going back to read their old conversation. Progress. But she knows he'll be there tonight.
Hannah helps her get ready, picking out her outfit. She vetoes two options before Allie even gets them off the hanger, and by the time she's done, there's a small pile of rejected clothing on the floor and something suspiciously close to an outfit on Allie's body.
"French chic," Hannah announces, with the satisfaction of someone who has solved something.
Allie turns in front of the mirror. It's good, she'll admit that. It's annoyingly good.
"I'm going to freeze my ass off."
"You're going to look incredible freezing your ass off." Hannah tilts her head, assessing. "Totally worth it."
Allie looks at herself for another moment. She thinks, without meaning to, about whether he'll think so too. Then she grabs her coat.
Allie’s quiet in the backseat of the car the whole ride over to the boy’s house. She can feel Garrett watching her suspiciously in the rear-view mirror. She wonders what if he knows, but she’s not about to ask him in front of Hannah.
The party is loud and cramped, and Allie loses sight of Hannah within the first 10 minutes. She's rumaging around in a kitchen drawer, looking for a bottle opener, when she nearly knocks her head first into Beau Maxwell. He's at the counter, pouring out a row of shots. He looks up and clocks her. A beat of surprise, then his face settles back into something easy.
"Here." He reaches past her and produces a bottle opener from a drawer she hadn't tried yet, and holds it out.
"Thank you," Allie says, and takes it.
Beau notices her eyes drift past his shoulder and says nothing about it. But she catches the corner of his mouth move, just slightly, and looks back at him.
"He's here somewhere," he says simply.
"Is he alright?" Allie asks, trying to make it sound casual.
Beau looks at her for a second.
"Yeah," he says. "He's alright."
She nods. Turns the bottle opener over in her hand. "I tried to reach out" she says.
Beau doesn't look surprised exactly. He picks up one of the shots, considers it. "Yeah, he mentioned that."
Allie looks up. "And?"
He sets the shot back down. “It’s difficult. He’s got history with Davenport.”
Allie wants to ask what that means and about twelve other things she has no right to ask. So she doesn't.
"Right," she says instead. "Okay."
Beau looks at her with an expression that's almost sympathetic. "Forget the wine", he says, “This night requires shots."
Allie laughs, short and quiet. "You’re a bad influence."
Allie’s been to the house plenty of times before, even climbed up through the vines to the second floor at midnight. But she pretends she doesn't know the layout and asks for directions to the bathroom.
The line for the downstairs bathroom has given up any pretence of moving. Sh weighs her options, remembers Hannah saying something once about Garrett's bathroom, second floor, end of the hall, last door on the left. She slips away from the queue before she can talk herself out of it.
The hallway up here is quieter, the music muffled to something almost bearable. She finds the door, knocks twice and eases it open an inch.
Light seeps under the bathroom door into the otherwise dark room. She waits on the bed, listening to the water run.
What am I doing here?
Allie picks up her phone and scrolls through her contacts, the two glasses of wine and shots making her feel confident. She finds his name. Stops.
Her thumb hovers.
The bathroom door swings open.
"Jesus — Allie." Dean's hand goes to his chest. "You scared the hell out of me."
Allie makes a noise she will never, under any circumstances, admit to.
He fills the doorframe, and for a moment, she just looks at him. He looks good. Better than good. Whatever winter break did to him, it agreed with him: something looser about his shoulders, a little colour in his face. Rested, almost. She resents it mildly.
"Did you follow me here?" he says, smiling
"Don't flatter yourself. The line downstairs is miles long." Allie says, hoping it answers it.
Dean looks her up and down. Allie locks her phone, hoping he didn't notice her hovering over his contact. Before she has a chance to react, he sits down beside her on the bed, his hands on his lap. Neither of them said anything, but she can feel his eyes burning next to her. She waits for him to say something, say anything.
Allie thinks about saying it. The words are right there; we need to talk, simple enough, direct enough, the kind of thing she'd normally just say. She's never had much patience for dancing around things. But she doesn't say it. Allie just looks back at Dean, waiting for him to say something.
“I shouldn’t have just left Malone's without talking to you.”
"But Davenport and I." He says choosing his words carefully. "We have history."
"I heard”, she says, adding, "Beau told me."
"Of course"
"I didn’t punch him because of you," he starts, unable to find the words "and him. The assignment."
"I get that."
Neither of them says anything. The room remains quiet. Allie can smell his cologne, fresh and peppery, with a faintly woody note underneath, a scent she has always liked. It steadies her, drawing her closer before she can think.
She puts her head on his shoulder without thinking. For a moment, she waits for Dean to shift, for his body to reach to her touch, but instead she feels his shoulder soften beside her, and he stays still.
“I know I was just a distraction,” Dean says. It’s not what she expects him to say. The aftertaste of wine turns sour on her tongue, stale against her tongue, like something left out too long.
Allie stares at the floor for a second too long, blinking hard, trying to steady herself before he notices the shift in her expression.
“I-”
"How was your break?" he asks, like he didn't just say it. Like it was nothing, or like he's decided to treat it as nothing, which isn't the same thing at all.
She takes the out. "Uneventful."
He nods slowly. "How's your dad?"
“He’s the same.”
"It's hard." She exhales slowly. "Going back and seeing him. Every time there's something new, some small thing he can't do anymore that he could do in September, and he never mentions it, he just — adjusts. Like he's trying to make it easier for me." She shakes her head. "Which somehow makes it worse."
"Sorry," she says. "You didn't ask for all of that."
"Allie." He says her name simply, the way he did that night in the dark. "I asked how your dad was."
She looks at him.
"I wanted to know," He adds
“You're doing better than you think you are. I hope someone tells you that.”
She swallows. "Dean—"
"He's lucky to have you. I mean that," he says.
The hallway is very quiet.
"I like you. I like us," he croaks. “But you don’t know what you want.”
"I—" She starts, the reflex to push back rising before she's even decided what to say.
I do know what I want.
"We could just—" He pauses, choosing his words carefully, which is not something he usually does. "We don't have to make it complicated. We could just be friends."
A month ago, she would have said that's exactly what she wanted, no complications, nothing that required her to know what she wanted. Now he's offering her precisely that, and it feels like something being gently taken away.
"Friends?"
"Yeah."
"You want to be my friend?" she asks "Okay," she says, "Friends."
Dean looks at her for a moment, something moving behind his eyes that she can't quite read. Then he closes the distance between them, unhurried, and kisses her. It's unexpected in a way that cuts clean through her, and for a split second, she goes still, surprised more by the certainty of it than the act itself. They’re soft, open-mouthed kisses, and the heat of his breath coats her entire face. His hands slide up her back, covering almost the entire width of her waist, and she arches into him and moans. Her fingers find his hair, thumbs curving against his ears. Her body takes over from her mind.The kiss goes from slow to starving in the space of a breath.
When he pulls back, he's almost smiling, and there are the dimples, and she hates him a little for it.
"Something to remember me by," he says quietly.
The door opens. Garrett.
They jump apart, not guiltily enough to be subtle, not calmly enough to be convincing. There's a beat of silence that lasts slightly too long.
"Just showing Allie—" Dean starts, gesturing vaguely at nothing in particular.
Garrett looks at Dean. Then at Allie. Then back at Dean. His mouth does something that isn't quite a smile but almost, the expression of a man whose suspicions have just been confirmed in real time and who is finding it difficult to be as neutral about it as he probably should be.
"Right," he says.
"Garrett—" Dean starts
"I didn't say anything." He holds both hands up. "I'm not saying anything." A beat. "I'm just — yeah. Uh huh." He nods slowly to himself, like he's filing it away somewhere he'll return to later.