"Hey, Em!" Elle looked up from her textbook and a smile spread across her face as her best friend closed the door to her room behind him.

"Hey, Elle!" Emmett shrugged his jacket off and draped it over the desk chair, then sat down on the edge of Elle's bed, against the headboard, opposite where she sat cross-legged behind a barrier of note sheets, textbooks, and pink-inked notepads. "How's it going?"

"Pretty good, actually!" Elle replied cheerfully. "I've finished all the case summaries. Well, almost. I mean, it's all up here," she tapped the side of her head, "even if I haven't gotten it all... out here yet." She gestured to the notebooks. "And I've studied all of the important... the um... the key terms. The footnotes. I could go on. All of that. Basically it's all under control." She glanced up at Emmett. His chin was resting in his hand and he was smirking, one eyebrow raised. "What, what is it?"

"Nothing," Emmett sighed, reaching for a notebook. "You did this all last night?" Elle nodded, and Emmett skimmed the first page of the notebook – buzzwords and definitions – then turned to the second page – 17 games of hangman. He turned it around and displayed it to Elle.

"Ohh, yeah," Elle bit her thumbnail. "Paulette stopped by. Just for a quick break. The rest of it's good."

"Mm-hm."

"Hey, maybe if you'd been here, it would have been easier to focus," Elle teased.

"Sorry," Emmett said, grinning. "And I thought I could leave you alone for one night without us taking two steps backwards."

"That's not fair."

"Mm, it kind of is."

"It's not."

"I kinda think it is." Emmett crumpled up the hangman tournament and tossed it over his shoulder, just missing a perfect shot into the wastebasket.

Elle pouted for a few moments, then changed the subject. "Where were you, anyway?"

"What, I don't get a life outside of the Kartell showroom?"

Elle was a bit taken aback by Emmett's tone. He was smiling, but there was something abrasive in his joke. The pair always teased one another, but Elle could tell when something was bothering her friend, and so she backed off.

"I didn't mean it like that," she replied. "I just meant that you've been over here just about every night, I thought..." Elle trailed off. She wasn't sure what she was trying to ask.

"Elle, it's fine, I'm kidding. If you really need to know, I... had a date."

Elle's initial reaction was relief that Emmett wasn't mad at her. Her following reaction was something she couldn't quite put her finger on. The image of Emmett on a date was something that seemed so distant, such an abstract sort of concept, that she couldn't imagine it really happening.

Elle had to admit that she was occasionally curious about his romantic past – her own more relevant history dominated their few-and-far-between conversations on the subject. Looking back, Elle wondered if the reason his own relationships had never come up was because he had never offered, or because she had never asked.

"I guess that's a pretty good reason to take a night off," Elle remarked lightly. After a moment she asked, "How'd it go?"

"It was fine," Emmett replied with a smile and a little nod. "But I'm here now, so we can get back to work!" He reached for the textbook in front of Elle, but she grabbed it and pulled it away.

"Wait, wait! It was 'fine,' what does that mean?"

"That it was... fine? I don't know, I think it went well."

Elle rolled her eyes. Part of her wanted to remind Emmett that "fine" was not the acceptable way to dish about a date to your best friend, and wring him for details.

Another part of her wasn't really sure she wanted details.

In fact, Elle had developed a sudden stomachache and frankly had lost the desire to talk at all. The more she digested this new information, the more irritated she became. What was up with Emmett not even telling her he had a date? She remembered his comment from just a few moments ago. Did he think she wouldn't let him skip their study night or something? It's true, they spent a lot of time together, but she didn't own him.

Suddenly Elle was speaking again. "Well, would you see her again?"

"Yeah, maybe, I don't know!"

Emmett was avoiding eye contact now and Elle noticed. She really was a burden on him, wasn't she? He couldn't wait to get out and be with someone else. Elle knew it wasn't fair for her to feel this way, and yet a bitterness was building up inside her. She tried to recall the last time she had felt this way when she realized she was talking once more.

"I guess she didn't leave much of an impression."

"Hold on, what's going on right now?" Emmett looked her square in the eyes now.

"I'm just saying that you shouldn't have to spend a lot of time deciding whether or not you're going to see someone again. If you're meant to be with them it'll be so obvious!" And with a sudden pang Elle remembered the last time she had "so obviously" known (or so she thought) who she was meant to be with.

Then came the realization of the last time she had felt the way she did right now: when Warner introduced her to Vivienne on her first day at Harvard.

