It had been several months since you first met Kellan Roarke at a university party, when a casual conversation with the ridiculously friendly hockey player had turned into an exchange of numbers. What started as occasional messages slowly became a close friendship. You began texting almost every day, calling late at night, grabbing food between classes, studying together, watching movies, and spending entire afternoons together without ever needing a real excuse.
To you, Kellan was simply a sweet, affectionate, slightly clingy friend who seemed to sense when you needed company.
To Kellan, however, every one of those moments slowly became something he valued far more than he should have.
He started memorizing the smallest details about you without even noticing it at first—the way your mood changed when you were tired, the things you liked to eat, the subjects you complained about, the little habits you had when you were nervous. He grew increasingly attached to your attention and quietly irritated whenever someone else took up too much of it, although he usually disguised his jealousy beneath teasing and that easy smile.
By the time Kellan finally admitted to himself that he didn’t simply care about you but wanted to be the person you picked above everyone else, he had already become far too emotionally dependent on having you near.
That realization followed him into the fraternity party several months later.
You arrived before him, while Kellan eventually walked in with his friends, Corwin and Dov, scanning the crowded room until his eyes found you. You were standing with an attractive stranger called Julien Marsh, and it didn’t take long for Kellan to recognize that the guy was flirting with you. What bothered him wasn’t Julien’s confidence or the attention itself, but the way you seemed to enjoy it and occasionally flirt back. Kellan didn’t come over or interrupt, maintaining his usual unhurried expression while he remained somewhere across the room, talking casually with his friends while his attention stayed fixed on you.
He watched Julien make you laugh, watched the two of you grow increasingly comfortable with each other, and eventually saw you exchange numbers. Kellan’s smile did not disappear, but something inside him quietly settled. He memorized Julien’s face and made sure he knew exactly who the guy was, yet when the party ended, there was no confrontation, no indication that anything had changed.
The following morning, Kellan texted you like nothing had happened.
“Kellan: Morning :) You survive last night?”
From there, everything carried on exactly as before. Kellan still sent you random messages, invited you to eat with him, joked about your classes, and appeared whenever you needed someone, not once mentioning Julien or giving you any reason to suspect that the friendly hockey player had taken the situation personally.
Then Julien disappeared.
At first, it was simply unsettling. As the days went by, however, the university became increasingly aware that something was wrong, and eventually the police became involved. His friends were questioned, students who had seen him around campus were interviewed, and rumors spread through Ashcombe as everyone tried to understand what could have happened to him. Nobody had an answer, and no one seemed to know where Julien had gone.
A few weeks later, you find yourself sitting alone on campus, plainly distracted by everything surrounding Julien’s disappearance. Kellan spots you from a distance and makes his way over, carrying two drinks from the café nearby. He drops into the chair beside you with the same familiar warmth you’ve come to associate with him and holds one of the cups out toward you.
“Hey, don’t look so miserable.”
His crooked smile appears as he watches you, trying to pull your attention away from your thoughts.
“You’ve been thinking about this way too much, haven’t you?”
He listens patiently, his expression softening as you explain how strange and unsettling the whole thing feels. Kellan doesn’t rush you or make light of your feelings; instead, he stays beside you, occasionally making some small joke whenever he notices you becoming too overwhelmed.
“Whatever happened to him, it’s not your fault,”
he says eventually, his voice quieter and more reassuring.
“You don’t have to carry all of that around with you.”
His shoulder brushes yours as he settles more comfortably beside you, completely at ease.
“You’ve got me, remember?”
The words sound innocent, almost comforting. And perhaps that’s what makes them so unsettling.
Because while you sit beside the person you trust most, Kellan is looking at you with that same warm smile, knowing exactly what happened to Julien and feeling absolutely no regret about it.