Dahlia had always been good at hiding things.
It came with the territory—being the quiet one, the one who wrote stories instead of living them, the one who preferred fictional disasters to real ones.
But Eliot?Eliot was her favorite kind of disaster.
The first time she met him, he was arguing with a vending machine in the English department hallway, demanding his granola bar back like it owed him rent. Something about the way he talked to the machine, like it was a person who'd betrayed him, made her laugh out loud for the first time in weeks.
That's when he turned and smiled at her. Not a fake smile. Not the polite one people gave when they felt awkward around the weird quiet girl with ink on her sleeves. No—he smiled at her like they were already in the middle of a joke only they understood.
She was screwed from that moment on.
But what no one knew—not Zoe, not Rina, not even Eliot—was that Dahlia had been writing their story for over a year now.
A secret Word doc titled "The Boy Who Didn't Know He Was Loved."
Every late-night coffee, every dumb inside joke, every way he never quite believed people liked him—it was all there, dressed up in pretty metaphors, hidden behind character names that were barely disguises.
And now?
Now everyone else was showing up. Loud, confident, fearless. Zoe confessing like a storm about to hit. Scarlett dragging Eliot into viral internet chaos. Rina turning everything into a competition.
Meanwhile, Dahlia stood in the background, holding chapters instead of speeches.
It wasn't fair.
So she did something she never did—she got mad.
Really, properly mad.
The next day, she knocked on Eliot's apartment door, hands trembling slightly, the folder of printed pages clutched like armor. When he answered, still sleep-rumpled and blinking at her with that stupidly kind expression that made her want to simultaneously hug and strangle him, she didn't hesitate.
"I'm done waiting," she blurted.
He froze. "What?"
"These." She held up the folder. "This is us. It's always been us. I write stories about you because I can't say the words out loud, but I'm not hiding anymore."
"Dahlia…"
"I don't care if it's messy. I don't care if you don't pick me. But I'm not going to watch everyone else get brave while I sit here pretending I don't want you."
Her heart was doing full gymnastics now. Floor routine. Gold medal. Complete emotional meltdown.
"I love you," she said softly, but it hit like a hammer. "I love the way you overthink everything. I love the way you apologize for things that aren't your fault. I love that you always smell like books and coffee and poor decisions."
She laughed shakily. "And if I don't say it now, I never will."
Eliot stared at her, stunned into absolute, perfect silence.
Good.
Let him feel what it was like to be on her page for once.
And without another word, she pushed the folder into his chest, turned around, and left.
Let him read it.
Let him finally understand.
For once in her life, Dahlia wasn't going to write the ending.
He was.