The next week, my name was called during Philosophy class.
“Ms. Hayes,” Professor Grant announced dryly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, “you will be partnering with Mr. Rylan for mandatory academic tutoring.”
I froze.
Jace, who had been leaning back in his chair, boots crossed, arms folded, looked up with a sharp jerk of his head.
“No,” he said immediately.
“Yes,” Professor Grant replied without looking at him.
“I don’t need tutoring.”
“And yet,” Grant said, turning a page on his clipboard, “you’re failing.”
Jace scoffed, but I could see his jaw tightening.
“And you,” Grant added, glancing at me with the faintest hint of pity or maybe amusement—hard to tell with him—“are the only student I trust not to be intimidated by him.”
That was definitely incorrect, but my body somehow nodded before my brain could protest.
Class ended. People filed out.
Jace stayed slumped in his seat, glaring at Grant’s retreating back like he could set him on fire with his mind.
I stood there holding my notebook, overheating and underbreathing.
Finally, he spoke without looking at me.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I, uh… think I do.”
He huffed a laugh. “Evie, tutoring me is like tutoring a brick wall.”
“You’re not a brick wall.”
“Sweetheart, you haven’t met me on a bad day.”
The word sweetheart hit me like a physical force.
I stiffened, and his eyes flicked to my reaction with this almost smug awareness—as if he hadn’t meant to say it, but also absolutely had.
“Jace,” I said, trying to sound composed, “I don’t mind helping.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning in slightly, eyes narrowing playfully, “that’s the problem.”
Heat crept up my neck.
He sighed then, pushing up from his chair, stretching his arms as if the entire situation exhausted him.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Right now?”
“Unless you’re busy.”
I wasn’t.
But he didn’t need to know that.
He smirked anyway—because of course he did. “You are the worst liar.”
We left the building together.
People stared.
Of course they did.
Jace Rylan didn’t walk next to people.
He stalked. He prowled. He moved like trouble walked beside him.
But next to me, he slowed his steps.
He didn’t say it.
Didn’t acknowledge it.
But I felt it: he matched my pace.
We ended up in a small lounge on the second floor of the library—the same place he’d once found me in the dark.
I sat across from him, pulling out the Philosophy notes.
He didn’t move.
Just stared at me.
And stared.
And stared.
“Are you going to take your book out?” I asked gently.
He didn’t.
He kept looking at me like I was the assignment.
“Evie,” he said, voice low and annoyingly sincere. “I’m warning you. I don’t absorb information like normal people.”
“That’s fine. Everyone learns differently.”
“No,” he said, leaning in, elbows on his knees, “I mean: the second you start talking, I stop hearing anything except your voice.”
My breath caught.
“That’s not… that’s not how studying works.”
“It’s exactly how studying works when the tutor is distracting as hell.”
My face burst into flames.
“Jace,” I whispered, “you’re not even trying.”
He sat back.
Shrugged.
Tilted his head.
“I am trying. You just make it really damn hard.”
“I— I don’t make anything hard.”
His eyes sparkled like he was trying not to laugh. “Sweetheart… you have no idea.”
I covered my face with my notebook.
He gently tugged it down.
“Okay,” he said, straightening slightly as if forcing himself into student mode. “Hit me. What do I need to know?”
“Uh… okay.”
I scrambled through my notes.
“Today we will start with Plato.”
“Cool. Who’s that?”
“JACE.”
He laughed—an actual, real laugh.
Not a scoff. Not a sharp exhale.
A laugh.
It bounced off the quiet lounge walls and wrapped around me like something warm.
“Alright,” he said, holding up his hands. “Alright. Plato. Lay it on me.”
So I did.
For the next twenty minutes, I explained the basics of the Allegory of the Cave.
Every time I thought he wasn’t listening—because he was watching my mouth or my hands or my face with unsettling intensity—he would summarize back perfectly.
Like:
“So the shadows are lies,” he said once, nodding to himself. “People believe them because they don’t know better. Because it’s easier than seeing the truth.”
I blinked. “Yes. Exactly.”
His eyes softened. “You get that, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Being stuck in the shadows. Knowing there’s more, but being afraid that if you step into the light, you’ll blind everyone around you.”
My heart dropped.
He wasn’t talking about Philosophy anymore.
I pushed my notes aside. “Jace…”
He looked away, jaw tight.
“I’m not saying anything. Don’t give me that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that makes me feel like you’re seeing right through me.”
My breath stilled.
Because he was right.
And also wrong.
He thought he hid everything.
But the more time I spent with him, the more I realized Jace wasn’t hard to understand.
He was painfully transparent in ways no one bothered noticing.
“Jace,” I said softly, “I’m not judging you.”
He stared at the table.
Silent.
Then, barely audible:
“I know.”
The room felt too small.
Or maybe it was the space between us that felt too charged.
I cleared my throat. “We should keep studying.”
He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. Before I say something else stupid.”
“You didn’t say anything stupid.”
He lifted his eyes just enough to meet mine.
“Evie,” he murmured, “you should stop being this nice to me.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes me want things I’m not supposed to want.”
My pulse misfired.
The edges of the world blurred.
I whispered, “What things?”
He shook his head, pushing up from his seat so fast the chair scraped.
“We’re done for today.”
“Jace—”
“Evie,” he said, voice tight, like he was holding himself together by threads, “if I stay in this room any longer, I’m going to do something you’re not ready for.”
He didn’t wait for my answer.
He left.
And I sat there, hands trembling around my notebook—
Knowing that whatever was happening between us wasn’t harmless anymore.
It wasn’t tutoring.
It wasn’t friendship.
It was a collision course.
And I had no idea how to stop it.