Elle didn't know what to do with this information. Her brow furrowed and her mouth hung open a little. This completely wasn't the same thing, right? Warner was the love of her life. Emmett was just her friend, and he was allowed to have other friends. He should, in fact. And yet Elle felt that same jolt of whatever trying to picture him telling the same jokes and stories to somebody else. The same way she sometimes imagined Warner telling Vivienne about his dreams and goals, introducing her to his family...

Oh my God, it's exactly the same thing, isn't it?

Elle quickly pushed aside the burgeoning implications of this revelation. She swallowed a lump in her throat and felt tears growing in her eyes. Crap. She looked down quickly and realized that Emmett was waiting for her to finish her speech and fill the lengthening silence between them.

"You'll know when it's right," she concluded softly, "and you won't need to think about it. That's all."

Elle couldn't blame Emmett for being upset now, but she didn't want to hear what he had to say. His reply was louder than before, exasperated and defensive. "What if they don't 'know'? You'd just wait around forever on that one person you pick because you know from the first second that they're your soulmate or whatever?" Elle didn't respond. "Oh, that's right, I'm sorry, I forgot who I was talking to."

Elle thought she could hold it back, but she wasn't ready for that final blow, and she immediately brought her hands to her eyes as her tears escaped.

Emmett regretted it the moment he said it. Damn it, anything but that.

He knew Elle wasn't trying to interrogate him. She was only trying to help.

It was just so hard to talk about this with her. What was he supposed to say? Yeah, I was on a date, no big deal, just trying to get over you. It didn't go well at all, I wished I was here with you the whole time, but hey, better luck next time. She didn't leave an impression, in fact. You left an impression. I "so obviously" want to be with you but I can't just wait around forever here for something's that's never going to happen. So yeah, how about those case studies, pal?

Honestly, the last thing he wanted to do was hear Elle's advice on finding love – not because he thought she was foolish for believing it, but because it made it so much harder to accept that the Hallmark-movie miracles she talked about didn't exist for him. No amount of "knowing" would magically drive her into his arms.

Telling her that might have been preferable to his chosen alternative, however. Now he'd made her cry. He'd made her cry by weaponizing one of her insecurities. He'd kicked her while she was down. He had thrown in her face the one thing she had been protecting herself from the entire time she'd been here at Harvard, the thing she was trusting him to help her overcome.

Butthead.

Elle was sobbing into her hands. Emmett wasn't sure she would want his comfort – but he supposed things couldn't be made any worse, so he rested his hand on her arm. "Elle, I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry, that was stupid. I shouldn't have said that. That was the worst thing to say. I didn't mean it like it sounded. Hell, I didn't mean any of it." He paused. Elle still had her face buried in her hands, but tears were dripping down her chin. "Do you want me to leave?" Emmett pulled his hand back, but Elle shook her head vigorously. Catching her breath, she wiped her face with her sleeve and reached back toward Emmett with her other hand. He moved to hold her hand, but to his surprise she pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. She inhaled as if she were about to speak, but all that came out were more sobs. Emmett cringed, feeling her body shudder as she cried. He pulled her close.

They sat like that for a while, until Elle had stopped crying and her breathing was slow and steady. Then she spoke, so softly he almost didn't hear her: "Could you stay tonight?"

"I'm sorry?"

Elle pulled back to look at him, rubbing mascara on her sleeves. "Can you stay here tonight? I want to talk about something."

Emmett wasn't sure what to make of her request, but he would do anything to fix this night. "Of course."

The pair got ready for bed in silence. Elle excused herself briefly to change into her pajamas. She donned Emmett's sweatshirt for good measure. Before long, they were laying on Elle's bed beneath an enormous quilt. Emmett's hands were folded across his stomach and Elle found herself fiddling with the tassels of the sweatshirt.

Elle had no idea what she hoped to accomplish now. She didn't want to try to explain her breakdown. Then again, as much as she tried to reject whatever discovery was waiting in her mess of feelings, the one thing she knew with absolute certainty was that she didn't want to be away from Emmett right now.

"Did you want to talk, like, now?" Emmett asked shyly.

"Hm? Oh." Elle's reverie broke and in a moment she made her decision. "No. It's not that important." Elle closed her eyes, flipped onto her side, and latched onto Emmett's arm.

Then – experimentally, just to see how easily it flowed from her tongue – she said, "Love you, Em."

The words hit Emmett squarely in the chest. In his wildest daydreams he was lucky to hear Elle tell him that. Maybe this wasn't quite the way he wanted to hear it, not exactly the sentiment he longed for, but in this quiet moment with Elle curled up by his side, it was perfect.

Elle was already asleep when he said, "Love you, too."