Serena’s POV
Scandal has a shelf life, and ours just expired.
I notice it on the walk to Mia's apartment Friday evening — the absence of stares. A group of girls from my constitutional law seminar passes us on the sidewalk, and one of them waves.
Not the tight, performative smile of someone being polite to the campus pariah. An actual wave, the kind you give someone you recognize but don't think twice about.
Two months ago, Serena-and-Caleb was a spectacle. A dining hall debate topic wedged between midterm stress and whether the new cafeteria pasta bar was a health code violation.
Now we're just two people walking down Birch Street in the fading light, and the world has moved on.
"She waved at you," Caleb says beside me.
"People do that. It's a social convention."
"Two months ago, that same girl crossed the quad to avoid eye contact with you."
"Maybe she got over it. Maybe she has finals brain and forgot my name. Either way, I'm accepting the wave and not psychoanalyzing it."
He reaches over and takes my hand, right there on the sidewalk, where anyone can see his fingers threading through mine. No hesitation, no checking over his shoulder. The gesture is so casual it makes my throat tight, because casual is the thing we never got to be.
The article still exists online. The trial transcripts are public record. But people have short memories for other people's scandals, especially when summer is close enough to taste.
College students would rather spend their finite energy on exam prep and beach plans than dissecting the love life of two stepsiblings who refuse to be ashamed.
We are yesterday's news, and I have never been so grateful to be forgotten.
Mia's apartment building is a walk-up with a buzzer that hasn't worked since October, so she leaves the main door propped open with a brick she stole from the landscaping.
We climb to the third floor, and I can already hear Derek's voice carrying through the thin walls.
"Brace yourself," I tell Caleb. "He's going to ask about the hot sauce."
"Obviously." He holds up the bottle he brought. "Why do you think I came prepared?"
Mia swings the door open before I can knock, dark hair piled in a knot on top of her head, wearing an oversized hoodie that says EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE in cracked iron-on letters.
"Finally," she announces, pulling me into a hug that smells like garlic bread and cheap vanilla candles. "Derek has been spiraling about the Godfather for twenty minutes and Priya is ready to commit actual murder."
"It's not spiraling, it's film criticism," Derek calls from inside.
"It's grounds for eviction from my home," Mia calls back. She gives Caleb a pointed look. "Hot sauce?"
He holds up the bottle.
"Perfect. Owen thinks he can handle it this time." She grins with the specific delight of someone who's already positioned the camera.
The apartment is small enough that six people make it feel full — Derek and Owen crammed into beanbag chairs, Priya cross-legged on the rug with a paper plate on her knee, pizza boxes on every flat surface.
Mia reclaims her perch on the kitchen counter, legs swinging, orchestrating the chaos with effortless authority.
Caleb and I take the couch. His arm settles around my shoulders — not a performance, not a declaration. Just the quiet habit of a body that knows where it belongs against mine.
"The original had actual character development," Priya is saying, pointing her pizza crust at Derek with prosecutorial intensity. "The sequel was just explosions wearing a plot as a disguise."
"Explosions are character development," Derek counters through a mouthful of pepperoni.
"That sentence should be a felony."
"You're both wrong," Caleb offers from beside me, his voice low and dry. "The third one was the best and nobody wants to admit it."
Derek nearly chokes. "You're insane. Priya, tell him he's insane."
"He's insane," Priya agrees cheerfully, "but at least he's committed to a stance, unlike Owen, who hasn't said a single word because he's too busy eyeing that hot sauce."
Owen looks up from where he's been studying the bottle with the focus of a man preparing for battle. "I can handle it this time. I've been training."
"Training," Mia repeats flatly. "For hot sauce."
"I've been eating jalapeños every day for two weeks."
"That's not training. That's a cry for help."
Owen ignores her, uncaps the bottle, and tips a generous amount onto his pizza. He takes a bite. Chews. Swallows.
His face turns the color of a sunset in three seconds flat.
"See?" Caleb says calmly. "Jalapeños aren't going to cut it."
"I'm fine," Owen wheezes, groping for his water. "This is — this is actually great."
Mia nearly falls off the counter laughing. Derek pounds Owen on the back while Priya records the whole thing with the serene detachment of a documentary filmmaker.
I lean into Caleb's side, feeling his quiet laugh rumble through my ribs, and the ease of this moment hits me so hard I forget to breathe. This is what I fought for. Not declarations or desperate kisses in dark hallways. This. Pizza grease on paper plates. Friends arguing about movies. His arm around me in a room where nobody cares, because there is nothing left to care about.
We are unremarkable, and it is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Mia catches my eye across the room. She's mid-laugh, mascara slightly smudged, and she pauses just long enough to mouth two words: You're glowing.
I roll my eyes hard enough to strain a muscle.
But later, passing the bathroom mirror on my way to grab more napkins, I catch my own reflection and pause. Same honey-blonde hair, same brown eyes, same face that spent two years hiding behind itself.
The difference is in what's missing — the tension in my jaw, the careful blankness I wore like armor. The girl looking back at me appears unguarded, and unguarded looks a lot like glowing.
The night winds down slowly, reluctantly, with half-finished arguments and promises to settle the debate over summer. Mia hugs me at the door and whispers, "I'm proud of you," against my ear, and I squeeze her back hard enough that she yelps.
The air outside is warm through the open car windows as Caleb drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on my thigh. I'm mid-sentence, telling him about Priya's theory that Derek and Owen are secretly in love, when the car slows.
He takes a turn I know by heart. The gravel road narrows into trees, the canopy closing overhead until the streetlights disappear and the only light is moonlight filtering through new leaves.
The clearing.
He kills the engine. The silence rushes in, thick with crickets and warm earth and the stillness of a place that holds too many of our secrets to ever feel ordinary.
He doesn't explain. Doesn't look at me with the weight of a rehearsed speech or the tension of bad news. He opens his door and steps into the dark, then turns back and holds out his hand, palm up.
"Come with me."