Colors of Heartbreak

For three years, Kellan never once looked at me. Not when I said his name every morning like it was my favorite word.

Not when I saved him a seat, waited outside his class, memorized how he took his coffee.

Everyone at school knew the untouchable boy had a girl trailing after him like a second shadow. Everyone knew he never turned his head.

Now he's dyed his hair a red you could spot from the far end of a stadium. Loud. Impossible to miss. A color the old him would have called ridiculous.

He did it, I'd learn later, for exactly one reason. So he'd never lose me in a crowd again. Funny. Because these days, I'm the one who doesn't look.

Here's how a girl ends up on this side of it. My family lost everything in a single season. The house in Kingsford, the money, the whole life. Gone. I bombed my SATs.

And the boy I'd chased for three years? I was sure he'd finally picked someone else. The girl who'd been beside him since they were kids.

Bankrupt, deadended, and passed over, all in one summer. The universe doesn't usually bother being that thorough. So I did the only thing left to do.

I sold what remained, moved back to Millhaven, and disappeared. New number. Every thread cut loose until not one person from that life could reach me.

A year later I walked back into the world with my chin up and my hands empty. I wasn't looking for him. He was the one who came looking.

Chapter 1 A year later, the acceptance letter from Wexford University showed up in my mailbox. I'd spent the year in between learning how not to look back.

Turned out I was good at it. I'd been on campus maybe a week when someone said my name across the dining hall. "Sloane?" I turned.

A face I knew was already coming toward me, tray in hand, grinning. "It really is you!" Georgia dropped into the seat across from me like we'd done this a hundred times. "You're here on your own?" I nodded.

She kept staring like she couldn't trust her own eyes. "I caught you from the side and almost didn't believe it." Georgia was the kind of girl who could make friends with a lamppost.

Back then I'd had exactly one thing on my mind, and it wasn't friends, so we'd never talked much. "Okay, but where did you go?" She leaned in. "You dropped off the face of the earth.

Nobody could reach you at graduation or after." I smiled. "Family went under. We moved back home.

My phone got stolen around then, too." "Wait, what?" She spent the next thirty seconds telling me how awful that was, then pulled out her phone to add me.

After we ate, I headed for the library, and she walked the whole way with me.

A few times she opened her mouth and shut it again. "You're doing the thing where you obviously want to say something," I said.

She scrunched up her face, sheepish. "Promise you won't think I'm nosy?" "You really didn't talk to Kellan this whole year?" Once, that name had run my entire nervous system.

Hearing it now, I kept walking. My steps didn't change. "No." "See, I always thought you two were such a waste." She said it with her whole chest. "I shipped it so hard.

And not just me. The entire class did." She looked so sincere that I laughed. "He wasn't into me. You shipped the wrong pair." Him and Yvette, the quiet one.

Now that would have been the sweet story. "No, you don't get it." Her eyes lit up. "Kellan was so cold. So untouchable. Gorgeous.

Half the school wanted him and not one of them had the nerve. Except you. Every day, out loud, sweet as anything. Calling his name. Showing up with food. Waiting outside his class.

Watching you two was the only fun I had senior year." I kept the smile on my face. "He was ice to everyone else. You know that." She tilted her head. "But with you?

He had this look. This helpless, donefor softness. Every single time a teacher called on you and you blanked, Kellan was right there covering for you. It used to kill me." Sure.

What she called softness, I'd called a boy too polite to shake off the girl stuck to him.

Three years I pressed my warm face to his cold shoulder and trailed him like a shadow he couldn't lose. All he ever handed back was that tired, patient nothing.

Georgia really was a menace about it. She walked me all the way to the library steps, still not finished. "Okay, Sloanie, I'm heading out.

Text me!" I waved her off and watched her go. A boy too polite to shake the girl stuck to him. That was the whole story.

I'd been telling it to myself for a year, and I believed every word.

Chapter 2 "Bye!" I waved back and grinned. "Bye!" That night I got back to the dorm to find Reagan in a face mask, pointing at the box of macarons on my desk. "Sloanie.

Some girl said she went to high school with you. Dropped these off for you." I pulled out my phone to message Georgia, but she'd beaten me to it. [Georgia: Don't you dare say no.

That's the graduation gift I made for the whole class. You're just getting yours late.] I sent back a thankyou. The reply came instant. [Georgia: Sloanie!!

Let me add you back to the old highschool group chat!] My thumb stopped over the screen. His face surfaced without asking. Cool eyes. That unbothered mouth.

It had been a long time. He had a girlfriend now. Nothing left in that room to be scared of. [Me: Sure!] Seconds after it sent, the screen flashed. Added to group.

The chat lit up. [?] [?] [?] [Is that actually Sloane??] The group was already filling up. [Me: It's me. It's Sloane.] [Oh my GOD, what happened to you?

We couldn't reach you, we lost our minds!] [Me: Sorry. Phone got stolen back then. Took me forever to replace it.] [As long as you're okay!!] [Sloane.

