Even though Hannah returned relatively quietly in the wee hours of the morning, Cat was still awake. She thought about pretending to be asleep, mostly to try and will herself to actually go unconscious, but Hannah’s sniffles made her freeze. She’d been so wrapped up in her own thoughts of Peter that she almost missed it.

“Hannah?” she called softly in the darkness. Hannah shuffled a bit, slipping out of her shoes, as Cat leaned over a bit to flick on the light. Her roommate jumped and spun around, hand at her nose to wipe away the snot and tears. “Are you okay?”

The brilliant blue of her eyes were just highlighted from the angry swelling of her face--though, that didn’t seem to be the only problem. She swayed a little, and hiccuped. Was this the crying drunk Hannah she was promised at the beginning of the year? Or did Peter’s wrath continue tonight? A flash of anger joined the anxiety that knotted her stomach so tightly.

Hannah let out a small whine. “Oh no, I woke up the Kit--hic--Cat!” Cat grunted as she sat up in her bed, to show that she was already awake, and stared at her roommate.

“I was already awake. What happened?” She pulled her legs to criss-cross, and patted her bed for Hannah to sit; she didn’t hesitate, and made a running-jump to bounce directly next to Cat. If she hadn’t moved her legs just a fraction of a second before that, Hannah might have broken something.

“Th-the s-s-s-s-store,” she started, wiping her face, “d-d-d-doesn’t have popcorn bags left!” Cat blinked, uncertain of what to do at this point, but still lay a hand on Hannah’s knee as a way to comfort her. “A-a-and then I was thinkin’--” She let out a loud, snotty sniff-- “that it’s so stupid of--hic--that’s so stupid of me to be sad about, ’cause, like, someone else needed that popcorn!” Her voice got higher and higher the more she spoke. Cat waited for something a little more important to happen, for Hannah to bring up literally anything else, but she continued. “The guy--the guy at the counter, was all, ’Are you a’crying? Can you not?′ Well, not like--he didn’t--speak it like that. But he, like, asked, and then I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m drunk,’ and he was all, ‘I can tell,’ and then I was all--hic--I was all sad and embarrassed and I ran out, but I never got a snack--” Another sob bubbled up in Hannah’s throat. “And I’m still snacky!” She covered her face, now, and spoke into her palms. Cat got about every other word, but it seemed to be something along the lines of how lots of people felt snacky and didn’t get any food, and then all of a sudden, Hannah’s hand fell and she snapped to Cat, seemingly horrified. “And like you probably want a snack, too, but you’re like, ‘Nah, I’m too cool for a snack’ and that probably means you want one more!” Had Hannah not just been crying about popcorn, Cat may have thought that this was all some elaborate metaphor for something else. But instead she sighed, glanced to the clock on the dresser, and patted Hannah’s knee. It was too late (or early?) to try and figure this out. Hannah needed water, rest, and obviously a snack-themed distraction from whatever actually got her started crying.

Cat gave a small smile to her friend. “Are you still feeling snacky?” she asked instead. Hannah hiccuped. “I have some sour gummy worms in my desk that I need help finishing.” Hannah’s eyes went wide.

“I haven’t had gummy worms in so long….” She sniffled again. “Are you sure y-you want to share them…?” Cat nodded.

“Definitely. You got me thinking about snacks, and those are my favorite snacks to share.” She gestured to her top drawer of her desk where the bag was, and Hannah immediately scrambled over the side of the bed to grab them.

“Omigod, Cat--!” She let out a grunt as she returned to a seated position on the bed, her prize in hand. “You’re literally the best person ever to ever be.” Hardly a moment passed before she ripped open the bag to grab a handful and shove them in her mouth. Cat giggled.

“If I could be half as good a friend as you are to me, that might be the case.” She grabbed a couple worms for herself, and watched Hannah’s face contort from the sour and tart flavors that mixed together. Her mouth full, she let out a small complaint, obviously about how she didn’t expect it to be such a strong flavor. The two shared a few laughs when she recovered, and she let out a sigh.

“You’re the best. I’ma pass out now.”

“Goodni--oh--” She didn’t think Hannah meant that she would pass out on her bed. But Hannah immediately toppled over and grasped for one of Cat’s knees to use as a pillow, and nestled into it like a cat in a pillow.

“Not moving. G’night.” Well, then. At least she let Cat adjust herself so that she could lay down again. Hannah curled into a ball at her hip, leaving her with very little space, but at least it was something.

