He’s The Campus Sun But Only A Monster For Me Chapter 07
The first week we lived together, Lucas was the perfect roommate.
He made breakfast before class,
put my favorite yogurt front and center in the fridge,
knocked on my door at night asking to watch a movie,
texted when it rained to ask if I had an umbrella, if he needed to pick me up.
He’d always been clingy, but living together made it worse-exponentially worse.
Every morning, I stumbled half-asleep into the bathroom to brush my teeth.
He’d be right there, leaning against the doorframe, watching me.
Mid-brush, he’d reach out and pinch my cheek.
Toothpaste got on his hand, but he didn’t care.
He held it up to his nose and sniffed.
“What toothpaste do you use? Smells good.”
“Regular supermarket brand,” I mumbled, foamy-mouthed.
“Really?” He leaned closer, nose nearly touching my
cheek.
“Let me smell.”
I pulled away, wiped my mouth, pushed his face away.
“Lucas, keep your distance,”
“No,” he dragged out, voice sticky like melted toffee, eyes curved into two crescents.
At night, when I sat at my desk reading,
he dragged a chair next to me, did nothing rest his chin on my shoulder, watching me turn pages.
One page. Two pages. Three.
His breath warmed my neck, steady and soft, like a quiet cat.
Sometimes I turned to look at him.
He’d immediately close his eyes, pretending to sleep,
eyelashes fluttering, tiny smile on his lips.
“You’re faking,” I said.
“Nope. Really asleep.”
“How do you talk in your sleep?”
He didn’t answer. Just buried his face in my neck, arms wrapping around my waist from behind.
I sighed and let him.
Days were quiet and soft, like perfectly tempered water-tasteless, but satisfying.
I wished it could stay like this forever.
Not lovers, not married.
Just childhood sweethearts living together, keeping each other company.
No questions about being good enough,
no staring eyes,
no admitting the secret I hid in my heart.
I knew it was cowardly.
But I’d rather be a coward forever than lose Lucas Gray.
College flew by.
Thesis, defense, graduation photos, farewell dinners-everything rushed past in fast-forward.
I wore my cap and gown at graduation, standing in the crowd,
watching Lucas speak as valedictorian.
Cap and gown, red trim making his skin pale.
He stood on stage, clear voice, calm expression.
When he thanked the school, he bowed.
The audience applauded like a wave.
I watched him from the crowd, a strange feeling in my chest.
This was Lucas Gray.
My childhood sweetheart, the boy I’d known since I was six,
one of the people I knew best in the world.
But standing there in the spotlight,
he felt like the stranger who’d knelt in front of me at six.
Distant. Bright. Untouchable.
After graduation, Mia dragged me into dozens of photos.
I wanted to ask Lucas to join, but he was swarmed with people taking pictures.
He was too busy-saying goodbye to classmates, thanking professors, posing with underclassmen.
On this day, he belonged to everyone.
We went back to our apartment that night.
I stepped out of the shower, saw Lucas sitting on the couch, flipping through a photo album.
It was one I made in high school, filled with our old photos-not many,
but Lucas always insisted on taking them with me,
so we ended up with a full album.
He stopped on a page.
It was the Christmas assembly group photo sophomore year.
He stood next to me, grinning, peace sign over my head.
I wore my uniform, bangs covering half my face, expression flat,
but a tiny, almost invisible smile on my lips.
“Look at you,” he said, pointing at me in the photo.
“You were so happy.”
“I was not,” I leaned over, thinking I looked half-asleep.
“Here.” His finger tapped my tiny smile.
“You have a little dimple when you’re happy. You didn’t know.”
I touched my cheek unconsciously, then set my hand on the couch, right on top of his.
He didn’t pull away.
Neither did I.
We sat quiet, flipping through the album.
The last page was a photo of me at six under the oak tree,
chewing grass, squinting at the camera, sun making my cheeks red.
Next to it was six-year-old Lucas, kneeling beside me, white tee, tilted head,
sharp little tooth, smile so sweet it dripped honey.
