Chapter 7: Miles's POV

Miles's POV

Hazel was looking at my mouth.

I saw it the second the selfie clicked.

She had gone completely still, and her eyes went straight to my lips and stayed there.

She had done that once before, in the study hall, with a proof on a laptop.

"What's wrong?" Whitney asked.

"Nothing," Hazel said. "I thought I heard something."

She stepped away from us and said she had to find Gran.

I watched her go across the lawn with her gown flapping, her shoulders stiff.

I wanted to follow her.

I had promised her ten days of nothing, and the ten days were over, and I still didn't know how to start.

At the photo, two weeks ago, I had meant to say it.

I had practiced it for a month in the shower. I loved her. That was the entire speech.

Then the boy behind us whistled and called us the happy couple.

Hazel laughed it off, and I lost my nerve in front of a hundred and forty people.

I walked inside to splash water on my face.

I planned to tell her on the walk home.

Instead the department head caught me in the hallway and said my thesis review had been moved up.

He kept me for two hours, asking about load paths.

When I came out, my phone had no messages from Hazel.

Whitney was waiting outside the review room, looking worried.

She said Hazel had gone home with a friend in a gray hoodie. She said Hazel hadn't been feeling well.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Told Me to Stay Away, So I Left and He Followed from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.