Her roommate’s interruption didn’t offer any clearer thoughts on what kept her up until now anyway. All Cat could bring herself to admit, even in her head, was that she was exactly where she was before that awful party last year. Well--maybe not exactly. Maybe now everything felt a little more intense, burned a little hotter. And even though she was now back on with Pumpkin, it didn’t mean Peter suddenly disappeared, even though that would make things a little easier.

Pumpkin was easy to talk to. He was funny, smart, sweet. He had a passion for learning new things, and he walked on the very thin line of wanting to know everything about her and keeping his distance at her request. Had they met in person before online, she’d have no doubt that they would have hit it off perfectly. He could keep up with her--and that was no small feat. Cat wasn’t blind to how she came off, so for someone to look past her sarcasm and everything, it was huge. And above all else, even after the months of talking and even a couple without, her stomach still jumped at the thought of him. She still found herself, even with Hannah grabbing onto her hip and drooling into it right now, shoving her face in her pillow to hide her smile just from simply thinking about him.

Admittedly, it was a little hard to have all of this contained to a phone. If she didn’t have that app, there wouldn’t be anything between them at all. And with Peter always being around, confusing her--ugh.

Maybe she and Peter had...something. Maybe his prickly nature was like hers, just a barbed wire fence to keep people at bay, and they butt heads because of it. And just because she tried to hold him at arm’s length didn’t mean she was very good at it. Cat sighed. Fine, she thought to herself as she finally started to fade to sleep. She could admit that sometimes her stomach aches around him were from butterflies, too.

It didn’t matter, though. As long as she didn’t completely mess things up with Pumpkin, it wasn’t like she was going to do anything about it anyway. Admitting the tiniest bit of feelings didn’t hurt anyone. Nothing had changed.

Monday flew by so fast, Cat hardly had any time to even see Hannah. Between actually attending her English class workshop, her three-hour long communications class, and closing Jittery Joe’s, she hardly had time to sit to eat. Breakfast granola bar, burrito for lunch, and no time for dinner.

When she shut her dorm room door behind her that night, she didn’t expect Hannah to be sitting in her pajamas, waiting like a disappointed parent.

“Oh--hi,” Cat blurted, raising a brow. “Everything okay?” She dumped her stuff at the foot of her bed and continued getting ready to go to sleep, but Hannah hesitated.

“I was going to ask you the same thing. You haven’t been replying to the group chat.” Cat let out a loud groan.

“Work was insane,” she started as she stepped out of her dress and into her pajamas. “Everyone’s pulling all-nighters for midterms this week, so they’re all getting coffee and making the store busy, and for some stupid reason, my manager thought it was a great idea to cut everyone’s hours, so I was by myself for most of the time!” Cat released the pressure in her chest by venting to her roommate all the way until she was curled up in bed, plugging in her phone. “...and this stupid lady was like, ‘Why did you put chocolate in my mocha? I’m allergic!’ Like, bitch, do you know what’s in a mocha? It’s chocolate coffee!”

“What a fucking idiot,” Hannah groaned, though her tone wasn’t as sincere as it normally was. Cat finally looked up from her phone.

“Anyway. What’s up with you?” She flicked to the group chat on her phone and scanned it quickly to see if she’d missed anything, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Hannah’s hesitation was making her nervous.

“Well, I mean, we just didn’t hear from you, is all. I thought maybe you were still upset about yesterday.” Cat’s gaze snapped up to her roommate’s. Was that it? Was the reason that there wasn’t anything strange in the group chat because they all talked about her in one she wasn’t included in?

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’m--I’m not,” she admitted. It seemed to surprise Hannah as much as it did, her. “I was legitimately busy today. I’m fine, though. I promise.” Hannah pursed her lips, regarding her carefully. “Though I wasn’t the one that came in crying about popcorn….”

“Is that what I cried about?” Hannah realized with a gasp. “I couldn’t remember! I thought it was about your gummy worms or something.”

“No, you were upset the store was out of popcorn.” The girls shared a laugh, but Hannah wasn’t finished.

“Anyway--um, so you say you’re not upset about last night?” Cat nodded. “’Cause Peter is um--”

“How the Hell is he mad?” she interrupted. Well, she wasn’t upset until now--

“He’s not mad!” Cat clamped her mouth shut. “He’s feeling super guilty.” Oh. Well, then. Just as fast as the anger ignited, it sizzled away with a smile. “Don’t look so pleased!”

Cat laughed with her. “Well, he should feel guilty!” She plopped her head on the pillow to stare at the ceiling. “He was being really mean.” Hannah reached over to flick off the light, and sighed.

