Adrian perfected the art of presence. When Isabella talked, Adrian made eye contact. When Isabella laughed, Adrian laughed too. When Isabella reached for Adrian's hand across the library table, Adrian squeezed back with appropriate pressure—not too tight, not too loose. Exactly the grip of someone invested.
Performance, flawless and exhausting.
Adrian tracked Dante's schedule the way generals tracked enemy movements. Basketball practice: 3-5 PM Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Study group: Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Marcus's dorm: weekend nights, usually after 10 PM. Adrian structured his entire existence around these data points, creating geographical distance to supplement emotional impossibility.
When conversations drifted toward roommates or living situations, Adrian redirected. Steered toward classes, campus events, literally anything else. Became expert at conversational deflection that left people satisfied they'd had a discussion without realizing Adrian had revealed nothing.
Good boyfriend. Adrian played the role with increasing precision, memorizing lines and blocking, hitting marks on cue.
The compartments held. Mostly.
The exhibition game happened on a Thursday. Intramural versus varsity—annual tradition meant to showcase the skill gap, remind club players what excellence looked like.
Adrian's team jogged onto the court. Across the gym, Dante emerged with the varsity squad. Warm-ups synchronized, both sides running drills, professional and separate.
Then Dante looked up. Found Adrian across thirty feet of hardwood. Something shifted in Dante's expression—calculation, decision made.
Coach Wilson blew the whistle. "Let's go! Starters up!"
Dante moved toward Adrian. Deliberate steps. "I'll take Hayes."
The varsity coach—Coach Martinez, a former college player with zero tolerance for weakness—raised an eyebrow. "You sure? Miller's their actual point guard."
"I'm sure."
Adrian's stomach dropped. Personal assignment. Dante had chosen this.
The game started brutal and got worse. Dante defended like someone possessed—close enough that Adrian could count Dante's eyelashes, hands everywhere within legal limits, body contact constant and aggressive. Every time Adrian moved, Dante shadowed. Every time Adrian caught the ball, Dante's chest pressed against Adrian's back.
Adrian's brain short-circuited repeatedly. Couldn't think about plays when Dante's breath hit Adrian's neck. Couldn't focus on spacing when Dante's hand grazed Adrian's hip blocking a drive.
But somehow—somehow—Adrian scored. Again. And again. Like Dante's proximity activated something, muscle memory from eighteen years of competing against this specific person.
Eighteen points. Adrian scored eighteen points. Every single one while Dante guarded him.
Final score: 78-43. Massacre. Adrian's team got destroyed.
In the locker room after, Josh slapped Adrian's shoulder. "Dude. Eighteen points against Dante Alaric? That's insane."
"We lost by thirty-five," Adrian said.
"Yeah, but you scored eighteen. Against him. That's—" Josh shook his head, awed. "Nobody scores that much when he's defending."
Adrian showered. Scrubbed sweat and the phantom sensation of Dante's proximity from skin. Tried to forget the way Dante's jaw had clenched every time Adrian made a basket. The way Dante had played harder, closer, more aggressive with each point.
Like Dante was trying to prove something Adrian didn't understand.
Psychology group project. Eight students, one impossible dynamic.
The teaching assistant—Rebecca Chen, a PhD candidate who clearly regretted the random assignment algorithm—distributed research materials. "You'll be analyzing competition dynamics in social settings. I want detailed case studies, theoretical frameworks, empirical data. Presentations in three weeks."
Adrian sat on one side of the seminar table. Dante sat on the other. Six other students occupied the space between, looking progressively more uncomfortable as the meeting progressed.
"So," Jessica—an overeager sophomore—said, "we should probably divide up the research tasks?"
Silence. Thick enough to drown in.
"I can handle the literature review," Adrian offered. Safe. Individual. No collaboration required.
"I'll do case study research," Dante said. Also safe. Also separate.
"Great!" Jessica's forced enthusiasm couldn't mask the tension. "What about—"
"I need to leave." Dante stood abruptly. "Practice starts in twenty minutes."
Practice started in forty-five minutes. Adrian knew Dante's schedule better than Adrian's own.
Dante left. The remaining seven students exhaled collectively.
"Okay," Marcus—different Marcus, white guy from Adrian's dorm—said carefully. "Is there, like, history there? Because that was intense."
"We're roommates," Adrian said. "It's complicated."
"No shit," Jessica muttered.
They ended the meeting fifteen minutes later. Too uncomfortable to continue. Too aware of the weight neither Adrian nor Dante could explain.
Double date. Isabella's idea.
"It'll be fun!" Isabella promised. "You, me, Elena and Sam. That new Italian place off campus."
Adrian agreed because that's what good boyfriends did. Showed up at Romano's at seven, smiled at appropriate moments, ordered pasta he didn't taste.
Elena and Sam—Elena's girlfriend, a quiet biology major with kind eyes—carried most of the conversation. Adrian contributed when prompted. Isabella seemed happy.
Then the door opened. Marcus Reid walked in, Dante beside him.
Adrian's fork clattered against his plate.
Isabella looked up. Registered recognition. "Oh! Hey, you're Adrian's roommate, right? And—Marcus? From the varsity team?"
Marcus smiled. Friendly. Unsuspecting. "Yeah. Hey, Adrian. Didn't know you'd be here."
"Small town," Adrian managed.
"Join us!" Isabella gestured at their booth. "We can squeeze in."
Adrian wanted to scream. Instead: "Sure. Yeah. That's—sure."