“Beatrice,” he said suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“What do you want to do after graduation?”
“Go home,” I said.
“Grow flowers, draw, write. Do what I love.”
“Not get a job?”
“I don’t care about salaries.”
I turned to him.
“Grandma left enough for me to live comfortably forever.
I want to take care of the flowers at home.”
He went quiet.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Finance genius-investment banking or big corporate, right?”
He didn’t answer.
A long time passed, so long I thought he wouldn’t reply.
Finally, he whispered:
“Yeah. We’ll see.”
I thought he just hadn’t decided. I didn’t push.
Months later, I moved back to our hometown.
Found out Lucas came back too.
He took a management training position at his father’s company-Gray Group’s local branch.
That’s when I understood what “we’ll see” meant.
He didn’t go to Wall Street.
Didn’t move to a big city finance hub.
Didn’t do any of the things top graduates did.
He came back.
Back to the small town where we grew up.
Back to the houses with balconies we’d climbed over a million times.
I stood on my rooftop, across the narrow half-meter gap,
saw Lucas on his rooftop, holding a beer, raising it to me.
Evening wind ruffled his hair.
He smiled, his little tooth glinting in the dusk.
“Beatrice,” he called, wind carrying his voice.
“Did we just go back to being kids?”
I leaned on the railing, watching his bright smile.
My heart suddenly pounded.
It’s time, I thought.
Six years of secret love. Time for an ending.
Good or bad. I had to try.
Even rejection was better than carrying it forever.
Grandma said liking someone was your own business.
But the next line was:
If you love someone long enough, you should tell them.
Not for a response.
To honor your own heart.
That night, I did something I’d never done in twenty-two years.
I climbed over the balcony.
I’d grown up on rooftops. Climbing balconies was easy.
But climbing into Lucas’s room? First time.
He always climbed over to me.
Now it was my turn.
His room was on the second floor, same layout as mine, just reversed.
I climbed in through the unlocked patio door.
The air conditioner hummed, cool, faint woody scent.
I stepped on something, a tiny creak.
The room was dark except for a desk lamp, warm yellow light circling a small spot.
That light illuminated the desk, open notebook, scattered papers…
and the wall covered in-my photos.
Not just one.
Hundreds.
I froze, like I’d been turned to stone.
Photos covered the entire wall.
Some recent, some years old.
Me reading in the high school hallway.
Me drawing on the college lawn.
Me squatting feeding cats.
Me waiting in the cafeteria line.
Every angle was secret, every photo I never knew was taken.
In the center, an enlarged, framed close-up of me sleeping.
Facing the desk.
I lay on my side, hair spread on the pillow, eyelashes fanned on my cheeks, lips slightly parted.
Defenseless, almost messy.
I look terrible, I thought.
But what terrified me more wasn’t the photos.
It was the notebook open on the desk.
Black hardcover, A5, gold butterfly in the corner.
I recognized it.
The notebook I’d found in our college apartment, the one that said *Beatrice, don’t look*.
I hadn’t opened it. Forgot all about it.
It was here.
I shouldn’t look.
But in that moment, my mind short-circuited.
My eyes scanned the crowded writing without permission,
word by word, falling into a bottomless black hole.
*Today she sat alone watching flowers again.
Did she even glance at me?
She should stare at me.
Why won’t she come to me?
Why won’t she chase people away from me?
Why won’t she be angry?
Why won’t she… be jealous?
I want to watch her go crazy for me.
It’d be so beautiful.
But it’ll never happen.
Why why why why why…*
My blood ran cold.
*I chased two more people away from her today.
A guy who sat across from her in the library.
A girl who asked to sit with her in the cafeteria.
I’m glad they’re gone.
But I’m angry.
Why do flies always want to dance with my butterfly?
She’s mine. She’s been mine since we were six.*
My hands shook.
*I couldn’t find her.
She wasn’t in class, library, or rooftop.
I searched the whole campus. I was so scared, scared scared scared.