“Whatever, just don’t, like, make it all weird for the rest of us by torturing him or something.”

“That all depends on how he acts.”

“God, you’re both such children.” If it wasn’t so dark, Hannah would have absolutely seen that Cat stuck her tongue out at her.

----------------------------------------

The moment of truth came to tutoring. Pre-calc was a review class, prepping for the midterm that would take place on Thursday. As if Cat’s stomach wasn’t already in constant pain from the recent events. Now she had to add stress of school on top of a crappy work environment and an overactive pituitary gland.

It would have been better if she had any time to talk to Pumpkin, but it seemed like their schedules mirrored one another. So now her guaranteed stress relief was off suffering through group projects and work whenever she had a moment to fully connect to him. It was like a bad addiction; now that she got him back, it hurt her chest to not have a piece of him, constantly lighting up her phone, to not have any idea what he was thinking about right now.

And as for right now…

Cat approached Peter’s table, slow and quiet. He must have had a presentation today or something. She hadn’t seen him wear slacks since he repaired phones, but now he had them on, and even an eggplant-colored button-up casually untucked, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. One hand drummed the table while the other held his phone, purposefully avoiding looking at her as she approached; it would have been annoying if she didn’t know in her core he was just doing it to avoid looking at her. He didn’t even look up until she’d lowered herself to her chair and set her book down in front of her.

“Hey,” she murmured. Peter clicked his phone’s screen off and slowly looked up at her, dimples punctuating his grimace. He’d even freshly shaved, she could tell, just from the slight, musky scent that came off of him.

“Um, hey.” Yikes, he was tense. But he didn’t say anything, even though he looked like he was holding back a monologue. Cat slipped her notebook out of her bag; she moved carefully, as if anything sudden would crack whatever fragile shell Peter contained himself in.

She opened her notebook to the last page she wrote on today as she said, “So I’m allowed an eight-and-a-half by eleven cheat sheet--” Peter interrupted her.

“Are you still mad about…?” She flicked her gaze up to him, squinting slightly.

“No,” she said honestly. “I’m over it. You?” He didn’t look at her anymore.

“No, I was just--” But his words died in his throat.

Cat sighed. If he was going to be like that, she didn’t have time for it. There was only so much she could focus on at a time, and catering to his ego was not something she was even interested in at the moment. If he was serious about apologizing, or if he truly felt bad, he was going to have to be a little more prompt about it.

“Good, because this midterm--” She tapped her book to force him to look at her. “If I don’t get at least a B on it, I’ll have to get a perfect score on the final to just pass the class.” Saying this seemed to get him to inch out of his mind for a moment.

“Right--well, you’re going to be fine.” It took a moment, but he finally snapped back to the present with a sigh. She watched the gears shift in his eyes before he reached for her notebook to take a look at what happened in class just an hour ago. “Let’s see what he’s throwing at you….”

----------------------------------------

No one complained to Cat that dinner was even more tense than usual. No one brought up Sunday at all, and no one blamed her for Peter being kind of quiet. She felt like she’d successfully returned to normal, and aside from the occasional side-eye to Peter, Hannah fully backed Cat’s attempt at pretending Sunday never happened in the first place. Things were okay.

And since she’d finished her English essay early, she was able to spend the entirety of Wednesday, except for a morning shift she swapped with Jeffrey, studying for her pre-calc midterm. Now, her evening was completely open, and she sat at her desk with all of her class notes and her book open to try and memorize every little detail the professor ever said.

“No work?” Hannah asked when she’d returned from her own class.

“No, switched shifts with Jeffrey so I could study,” she answered without looking up. Hannah shut the dorm room door, and took the hint that now wasn’t the time to vent about the girl in her biology class she sat next to.

Cat had her cheat sheet perfected, color-coded, with a tiny legend in the corner in Peter’s handwriting. Pink for theories. Orange for equations. Green for examples. She made fun of him for it last year, but his color system did help her remember things a little easier. She just never had such difficulty before this class, and never had to use it. She didn’t have to tell him how much it helped, though.

It was maybe nine PM before Cat remembered to blink. And just as the world came into focus, her phone started to buzz. She glanced down to it, half-annoyed, half-confused that someone would call her at this hour during midterms week. She knew where all her friends were, they all knew she preferred texting. Who was calling?

She didn’t know this number. With her heart in her throat, Cat raised the phone to her ear.

“Um, hello?”

