The week crawled by with excruciating slowness. Adrian went through the motions—classes, meals with Isabella, intramural practice, study groups—but his mind was stuck on a loop, replaying Marcus's words and that moment in the dark when Dante had pretended to be asleep.
This limbo is killing him.
Wednesday night, Adrian called Sage while walking aimlessly around campus.
"I need to talk," he said without preamble.
"It's eleven PM on a Wednesday. This better be important."
"It is. I think—I'm starting to understand something, and it's terrifying."
"Okay, I'm listening. What are you understanding?"
Adrian found an empty bench near the library, sat down in the pool of yellow streetlight. "The enemy isn't Dante. Or Marcus. Or even Isabella. It's time."
"Explain."
"Every day that goes by where I don't deal with this, where I stay in denial, Dante moves further away. He's already pulling back—barely talks to me, avoids eye contact, leaves the room whenever I'm there. And eventually, he's going to move on completely. He's going to find someone else, someone who's not a coward, and I'll have missed my chance."
"So what's stopping you from doing something about it?"
"Isabella. My relationship. The fact that I just committed to being official with her last week."
Sage sighed, the sound crackling through the phone. "Adrian, I'm going to ask you a question, and I need you to really think about your answer. What's the endgame here?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what's your plan? Date Isabella until graduation, then what? Pretend you don't love Dante for the rest of your life? Marry her to prove a point to yourself?"
"I don't—" Adrian stopped, the denial catching in his throat.
"Don't. Don't lie to me. We've been best friends for six years, Adrian. I know you." Sage's voice was gentle but firm. "You've been in love with Dante since we were kids. You just called it hatred because that was easier. Safer. Less scary than admitting you had feelings for another boy."
Adrian's chest felt tight. "Even if that were true—and I'm not saying it is—it doesn't matter. He's with Marcus. They spent the whole weekend together."
"Because you're with Isabella!" Sage's patience finally cracked. "Oh my god, Adrian. You're both hiding behind other people instead of being honest! Dante is using Marcus as a shield the same way you're using Isabella. You're both so terrified of being vulnerable that you're hurting innocent people who actually care about you."
"I care about Isabella."
"I know you do. But you're not IN LOVE with her, and she deserves someone who is."
"How can you possibly know what I feel?"
"Because you talk about Dante twenty times more than you talk about your actual girlfriend. Because you know his schedule, his coffee order, his moods and micro-expressions. Because when you won that award—your first big solo achievement—the only person's reaction you cared about was his."
Adrian didn't have a response to that.
"Look," Sage continued, her voice softening. "I'm not trying to be harsh. I'm trying to wake you up before you lose both of them. Because that's where this is heading. Isabella isn't stupid—she's going to figure out eventually that your heart isn't fully in this. And Dante? He's not going to wait forever for you to get your shit together."
After they hung up, Adrian walked back to his dorm slowly, Sage's words echoing in his head.
You're both hiding behind other people.
The next few days, Adrian started noticing things he'd been too distracted to see before.
Dante and Marcus still hung out—Adrian would see them at the dining hall, walking between classes, sitting together during the group psychology project meetings. But something had shifted.
No more casual touches. No more of that easy intimacy from the party where Marcus had cupped Dante's face. They sat with space between them, spoke politely but not warmly, looked more like acquaintances than people who were dating.
Marcus had stopped coming by the dorm entirely. Used to be he'd drop by a few times a week to pick up Dante or just hang out. Now, nothing.
Dante returned to their room every night instead of staying at Marcus's apartment. Would come back around ten or eleven PM, sometimes earlier, and go straight to bed without much conversation.
And in group settings, Adrian caught Dante watching him. Not the way Marcus watched Dante—hopeful, interested, trying to catch his attention. The way someone watches something they've lost and miss desperately.
Thursday night, Adrian fell down an internet research rabbit hole.
He'd meant to work on his English essay, but somehow ended up searching "rivalry as masked attraction" and then couldn't stop clicking through articles.
"Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lavender Menace" - an academic paper about societal pressure to present as straight.
"When Hatred is Actually Love: Repressed Sexuality in Adolescent Males" - a psychology study that made Adrian's skin crawl with how accurately it described his teenage years.
"The Long-Term Psychological Effects of Emotional Denial" - research suggesting that unacknowledged feelings don't disappear, they just manifest in unhealthy ways.
One article made him stop scrolling entirely:
"Sometimes the person you think you hate is actually the person you're afraid to love. Our brains protect us from threatening feelings by converting them into something more socially acceptable. For many closeted individuals, intense dislike serves as a mask for attraction, allowing them to stay close to the object of their affection while maintaining plausible deniability."
Adrian read that paragraph five times, his hands shaking slightly.
Eighteen years. Eighteen years of competition, of rivalry, of telling himself he hated Dante Alaric.
Eighteen years of being obsessed with every detail of Dante's life, of knowing his schedule and preferences and moods better than anyone else's.
Eighteen years of being unable to look away, unable to stop comparing himself, unable to exist without Dante as his reference point.
What if it had never been hatred at all?
What if five-year-old Adrian hadn't been angry about the red crayon, but desperately trying to get Dante to notice him? What if ten-year-old Adrian hadn't been devastated about losing the race, but about the fact that Dante had run ahead without looking back? What if seventeen-year-old Adrian hadn't been crushed by the championship loss, but by the realization that no matter what he did, Dante would always be just out of reach?
Adrian closed his laptop, feeling like the floor had dropped out from under him.