Found out she was at the hospital with a sick friend.
I put a tracker in her hair clip. Now I’ll never lose her.
I’m a little closer to her. But not enough. Not enough not enough not enough.*
I flipped to the next page.
*She was talking to someone. A new number on her screen.
I put screen-monitoring software on her phone.
The messages hurt. It was just classwork.
Why ask someone else?
Can’t she just be good?
How do I make her look at me only?
Should I delete them?
Should I delete them?
Should I delete them?*
The writing got messy here.
The same sentence repeated three times, harder each time,
the last one nearly tearing through the page.
I flipped further back, to older entries.
[My little butterfly played the harmonica on the rooftop today.
It sounded so beautiful.
So beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful.
I like her so much.I wish I could become that harmonica.
I wish I could rest between her lips, feel her mouth close over me, feel her warm, damp breath rushing
through me…I came.]
[She had just finished showering today.
I saw her. There were drops of water clinging to her collarbone.
I was so jealous. So jealous, so jealous, so jealous.
I wanted to lick them away. She still drank from something I had touched.
Ah…
Now I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to devour my little butterfly.]
!
My fingers were ice.
My heart felt crushed in an invisible fist, breathing hard.
But I didn’t close it. I kept flipping, all the way to the first page.
First entry date: eight years ago.
*I saw her at school today.
Not the first time. We’ve known each other since we were six.
But today she felt different.
Everyone revolves around me. Except her.
She was reading. I was watching her.
She turned a page. My heart skipped.
I’m going crazy.’
Lucas was fourteen. So was I.
Every day after that, every page,
crowded with nothing but Beatrice and *I love you*, tangled like vines covering every blank space.
*Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice…
I love you love you love you love you…”
Some pages were so full he wrote again in the gaps with a thinner pen,
until the whole page was black.
Some pages had stains and watermarks, wrinkled when dry.
I didn’t want to imagine what they were.
The shower ran.
Splashing water, a wall between worlds.
I stood at the desk, stiff, holding the notebook.
The words felt alive, leaping off the page into my eyes,
racing through my veins to my heart, exploding black flowers in my chest.
Tracker.
Screen monitoring.
Secret photos.
A wall of surveillance.
The wet, sighing kiss on my lips that party night wasn’t a dream.
My mind raced, but my heart beat faster-wild, trapped bird slamming my ribs.
Then the shower stopped.
The door opened softly, like a butterfly’s wing.
Lucas stepped out, drying his hair with a towel,
looking up toward the desk.
He froze when he saw me, like a statue stuck in time.
He wore a bathrobe, hair still dripping,
water rolling down his neck, pooling at his collarbone.
But his expression was nothing like usual.
No bright smile, no whiny clinginess.
Raw, exposed, pale, all masks torn away.
His eyes flicked to the notebook in my hand,
then the photo wall behind me,
finally back to my face.
In that moment, I saw pure panic in his eyes.
Not the panic of getting caught stealing.
Worse-his deepest, darkest, most shameful secret
exposed to the only person in the world he cared about.
Desperation lay under that panic.
The air turned solid.
A water drop fell from his hair, hit the floor, loud in the silence.
I spoke first.
My voice was calmer than I expected, calm enough to surprise myself.
“Lucas,” I said. “Sit down.”
He stood still. The towel slipped from his hand.
His lips moved, like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
After a moment, he walked slowly, sitting on the chair in front of me.
He moved like a broken machine barely functioning.
His hands rested on his knees, fingertips trembling slightly.
His bathrobe gaped open, showing his collarbone and chest, still wet.
He stared down, not looking at me.
Waiting for judgment.
I closed the notebook, set it on the desk.
Pulled out another chair, sat across from him, less than two feet away.
I brushed hair from my face, tucked it behind my ear, showing my full face.
Then I looked at Lucas, speaking as calmly as I could:
“Explain yourself.”
He lifted his head, meeting my eyes.
His eyes were nothing like usual.
Not bright, clear, open.
