Colleen nods.

“And drink water.” He picks up a S’well bottle from her desk and lays it beside her on the bed. “You’d be surprised how dehydrated crying will make you.”

Colleen laughs and pulls the water bottle toward her, cuddling it as she closes her eyes to sleep.

I shut Colleen’s door behind us quietly. “Thank you,” I say. “That was really kind.”

“No problem,” Braden says. “I saw you guys, and figured I would help.”

I nod. We head down the hall to my room.

“It’s strange though. Girls crying on the ground is usually a drunk thing.” He laughs. “Sober at noon is a new one.”

“I think she was pretty out of it,” I say. “Maybe not drunk, but she said she hadn’t really slept in days.”

“That’ll do it.”

We step into my room. The common room is empty, but someone left an empty yogurt container on the table. I cringe as I pick it up and throw it away.

“It was so freaky,” I say. I pull a Vitaminwater from the fridge and unscrew the cap. “She kept talking about Perfect10. Like it was...ruling her life or something. I’ve never seen anything... I didn’t think people would get that upset because of something we made.” My voice is thick and my eyes burn. Oh great, I’m gonna cry now too.

Braden seems to notice. He steps closer. “Hey, hey,” he says. “It’s okay.” He brushes his hand against my cheek. “That was not our fault, okay?”

I don’t say anything, afraid that if I speak my voice will crack.

“I’m sure the guy was a dick, but it sounded like he was just as much of a dick in person as he was online, okay?”

I nod.

He leans in and brushes his lips against mine. A sigh escapes me and I kiss him back, letting my body melt into his. He trails a hand from the small of my back into my hair. I put my arms around him. I slip my hand under the hem of his shirt and feel the warm, bare skin of his back.

His lips press on mine, and this kiss turns from comforting to exhilarating. My body starts to overtake my mind, and thoughts of anything besides his lips and his skin and the bulge pressing against my hip disappear.

He leads me by my wrist into the bedroom, where thankfully, Tiffany is nowhere to be found.

We fall onto my twin extra long together, and there is no room for us to not be touching. Not that we would want that.

We do the same thing, but horizontal. When he reaches around to my bra clasp and looks at me, a question in his eyes, I nod.

And so I make it to second base. And not just over the bra.

His hands are kind of cold, but it feels nice.