All this time, he'd been fighting the wrong battle. Had spent eighteen years in a war against his own feelings, and everyone around him had seen it except him.
But acknowledging it—actually admitting that he had feelings for Dante—meant facing an even scarier question:
What happened if he confessed and Dante rejected him?
At least rivalry was predictable. Even toxic competition was reliable, familiar, safe in its way. They knew how to compete. They'd been doing it for eighteen years.
But love? Vulnerability? Actually putting his feelings out there and risking rejection?
If Adrian admitted his feelings and Dante didn't feel the same way, he wouldn't just lose a potential relationship. He'd lose the one constant in his entire life. Even complicated, painful, confusing rivalry was better than nothing.
What if he confessed and destroyed even that fragile connection they had left?
Friday afternoon, Adrian ran into Marcus in the campus center.
"Hey," Marcus said, looking genuinely pleased to see him. "How's it going?"
"Good. Fine. You?"
"Can't complain." Marcus grabbed a coffee, and they ended up walking out together. "Listen, I wanted to thank you."
"For what?"
"For our conversation last week. You probably don't realize it, but it helped me get some clarity." Marcus took a sip of his coffee. "I ended things with Dante. Well, ended the idea of things, since we weren't really together anyway. Just cleared the air, acknowledged we're better as friends."
Adrian's stomach flipped. "Oh. When did—"
"Few days ago. It was mutual, completely amicable. He seemed relieved, actually." Marcus glanced at Adrian. "So now there's nothing in your way except your own fear. Just thought you should know that."
He walked off before Adrian could respond, leaving Adrian standing in the middle of campus with the sudden realization that all his excuses had just evaporated.
Dante wasn't with Marcus. Wasn't hiding behind anyone. Was just... available.
Which meant the only thing stopping Adrian from being honest was Adrian himself.
That night, both of them ended up awake at 3 AM.
Adrian could tell Dante wasn't sleeping by the careful control of his breathing, the occasional small movement, the tension radiating from his side of the room.
The darkness felt heavy, suffocating. Adrian stared at the ceiling, his mind racing through scenarios—what he could say, how Dante might respond, all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong.
"Are you awake?" Adrian whispered into the darkness.
A pause. Then: "Yeah."
"Can't sleep?"
"No. You?"
"No." Adrian's heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. This was the opening he'd been simultaneously hoping for and dreading. "Can I ask you something?"
"Okay."
"Do you ever wish things were different?"
The silence that followed was so long Adrian thought maybe Dante had decided not to answer. He was about to apologize, to take back the question, when Dante finally spoke.
"Every single day."
Dante's voice was rough, raw with honesty.
Adrian heard movement—Dante turning over in bed to face him across the darkened room. Their eyes met in the dim light filtering through the window, and Adrian saw everything he'd been too scared to look for before.
Longing. Pain. Hope. Fear.
The same things Adrian felt, reflected back at him.
"What do you wish was different?" Adrian asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Dante was quiet for a long moment, his silhouette still in the darkness. When he finally spoke, his words were careful, measured.
"I wish I knew how to stop wanting things I can't have."
"What things?"
"You know what things."
Adrian's breath caught. This was it—the moment where one of them could be brave, could say out loud what they'd both been dancing around for weeks, maybe years.
But neither of them moved. Neither spoke. They just lay there in the darkness, staring at each other across five feet of space that might as well have been an ocean.
"I'm scared," Adrian admitted finally.
"Of what?"
"Of ruining everything. Of losing even the complicated thing we have now. Of being honest and finding out that I'm wrong about—" He stopped, unable to finish.
"Wrong about what?"
"About what you feel. About what this is." Adrian's throat felt tight. "What if I risk everything and I'm wrong?"
Dante's laugh was hollow, bitter. "Adrian, you're not wrong."
"Then why—"
"Because you're with Isabella. Because you've made your choice. Because I'm not going to be the person who ruins your relationship." Dante turned back to face the ceiling. "So yeah, I wish things were different. I wish I'd been braver eighteen years ago. I wish I'd said something before you found someone else. I wish a lot of things."
"Dante—"
"Can we not do this right now? I'm exhausted. I've been exhausted for weeks." His voice cracked slightly. "Let's just go to sleep."
Adrian wanted to push. Wanted to say that maybe he'd made the wrong choice with Isabella, that maybe there was still time to fix this, that maybe they could figure it out together.
But Dante had already turned back to face the wall, his breathing deliberately evening out in that fake sleep pattern Adrian had learned to recognize.
The moment passed.
Adrian lay awake for hours afterward, Dante's words echoing in his head.
You're not wrong.
I wish I'd been braver eighteen years ago.
I wish I'd said something before you found someone else.
Dante had feelings for him. Real feelings. Had probably had them for a long time.
And Adrian, trapped in his own fear and denial, had missed every sign. Had pushed Dante away over and over while simultaneously being unable to let go. Had hurt them both by refusing to see what was right in front of him.
Time was running out. Every day that passed in this limbo, Dante pulled further away. Eventually, he'd move on completely—not to Marcus, but to someone else, someone who could give him what Adrian was too scared to offer.
And Adrian would have to watch it happen, knowing he'd had his chance and wasted it.
The "forces of evil" weren't external. They were entropy, emotional distance, and the very real possibility that Adrian was going to lose Dante not because of some cosmic injustice, but because of his own cowardice.
Across the room, Dante shifted slightly, and Adrian heard what might have been a suppressed sob.