Chapter 44: Did I mess up?

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Did I mess up?

The silence stretched a second longer than it needed to.

"Garrett?"

"She’s just a friend," he said.

Simple. Straightforward. The kind of answer that should’ve ended it right there.

Freya didn’t look convinced. She studied him for a moment, head tilted slightly, like she was checking the words against something else she already knew.

"Just a friend," she repeated, not quite a question, not quite agreement either.

"Yeah."

"Okay." She let it sit for a beat. Then, casually, like it had only just occurred to her, "I saw her with you on Sunday, you know."

Garrett’s attention sharpened at that, immediate and total, though he kept the rest of his expression exactly where it had been.

"Sunday afternoon," Freya went on, watching him now with a little more interest than she’d shown a moment ago. "You were both dressed up. Like, really dressed up. You had a suit on, the expensive kind, not the stuff you wear to class."

Garrett said nothing, waiting for the rest.

"And she came into your building. Your apartment, specifically." Freya shrugged, like the conclusion was obvious enough that she barely needed to say it out loud. "So... you two went on a date, didn’t you?"

How does she know that?

The question came fast, sharp, before he could stop it. He hadn’t told anyone about Sunday.

Then it clicked.

Her apartment was two doors down. Same floor. Same corridor.

She must’ve seen us from her window.

That was the only explanation that made sense. Once he realized it, the discomfort settled in properly. He hadn’t accounted for the possibility that Freya might have a direct view of a part of his life he hadn’t planned on showing her yet.

"You don’t have to look so caught off guard," Freya said, amused, though there was something underneath the amusement that didn’t quite match it. "I’m not accusing you of a crime."

"Didn’t say you were."

"Did she stay long?" The question came out light, almost thrown away, but her eyes stayed on him a beat too long waiting for the answer. "You two seemed pretty dressed up for something casual."

Garrett noticed it. The way she asked it like it barely mattered, and the way she watched him like it clearly did.

He didn’t say anything right away.

"She wanted to hangout at my place," Garrett said. "She said she wanted to be somwhere and outside was particularly uncomfortable for her"

It wasn’t exactly a lie. He just wasn’t telling her everything.

Freya nodded slowly, like she was giving the answer a fair chance before deciding what to do with it. "That’s it? She got dressed up like that just to hangout at your flat."

"People dress up for different reasons."

"Sure." She said it evenly, no real edge to it, but something in her expression didn’t quite match the word. "That tracks."

Garrett held her gaze for a second, waiting to see if she’d push further. She didn’t say anything else right away, just looked at him a beat too long, the kind of look that told him plainly enough she wasn’t buying it, even if she wasn’t going to say so outright.

"Right," she finally said.

Just that. One word, flat, closing the subject without actually agreeing with anything he’d told her.

Garrett didn’t correct her. There wasn’t a version of correcting her that didn’t lead somewhere he wasn’t ready to go, not tonight, not with the timer still sitting untouched in the back of his mind.

Freya picked the notes back up, straightening the pages though they didn’t need straightening. She didn’t ask anything else about Sunday. Didn’t circle back to Emiliana, didn’t push for more details, didn’t even bring up any other random happenings in school to back up to fill the space where the conversation used to move easily.

The room felt different than it had ten minutes ago. Not cold, exactly. Just quieter in a way that hadn’t been there before.

Garrett noticed it. He couldn’t have said exactly what it meant, or why one vague explanation had managed to take the air out of a conversation that had been going fine up until then.

"I should probably get going," Garrett said, standing. "Thanks for the notes. Saved me a lot of time."

"No problem." Freya stayed seated, notes now back in her lap, her tone friendly enough on the surface. "Anytime."

He nodded, and she nodded back, and that was it. Nothing dramatic, nothing that would have looked out of place to anyone watching from outside. Just two people ending a conversation that had run its course.

Except it didn’t feel like it had run its course. It felt like it had stopped early, cut off somewhere it hadn’t meant to stop.

Freya didn’t get up to see him out. She just watched him go, the notes still in her lap, her expression unreadable in a way that felt deliberate.

Garrett let himself out.

The corridor was exactly the way he’d left it twenty minutes ago, same hum from the overhead light, same stretch of doors leading back to his own. But the walk back felt longer than the walk over had.

He’d gone in there planning to build something real with her, one honest conversation at a time. Instead, she now knew about Emiliana, or at least knew there was more to it than he’d let on. And he had no clear read on what she thought of him now.

Just a friend.

Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say. Maybe anything he’d said would have landed the same way, given what she’d already seen with her own eyes. Whatever he’d told her, she’d already seen enough to know Sunday wasn’t as simple as he was making it sound.

And if Freya already had that much, hiding the rest wasn’t going to be simple anymore.

Garrett reached his door and stopped, hand resting on the handle, not turning it yet.

Eight days, no Seven days.

Somehow, after one conversation, the problem had already gotten more complicated than it was an hour ago.