Chapter 37: Phase 3: Leave A Brand New Rule
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He merely blinked at me then walked back out of the kitchen after he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.
My jaw dropped as I watched him leave.
What do you mean it didn’t work?!
My annoyance, which had been simmering all day, solidified into something sharper and more focused.
This was war! A specific, psychological war between two people who weren’t going to discuss what happened in that closet last night but were going to express their feelings through indirect aggression and minor household infractions.
I wasn’t going to lose.
That evening after a long day of classes and a shift at Joy’s cafe, while the shower ran behind the bathroom door, I moved through the kitchen with the quiet, purposeful energy of someone executing a plan.
The Rules List was exactly where I expected it to be on the fridge. Neat and laminated, spaced evenly like Damien had organized it with a ruler, which was a reflection of how much he cared about it. I’d read it enough times that I could recite it from memory, which was not a great indicator of my mental state.
I uncapped the marker.
Stared at the list.
Thought about the closet, the morning, and that mm, and the way he’d said you kissed me back with that infuriating calmness.
Then, with the slow satisfaction of claiming my one form of power, I wrote in big, clear letters on a fresh sticky note.
I held it up for a moment, making sure the size and clarity were perfect.
Then I slapped it onto the fridge beneath rule nine, smoothing it out and stepping back to admire my work.
There it was, bold and slightly crooked, fully committed to its message, sitting right under Damien’s neat, serious list.
A slow grin crept across my face.
The sticky note was practically glaring at me from the fridge, radiating a vibe that usually meant trouble, a mishap, or maybe a mix of both. I was self-aware enough to see that, yet still had the self-control to just do nothing about it.
Rule 69: Don’t kiss your roommate without his consent, then act like nothing happened, you jerk.
"Oh," I murmured, tilting my head as I appreciated it. "That’s definitely going to do something."
I was such a fucking genius...
Leaning against the kitchen counter with my arms crossed, I admired my handiwork the way an artist steps back to take in their masterpiece.
Honestly? Gorgeous, impactful. Even a bit thought-provoking. A real contribution to the discourse.
That bright yellow note sat right under Damien’s meticulously organized list of rules, cheerfully clashing with the cold, curated vibe he’d kept since day one. Just looking at it warmed my heart in a way that felt a bit disproportionate to the act of simply writing on a sticky note.
For about three seconds, I soaked that feeling in.
Then my sluggish brain finally caught up.
I stared at the note.
Then at the hallway leading to our shared room.
And back to the note again.
A slightly inconvenient thought crept into my mind:
What if he’s actually a serial killer though?
I gave that some serious thought as I leaned there, because it deserved it. Damien fit the profile, if you looked at it objectively. True crime podcasts always outline characteristics like this.
Too quiet. Check.
Too calm under pressure. Check.
Too charming in a way that didn’t make evolutionary sense. Check.
That’s how documentaries often start, with neighbors on porches saying things like he seemed so nice and kept to himself, all while ominous music plays. And there I’d be, the colorful, financially struggling neighbor being interviewed in the next episode, saying I should’ve seen it coming while looking haunted.
I squinted down the hallway, contemplating.
Could I take Damien in a fight?
The honest answer came quickly, and I wasn’t thrilled about it.
The guy looked like he worked out with lifting refrigerators on the regular, and he did it well and didn’t even need a spotter. He had that presence of someone who never lost a fight and didn’t seem to spend too much time worrying about it.
Meanwhile, I was surviving on instant noodles and adrenaline, and I’d accidentally inhaled toothpaste this morning.
Still.
I wasn’t weak. Short, yes. Financially struggling, absolutely. Running on caffeine and increasingly strange life choices? No doubt about it. But weak was something else entirely, and I refused to fit that mold.
I straightened up, feeling as confident as someone who’d made a decision and was ready to stick to it, regardless of the evidence.
"Meh," I said to the empty kitchen, with total conviction. "I could take him."
In a fight, I mean...
Get your mind outta the gutter.
This felt like a solid backup plan, and I was glad to have arrived at that conclusion. I grabbed my backpack and headed toward my side of the room, moving with the energy of someone who had made peace with a dilemma.
The apartment settled into its usual midday quiet, only interrupted by the occasional soft rustling of pages from Damien’s desk.
I flopped into my chair, opened my textbook with determination, and tried not to think about the closet, or the kiss, or how his voice had sounded in the dark, or any other thing I was actively trying not to think about.
I made it about forty-five seconds.
Then, as if on cue, my brain, which had apparently decided to be a problem, pulled up the memory of his hand in my hair.
Flipping my textbook open to a random Chapter, I began reading with intense focus.
Across the room, Damien strolled in from the kitchen with a cup of coffee, moving at his usual steady pace. He walked past the fridge without breaking stride, ignoring the sticky note, and didn’t show a hint of emotion.
At all.
I lowered my pen slowly.
Excuse me?
I had put thought into that note. I’d labeled it rule sixty-nine on purpose. I had placed it at eye level in a font big enough to see from across the room. It’d been there for over an hour, and he had walked by it twice without a single sigh, not even that jaw-tightening thing I recognized as his version of being distressed.
Damien settled at his desk, pulled up his laptop, and started reading.
I zeroed in on the side of his face as if waiting for a dam to crack.
He looked as emotionally expressive as an expensive lamp. Present, but illuminating nothing.
But then, over the next hour, I began to notice things. Little things that were easy to overlook if you weren’t paying close attention, and I was very much focused on them.
Damien kept sneaking glances at me. Not overtly. Just quick, sharp looks from the corner of his eye every time I moved, barely there and gone in a flash, like he’d done it before he decided not to.
Then there was the jaw thing.
Anytime I made a sound..
the creak of my chair, the tap of my pen on the page, or the noise of flipping a textbook closed, his jaw would tighten just a bit. Just slightly, but rarely noticeable.
At least I hadn’t failed completely...right?
I was living for that jaw tension now. It had become a metric I was keeping track of.
And then, at some point, I caught him looking at the sticky note while he sipped his coffee. His face stayed perfectly neutral, but his mug lowered very slowly, like he’d stopped receiving instructions while his brain processed something else.
I glanced back at my textbook immediately,
pressing my lips together.
So Mr. Cool-as-Ice was affected after all.
Good. That made two of us, and misery was better shared evenly.