We heard your family went under. Is that true?] I looked at the question a second. Blinked. [Me: Yep.] The chat went quiet. Then, fast: [It's all in the past now.

Water under the bridge.] I scrolled up to the member list. Kellan's avatar was still the same cutesy little cartoon it had always been.

The last thing on earth you'd put on that boy. Didn't Yvette make him change it? I don't know what possessed me. I tapped his profile. His story was empty. Blank. Nothing at all.

Probably set it private. "Sloanie." Reagan padded over wrapped in a blanket, and I pressed the phone screen to my chest, too fast.

Lucky for me, her whole attention was on the macarons. "Can I try one?" I opened the box for her. "Go ahead." She talked with her mouth full. "You free Wednesday?

There's a volunteer thing. We should do it." "Sure." When I picked my phone back up, the screen had changed. Your friend request has been accepted. It was Kellan.

Then, from him: [Something?] For three years I'd have handed over almost anything for one text from Kellan. Now here one sat, glowing up at me. Something?

I turned the phone facedown and let him wait. Chapter 3 I sat there deciding whether to tell him I'd added him by accident. Then I decided against it. [Me: Nope.

From the group.] I sent it and went to grab a towel for the shower. Whatever. He had a girlfriend now. What was I going to do, want something?

The screen stayed lit on my desk where I'd left it. Above my message, the little dots pulsed. Typing. They went on for a long time, long enough to write a paragraph.

What finally came through was one word. [Kellan: Sure.] Wednesday came around fast. Reagan and I picked up our volunteer vests and headed for the gym.

She could barely hold it in. "Okay, thank God we're fast on the draw. This is the gig everyone wanted. Volunteer hours AND eye candy.

And get this, the visiting team's from Halden." I slid her a look. "Giving up on your precious club president already?" "What?

No." She sniffed. "I'm just... equal opportunity." The gym was already packed when we got there, people staking out spots along the court.

We pulled on the vests and Reagan started scanning the room. "Worried your club president's here?" I bumped her shoulder. She wagged a finger at the doors. "No.

I'm hunting." Then she grabbed me and turned my head toward a group filing in, all of them in clean blackandwhite kit. My eyes found the one who didn't fit the crowd.

My fingers closed hard on the hem of my vest, then let go. "You see the guy in the middle, the raspberryred hair?" Reagan was vibrating. "Tell me he isn't the finest thing you've ever seen.

Campus heartthrob, hands down, it's not even close." I hadn't planned on ever running into Kellan again. I definitely hadn't planned on it here. And that hair.

The Kellan I knew would never have let a stylist near him with a color like that. He never cared what anyone saw.

Cold to the bone, gorgeous, completely uninterested in being looked at. So who dyes his hair a red you could land a plane by?

Who puts a stud in his ear, if not for someone to notice him? I shut the thought down before it finished. I couldn't stare the way Reagan was staring. I stole him in glances.

He looked changed and exactly the same. New hair, new piercing, same cold eyes, same flat mouth. Then my gaze dropped to the girl at his side, and I stopped looking at him entirely.

Yvette. Plain white dress, quiet, tucked into his shadow like she belonged there. "Ooh." Reagan elbowed me. "That's gotta be the girlfriend.

I heard Halden people say there's always some girl glued to him.

Bet it's her." She pursed her lips. "She's pretty, I'll give her that." Then, loyal: "Still not as pretty as you, Sloanie." I had never regretted a yes more in my life.

We were standing directly across from his group. And this vest was a screaming, stoplight red.

When I didn't answer, Reagan only got louder. "She's got that quiet, outofapainting thing. You? You walk in and own the room.

First time I saw you I was fully feral." The crowd kept thickening. The two of us stood there in our trafficcone vests, and Reagan showed no sign of stopping. "Sis.

One more sentence and we're getting reported." I caught her hand before it could land on me. She flicked her eyes at something over my shoulder and winked.

I had no idea what she meant. Not yet. Chapter 4 Then Theo came jogging over, lips pressed into a grin. "Sloane. You volunteering?" Reagan had evaporated. Of course she had.

Left me standing in it alone. I nodded. Close enough to an answer. Theo had been chasing me since the first week of term.

I'd told him, clearly, more than once, that I wasn't interested. He carried on exactly as before.

I saw my own reflection in him, and for the first time I understood what a headache I must have been to Kellan. "So after the game, hang back for me?

We'll grab food." He didn't wait for me to turn him down. Just grinned and jogged off. I opened my mouth and watched his back retreat, nothing coming out.

Reagan rematerialized at my ear. "Honestly, Theo's not the worst. Kind of admirable, that stamina, that—" She met my eyes and mimed zipping her lips.

I dropped my head and tried to work out how to survive the next several hours. Then Reagan leaned in close, voice going low and sly. "Hey.

You know that guy from Halden?" A beat. "Why's he been staring at you this whole time?" Something jolted under my ribs and I snapped my head up before I could stop myself