I must have fallen asleep in Sam’s bed. Yawning sleepily, I reached over next to me to wrap my arm around him.

There was nothing there but cold sheets.

Assuming he was in the bathroom or something, I checked my phone and saw that I’d gotten a notification that my stats exam score was posted.

Piercing anxiety coiled around my body, making the sheets feel tight. I wished I could wait until the morning to open it, but now I was wide awake. I couldn’t fall back asleep without checking it.

Steeling myself, I opened the notification.

I’d gotten a thirty-two percent on the exam.

My hand started shaking. This was going to pull my GPA down below a 3.0. I was going to lose my scholarship, and… and without it I could no longer afford to attend the University of Michigan.

My future was taken away from me. It was ruined.

Then my phone screen changed to black and lit up with Sam’s name. He was calling me.

There was something about him that let him know when I needed him most.

After our conversation, it was only a few minutes until Sam was home again.

He came into the room like a beacon of hope through my own personal darkness. He just lay down in bed next to me and held me wordlessly. Whispering words of comfort occasionally.

It was a very sweet moment, but in my head I was already making plans of what to do. There might be a chance—might be—of me retaining the scholarship. If I appealed to the college and begged for it, maybe there was a sliver of hope.

But that would mean I would have to get all A’s next semester and bring my grade back up. The score from this class would certainly bring me down a lot. I didn’t have time for distractions.

The next day was our last day in Aspen, and there was a noticeable wall between me and Sam. We were still close, and we were still talking, but it was tangible.

He could feel it, I could feel it.

I didn’t like it, but I didn’t know how to get past it. Something had shifted.

We ate breakfast together with his family, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, even though everyone was acting normal and jovial.

We bid goodbye to his family, and Katie swept me up in a huge hug. “You better be back next Christmas!” She threatened with a wink.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied good-naturedly.

Sam didn’t say anything.

The flight back to Ann Arbor was equally awkward. We talked and talked, but something was gone. Something was between us, and though we still had a magnetic attraction, the wall was concrete. Soundproof.

A few days after we got back, I was in Sam’s house again, and he was drawing me when he put down his pencil with a loud clatter.

“I need to go for a walk.”

And even those light, seemingly innocent words, were like arrows to my heart. I knew in my gut what this was about.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked him.

“No,” He said, “I just need some air.”

I didn’t blame him—it was one of those rare chilly yet sunny mornings in Michigan.

While he was gone, I was alone in his house. I thought of ways to cheer him up.

I knew what I had to do—give his artwork more visibility.

Then I got up off the couch and walked around the studio, where there were lots of pictures of me on the walls. I could see that he was transitioning into more abstract versions of me, and I could see distinctly when he was starting to fall in love with me.

The ones he had made when we first started this thing were just pencil sketches of me, plain, boring, even though they were quite detailed. But the ones he had done recently were… they were something else. There was a perfectly, hyper-colorful version of me in fractals, one with me and flowers blooming out of my head, and one of me with cracks all over my body as if I were made of porcelain.

I knew what that one meant; he did that one right after I told him all the pressure I was under. These drawings of me, they were the true form of me, not this fake Instagram account that the university peddled to sports fans.

I didn’t like swimming. I didn’t like what I was doing at school, the classes I was taking. I didn’t like all this fame. What I liked was right here in this house, or, rather, at the moment, walking around outside going through something.

So I took pictures on my phone that looked good, edited them, put a filter on them, and then clicked “post.”

Within a few minutes, I already had thousands upon thousands of likes and comments. I tagged Sam too, and I knew his phone was blowing up with follows.

He texted me, “What did you do?”

I was so happy to hear from him, to feel that connection was still there.

“Tagged you in a post.” I texted back. “You’re famous now, you’re welcome.”

There were the dots, and then they went away. Then the dots again, and they went away.

Oh no, did I do something wrong? I thought. The more time passed, the more I realized that I had probably made a terrible mistake.

But I didn’t see what could possibly be wrong about it. No doubt people would be contacting him for commissions and stuff, which was how careers in art grew. Right?

The clock was ticking into the silence and each noise thrust me deeper into anxiety. It seemed like an eternity until he got back.

When he finally did, he came through the door as a stranger. There was something terribly off, terribly missing from him. I went up to greet him, to throw my arms around him and hug him, but he didn’t return the hug.

“Did I do something bad? Was that wrong?” I asked.

He sighed.

“Let’s sit at the table.” He said.

I felt like my head was exploding. Was he going to break up with me?

“I’ve been thinking.” He said when we sat down. “Actually, do you want a water?”

My mouth was ridiculously dry, but I had to know. I didn’t have time for distractions like water.

“Tell me.” I said, ignoring his question.

He sighed and looked down. “This isn’t going to work.” He said with a finality. And then it felt like there was a wrecking ball slamming through my chest, knocking everything out of me. I actually bucked, losing my breath.

“Are you breaking up with me?” I asked, feeling the tears well up behind my eyes. “Is it because of what I posted?” I asked, grabbing at straws, but I knew it was more than that.

He smiled a little smile that meant “kinda,” but it didn’t reach his eyes. “There’s more than that. I can’t give you what you need.” He said.

“Bullshit.” I said, slamming my fist down on the table. “You’re all I need!”

“Evan, we can’t do this anymore. I need to find a way to make a name for myself. I don’t have everlasting money anymore. It’s time to get serious about my career, and I’m already neck-deep in this art thing.”

My mouth hung open. I couldn’t believe it. “So this is about your pride?” I asked, feeling disgusted, “This is about… being in my shadow? I was only trying to help!” I said, searching for something, anything, any display of emotion on his face.

“It’s not about pride. And this will be good for you, too.”

Emotions were whirling around in my head, thrashing my reason and laying it to waste. But I knew what he said had some truth to it.

Taking a deep breath, I filled the silence. “I need to get my grades up. I’m writing an appeal letter to the scholarship fund, begging for one more chance. If I get that chance, I’ll be allowed to stay at this school and get my degree. Without it… I’ll have to drop out.” I finished with finality.

There was silence in the room as the distance between us fissured and fractured, pulling us further and further apart.

“This is for the best, then.” Sam said, looking into me with that molten, golden-eyed look.

Tears were running down my face. He reached up a hand to wipe them away, but then put it back down and looked anywhere but at me.

“I know you’ll do great things,” I said to him. Then I got up, put my coat on, and left his house, leaving him at the table.