When my uncle is a campus star, and I’m just a nobody

The spotlight hit my face, and every word I had memorized vanished.

My first week at university in New York. My first drama club rehearsal. My first line. Gone.

"Lina?" the director called from the dark seats. "Whenever you're ready."

My mouth opened. Nothing came out. Someone in the back row snickered.

Then a warm hand closed around mine.

I turned. Mike, the club's leading man, the boy every freshman had whispered about since orientation, stood beside me with a crooked grin. His dark hair fell into his eyes, and he didn't bother pushing it back.

"Don't be scared, princess," he said, loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Even if you forget your lines, I'll make up a fairy tale just for you."

The room burst into laughter. Not at me, though. With him.

"That's not in the script," I whispered.

"Neither is that cute look of panic." He squeezed my fingers. "Your line is *'The castle gates are closed, sir.'* Go."

I said it. My voice shook, but I said it.

He bowed to me like I'd just saved a kingdom.

By the end of the week, he had walked me home twice. By the end of the month, he'd kissed me under the awning of a deli on Bleecker Street while it poured rain.

---

"Shut up. Shut *up*." Irene grabbed my wrist across the cafeteria table. "Mike? Mike from drama club? *That* Mike?"

Irene had been my best friend since we were sixteen. She'd followed me to New York, to the same dorm floor, to the same drama club.

"That Mike," I said, and I couldn't stop smiling. "He asked me out on Tuesday. We've been on four dates."

"Four." Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth. "You've been here one month, Lina."

"I know! It's insane, right?"

She set the fork down. Lined it up perfectly with the edge of her tray.

"Wow," she said. "That's… amazing. I'm so happy for you."

Her smile was wide. Her eyes didn't move at all.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Of course." She laughed, light and quick. "Just jealous. You know. In a fun way."

"You'll find someone. I swear."

"Sure." She stabbed a cherry tomato. "Someone."

---

That afternoon the rehearsal hall was freezing. The radiators clanked uselessly, and I stood in a thin cardigan, rubbing my arms while Mike ran through his monologue.

"You're shivering," he said between takes, jogging over.

"I'm fine."

"Your lips are blue."

"They're *lavender*. It's a look."

He laughed and pulled me against his chest. Irene sat on the edge of the stage three feet away, scrolling her phone without reading anything.

Then the double doors banged open.

Every head turned.

Jackson stood in the doorway, broad shoulders filling the frame, his varsity football jacket unzipped. He was the team captain. The guy girls lined up outside the stadium to see. He held four shopping bags with names on them I couldn't afford.

A girl from the costume crew actually gasped.

"Oh no," I muttered.

Jackson's eyes swept the room and landed on me. He strolled over like he owned the building.

"Seriously?" He dropped the bags at my feet. "A cardigan? It's forty degrees out, genius."

"Jackson, what are you doing here?"

"Saving your life." He reached over and scrubbed his knuckles through my hair until it stood up in every direction. "You can't even read a weather forecast."

"*Stop!*" I swatted at him.

He ignored me, pulled a cream cashmere scarf from one of the bags, and looped it around my neck. Twice. Tight.

"Jackson! I'm not a little kid!"

"Could've fooled me." He tugged the ends into a knot under my chin, smug as anything. "Who told you to be an idiot since you were born?"

"I *hate* you."

"No, you don't."

Behind me, Mike cleared his throat. "Uh. Hi. I'm Mike."

Jackson looked him up and down. Slowly. Then he held out his hand.

"Jackson."

They shook. It lasted a beat too long.

"The boyfriend," Jackson said. Not a question.

"The boyfriend," Mike agreed, and slid his fingers through mine. He lifted our joined hands slightly, almost like a toast.

Jackson's mouth twitched. He didn't comment. Instead he reached past Mike and straightened my collar where the scarf had folded it crooked, smoothing it flat with his thumb.

"There. Now you look like a person."

"Go away," I hissed. "You're embarrassing me."

"That's my job." He backed toward the door, pointing at the bags. "Boots are in the blue one. Wear them, or I'm telling your dad."

"He's *your*—" I snapped my mouth shut.

Jackson grinned and walked out.

The whole hall stayed silent for three full seconds. Then everyone started talking at once.

"Was that *Jackson*? Like, the quarterback Jackson?"

"How does she know him?"

"Did he just buy her a whole wardrobe?"

Mike leaned down to my ear. "Should I be worried?"

"About him?" I snorted. "Trust me. Absolutely not."

"He looked at me like he wanted to bury me under the fifty-yard line."

"He looks at everyone like that."

I didn't explain. Jackson had made me swear on the first day of school. *Nobody finds out I'm your uncle. I'm twenty. You're eighteen. Do you know how weird that sounds?* My grandparents had had him late, a surprise baby, and he'd spent our whole childhood being half a big brother, half a nightmare.

Mike kissed my temple. "Okay. I'll trust you."

I glanced at Irene to share the eye-roll.

She wasn't rolling her eyes.

She was staring at the doors Jackson had walked through. Her phone was raised. Her knuckles had gone white around it.

"Irene?"

She lowered the phone instantly. Smiled.

"He's really something," she said. "You never mentioned you knew him."

"It's… complicated."

"Complicated." She stood and brushed off her jeans. "You know what's funny, Lina? You always seem to have *complicated* with every guy worth knowing."

Then she laughed, like it was a joke, and grabbed her bag.

"See you back at the dorm."

---

**Irene**

The dorm room was dark except for the glow of my phone.

Across the hall, I could hear Lina giggling. On the phone with Mike, probably. Telling him goodnight in that sugary little voice.

One year. I'd sat in the second row of every rehearsal for one entire year. I'd learned his coffee order. I'd laughed at every joke. Mike never once said my name right.

She walked in, forgot one line, and he called her *princess*.

I opened my photos.

There it was. Jackson, the most wanted guy on campus, bending close to Lina, his fingers at her collar. Her face tipped up toward him. Mike's hand still wrapped around hers, right there in the corner of the frame.

One girl. Two guys. One picture.

I zoomed in on Lina's face. In this light, at this angle, she looked like she was about to kiss him.

I smiled.

"You love stealing every guy, don't you, Lina?" I whispered to the screen.

My thumb hovered over the campus confessions page. Forty thousand followers.

"Let's show everyone who you really are."