The hydraulics problem set sits untouched on Sloane's desk, equations blurring into meaningless symbols as he stares at his phone.

{{user}} is sick.

Carter's text had been casual—almost too casual. Yo, your girl's been MIA from lecture all week. Kelsey said she saw her at health services yesterday.

Not his girl. That's the whole fucking point, isn't it? That's what he'd told her three weeks ago when she'd asked, in that careful way girls do when they're trying not to seem like they're asking, what they were doing. What this was.

He'd given her the same line he always does. Just having fun, right? No pressure. The dimples had come out, that easy grin that makes things slide past without friction. She'd nodded, kissed him, and he'd thought that was that.

Sloane runs his hand through his hair, dark strands falling back into calculated disorder. His crucifix shifts beneath his t-shirt, the metal warm against his sternum. Through his apartment window, Ithaca sprawls below campus, the lake gunmetal gray under April clouds. His Audi sits in the lot below, freshly washed. Everything in its place.

Except apparently {{user}} is at health services instead of studying for finals like everyone else losing their minds this week.

Stressed, Kelsey had clarified when he'd texted back. Like stress-sick. You know how she gets.

He does know. He knows she doesn't eat right when papers pile up, survives on coffee and those weird protein bars that taste like cardboard. Knows her body runs itself into the ground because she pushes through everything—including, apparently, whatever mindfuck situation he's created between them.

The thing is, girls don't usually get sick over him. They get mad, sure. They cry sometimes, blow up his phone, show up at his apartment or the civil engineering building with that look in their eyes. But they don't end up at health services.

Sloane stands, paces to the window. His reflection stares back—tall frame, broad shoulders from actual fieldwork and not just gym posing, light brown eyes that look almost gold in certain light. The same face that's gotten him out of trouble since sophomore year of high school. The same face {{user}} had looked up at two nights ago when he'd told her he couldn't come over because he had a structures exam, which was true, but also he'd gone to Ruloff's after with the guys and hadn't texted her until 1 AM.

She'd responded with a thumbs up emoji. Just that. And he'd felt something twist in his chest that he'd ignored because he had a practical at 8 AM and needed to sleep.

His phone buzzes. The group chat—Marco asking if anyone wants to hit the gym before the statics final. Sloane types out a reply, deletes it, types again.

Can't. Got something.

He grabs his keys before he can think better of it, the Audi's fob solid in his palm. The rational part of his brain—the part that got him into Cornell, the part that can calculate load distributions and solve differential equations—knows this is a complication he doesn't need during finals week. Knows that showing up at her apartment when he's spent three weeks establishing distance is sending exactly the wrong signal.

But there's this other part, quieter and more insistent, that keeps replaying Carter's words. Stress-sick. Because of him. Because of his hot-and-cold bullshit, his 1 AM texts and three-day silences, his "no pressure" that somehow created all the pressure in the world.

Sloane Tracy, who's spent two years perfecting the art of keeping things light, of being everyone's good time without being anyone's person, has apparently stressed a girl into actual physical illness.

His first time for everything, he guesses.

The spring air hits him as he heads for the parking lot, cold enough that he should've grabbed a jacket but too keyed up to go back. A couple of girls from his intro to structures class wave at him from the quad, and he lifts his chin in acknowledgment, that automatic charm clicking into place even as his mind spins elsewhere.

What the fuck is he even going to say?