“Oh! Oh, uh--sorry!” the voice on the other line blurted. Some kid. “Is now an okay time to talk? I figured it would be, since you just--”

“Sorry, who’s this?” Wrong number, maybe?

“Oh, oh! Sorry!” the guy continued. “Um, it’s Oscar. This is Catrina, right?” Cat’s jaw dropped; she spun around in her chair to see Hannah staring at her, wide-eyed. Did she hear that? Was her phone volume up high enough that Hannah heard all of this?

“Oscar!” she repeated, mirroring Hannah’s oh my god expression. “Yes, yes. Um, I wasn’t thinking you’d call like...now….” She wasn’t thinking Peter would give out her goddamn phone number to sell this stupid lie.

“Right!” Oscar gave a nervous laugh, and Cat rose from her chair to gather her class notes into a pile. “I just, honestly, I didn’t think you were real.” They shared a laugh through the phone, and Hannah covered her mouth to muffle herself. With her notes in a pile, she shoved them into her book to mark her place and shut it before she reached for her bag.

“Well, that’s fair,” Cat said distantly. “Is now okay for you to talk? Like are you...in public or…“? Are you around your asshole father? she wanted to ask.

“Oh, no. I’m just...in my room. Chilling.” God, he was such an awkward teenager. Cat rolled her eyes.

“Okay, cool. Can I call you back in like, five minutes? I was just finishing something.”

“Sure!”

“Okay, bye.” The minute Cat hung up, Hannah tried to start her interrogation. Cat cut her off, her bag and book in hand. “Yeah, apparently Peter had a hard time selling the whole thing to Oscar, so he gave out my number like a fucking--anyway, I’m going to go be a saint.” Hannah screeched, but Cat didn’t wait for her to finish reacting, and instead headed out her dorm room door.

Did this all actually work? Did Oscar really accept the friend request and talk to his brother? Wait, if Oscar didn’t know that “Catrina” was actually Peter, what did he know? How long had they been talking?

Cat knocked on Peter’s door, her phone in hand, and waited for him to answer it. The look of guilt on his face when he opened it answered any unasked question she might have had. Yeah, all of this just happened. He just didn’t think his brother would actually call the number.

“So,” Cat started, shoving her way into the room, “Hi, Cam.” She turned to Peter. “I’m going to study while you talk to Oscar. And, if I have any questions, you’re going to answer them, when I have them. Deal?”

“It worked?” Cam blurted from his desk. “Holy shit!”

“Yeah,” Cat said. She didn’t look at her friend, instead watched Peter’s expression morph into shock. “Apparently someone had a hard time selling that he was a girl, though, because Oscar just called me to make sure I was a real person.” Peter gaped like a fish as she set her stuff down on the floor. He didn’t seem to have any words, so she raised her phone to her ear, watching him all the while.

The phone hardly rang once; she was so caught up in watching Peter’s eyes stare at her like a god, she almost forgot to respond to Oscar’s greeting.

“Hey, Oscar,” she started slowly, “now still a good time?” She waited a moment. “I’ve got to be honest with you.”

“O-okay,” the poor teenager answered.

“I’m--” Now her stomach hurt again. “I’m not actually--” Oh, she couldn’t do this when he kept looking at her. Cat spun around and covered her face with a hand. “You weren’t actually talking to me on Facebook. You were talking to a friend of mine that you know.”

“Huh?”

She steeled herself, looking at the window. Through the blades of the blinds she could see Peter staring at the back of her head, waiting, still as a statue.

“So--my name’s Cat. I go to Bay Area University….”

“Oh--oh my God--is JP there? You’re friends with JP, with Peter?” The excitement in his voice encouraged a smile from her, and she twisted around back to him.

“Yeah,” she said through a laugh. “Would you like to talk to him?”

“Yeah--I mean, please! If you--that’d be--!” Oscer was still babbling by the time Cat held her phone out to Peter. His hand trembled as he reached out for it; his heartbeat fluttered against the flesh of his neck, just above the small scar she saw last year.

As Peter raised her phone to his ear, she watched the fear, the worry and nerves flood his features.

“Oscar?” And, in just one instant, warmth brightened his face. Relief so intense that Cat felt it in her own chest, as well. She stepped back to watch Peter melt into his chair, fully shaking, the rest of his greeting marked by a slight waver in his voice.

Peter’s nervous excitement was so intoxicating, Cat didn’t realize that Cam stepped up next to her to hold out a hand for a high five.

“Score, Cat!” he whispered, grinning. “We catfished Peter’s little brother!” Um, ew.