They squeezed. Adrian and Isabella on one side, Elena and Sam on the other, Marcus and Dante claiming chairs pulled from another table. Six people, one booth meant for four. Knees bumping, personal space nonexistent.
Dante sat directly across from Adrian. Close enough to kick under the table if either moved incautiously.
"So," Isabella said, "how do you all know each other?"
Marcus launched into explanation—basketball, teammates, campus friends. Normal college connections. Nothing unusual.
Dante said almost nothing. Responded when directly addressed. Otherwise: silence.
Adrian ordered wine. Then more wine. The edges softened after the second glass, tension becoming manageable instead of unbearable.
"Adrian," Elena said carefully, "you okay? You seem—"
"Fine. I'm fine." Adrian drained the third glass.
Dante's jaw clenched. That tell. The one that meant Dante was controlling something—anger or frustration or whatever lived behind Dante's careful expression.
Marcus touched Dante's arm. Casual contact. Boyfriend touch.
Dante's shoulders tensed. Another tell. Adrian had catalogued them all—the physical vocabulary of Dante's emotional state. Could read Dante better than any book, better than any person Adrian had ever known.
Better than Isabella, who sat beside Adrian being perfect and present and everything Adrian should want.
The dinner ended. Finally. They split the check, said polite goodbyes. Marcus and Dante left first.
Isabella linked her arm through Adrian's. "That was fun! Weird coincidence though."
"Yeah," Adrian said. "Coincidence."
Elena caught Adrian's eye. Elena's expression said she knew better.
Late night. 2:17 AM.
Adrian lay in bed, staring at ceiling tiles. Same water stains. Seven plus one shadow. Familiar geography of sleeplessness.
Across the room, Dante shifted. Not the breathing pattern of sleep. The rustling of someone awake, pretending otherwise.
Silence stretched. Adrian counted heartbeats. Lost track after three hundred.
"Are you happy?" Dante's voice cut through darkness. Quiet. Vulnerable.
Adrian's breath caught. "What?"
"Are you happy?" Repeated. Same quiet tone. "With her. With—everything."
Adrian could lie. Should lie. Maintain the compartments, keep the performance going.
"I don't know," Adrian said instead. Truth, raw and unfiltered.
Long silence. Longer than before. Maybe two minutes. Maybe two hours. Time moved strangely in darkness when truth got spoken.
"Me neither," Dante said finally.
Adrian rolled onto his side. Could barely make out Dante's shape across the room. "You're dating Marcus."
"I know."
"You seem happy."
"I know how to seem things." Dante's voice carried weight. "You taught me that. Eighteen years of seeming like I had everything figured out. Seeming like I didn't care that you hated me."
"I don't—" Adrian stopped. Couldn't finish that sentence. "It's complicated."
"Everything's complicated."
"Why did you guard me?" Adrian asked. "In the game. You chose that."
Pause. "I don't know. Instinct, maybe. You were there, and I—I needed to be close to you. Even if it was just basketball. Even if you hate it."
Adrian's chest constricted. "I don't hate it."
"You should. I'm—" Dante laughed, bitter sound in darkness. "I'm making everything harder. For both of us. I should back off. Let you have your life with Isabella. Stop showing up everywhere you are."
"You're not showing up everywhere."
"Adrian." Dante's voice hardened. "I check your location twenty times a day. On Find My Friends. I know where you are constantly. I structure my schedule around avoiding you, which means I'm thinking about you constantly. That's not normal. That's not—I'm not okay."
Adrian sat up. "You track my location?"
"We never deleted each other. From that school trip sophomore year. I kept meaning to. Never did." Pause. "Did you delete me?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Adrian didn't have an answer. Or had too many answers. None of which could be spoken without breaking something fundamental.
"I know more about your emotional state than Isabella's," Adrian said instead. "Sage pointed that out. I know when your jaw clenches, you're controlling anger. When your shoulders tense, you're uncomfortable. When you make that specific expression—micro-expression, barely visible—you're hiding hurt. I shouldn't know that. I shouldn't be able to read you better than my girlfriend."
"But you do."
"Yeah."
"And I can tell when you're performing," Dante said. "When you're being the good boyfriend versus when you're actually present. I watched you at that restaurant. You were performing the whole time. Except when you looked at me. Then you were real."
The truth sat between them. Massive. Undeniable.
"This is fucked up," Adrian said.
"Extremely."
"What do we do?"
"I don't know." Dante's shape shifted, sitting up too. "I tried dating Marcus to—I don't know. Move on. Prove I could want someone else. Marcus is great. Objectively perfect. But when he touches me, all I think about is that it's not you. That's not fair to him."
"And Isabella—" Adrian's voice cracked. "She deserves someone who's all in. Not whatever this is."
"So we break up with them."
"And then what?"
Long silence. The question hung unanswered because neither knew. Breaking up solved one problem while creating countless others.
"I miss you," Dante said quietly. "Even though you're right here. I miss talking to you. Miss fighting with you. Miss when we had something, even if it was just rivalry. This distance is worse than losing ever was."
Adrian's throat tightened. "Yeah."
"So what do we do?"
"I still don't know."
They sat in darkness. Two people sharing space, sharing truth, sharing unhappiness. No solutions. Just the admission that whatever they were doing wasn't working.
Dante lay back down first. "Goodnight, Adrian."
"Night."
But neither slept. Adrian heard Dante's breathing—not the rhythm of sleep, just the quiet presence of someone existing six feet away.
The compartments had cracked. Maybe broken. Adrian didn't know how to repair them.
Didn't know if he wanted to anymore.