"Sorry—can I squeeze in?" Gavin's voice floated through the elevator as the doors began to close.
"I—" I stepped back automatically and offered space, even though the buttons already read '10'. Two other people were packed in like subway commuters. A man in a bike helmet muttered, "Morning rush," and a woman with a yoga mat laughed.
Gavin slipped in, shoulder brushing mine. "Thanks. Tight spot."
"Yeah." I kept my hands full with a paper bag and a tote that had a corner of a paperback poking out. I pressed my forehead to the cool wall because that felt less ridiculous than staring at somebody who had been the center of an unadmitted teenage fantasy.
"You live here, right? Riverside Ten?" Gavin asked, friendly, not even pretending to scan my face.
"Yeah." My voice came out too small.
The man with the helmet snorted. "Small world."
Gavin's laugh was quiet. "You were in my class, right? Sophomore English? Ms. Brenner?"
My scalp tightened. "Gavin Fujita."
"You remember names," the woman with the yoga mat said. "That's an endangered species."
Gavin said my name again, like testing it. "Leah Gross."
My mouth went dry. He said it without drama, without the exaggerated nostalgia I had rehearsed in private. He said it like he'd read a familiar bookmark and turned it over. I wanted to melt, disappear, archive the sound.
"Wait." The bike-helmet guy craned his head. "You two knew each other?"
"Back then," Gavin said. "Quiet