Dark, damp, like a storm-blackened sea.
Red streaks in the whites, dark circles under his eyes,
like he hadn’t slept properly in weeks.
He stared at me for a few seconds, then laughed.
That smile made my back go cold.
Not his usual sunny smile.
Self-mocking, broken, crazed-mouth lifted, no joy in his eyes.
“Explain what?”
His voice was soft, like talking to the air.
“Explain why I put a tracker in your hair clip?
Explain why I put monitoring software on your phone?
Explain why I took secret photos, followed you, kissed you without you knowing?”
He paused, Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Or explain why I wanted to be your harmonica?”
His voice shook as he said it, but his gaze locked onto mine,
like a prisoner on the gallows who’d stopped fighting,
just laying out all his crimes.
I didn’t speak. Just stared at him.
His hand lifted from his knee, slow, tentative, reaching for me.
He hesitated in midair, then rested it on top of my hand.
His fingers were cold, trembling,
but when he laced them with mine, the grip was certain, desperate, final.
Just like every time before.
But this time, all those soft days felt thin and faded, like crumpled paper.
“Beatrice,”
his voice was rough,
“do you know when I became like this?”
“Fourteen?” I guessed.
“No. Since I was six.”
He smiled, pale.
I froze.
“The day you lay under the oak tree chewing grass and looked at me,”
his voice sounded like it’d been dragged up from a deep well.
“I knew you were different.”
He spoke slowly, choosing his words, shaking his head.
“It wasn’t like this at first.
At first… I wanted to ruin you.”
I frowned.
His fingers rubbed my hand unconsciously, pressure shifting,
like a nervous, restless habit.
“You didn’t know me as a kid,”
his gaze fell to our intertwined hands.
“I wasn’t the Lucas you know.
My parents forced me to learn everything.
Yelled, hit me if I failed.
Kneel for three hours if I wasn’t first.
Our family looked perfect.
Behind closed doors, it was a pressure cooker.
People think I’m sunny and kind.
I’ve been acting my whole life.
If I don’t act, life is hell.”
I listened quietly.
“Then my parents cheated. On each other.
Divorce, scandal, everyone talking.
I couldn’t sleep at night.
Stood at my window, staring at your rooftop for hours.”
His voice got even softer, like he was scared to wake up something.
“You were there.”
His gaze softened.
“You sat on the rooftop, playing harmonica, staring into space, drawing.
The wind blew your hair.
A butterfly landed on your shoulder. You didn’t chase it away.
Just let it stay.”
“I thought: How can she be this free?
Her parents are divorced too. Only grandma takes care of her.
Kids at school ignore her.
Why doesn’t it hurt her?”
His voice finally cracked, the first break in the ice.
“I hated you. Not really hate.
Hated that you weren’t miserable like me.
You don’t know what I thought, watching you play harmonica, smile at cats…
I wanted to drag you down into my mud.
Make you feel suffocated. Hopeless.
Like living was worse than dying.”
“So I went to you. Became your friend.
I wanted you to fall in love with me,
then leave you.
Make you feel abandoned. Make you crazy.”
He laughed again then,
something bitter and resigned in it.
“But you didn’t.
You didn’t react to any of my hints.
You were like a stone.
I thought you were just slow.
Then I realized you just… didn’t care.
You didn’t care if I paid attention to you.
Didn’t care if I really liked you.
You were nice to me because you were nice to everyone. Even stray cats.”
“You,” his voice trembled,
“you’re impossible to ruin, impossible to hate, impossible to forget.”
*Instead, I fell harder every day.
Until I forgot why I’d approached you in the first place.
I only knew-
I love you so much. So much so much so much.*
He spoke faster, like he was scared he’d lose his courage.
“Then I got scared.
Scated you’d be taken. Scared someone else would see you.”
“You don’t know how amazing you are.
You think you’re ordinary, not worth noticing.
But you see good in everything, everyone.
Even animals love you…
But you can’t see how good you are.’
But I see it.
“I see the light in your eyes when you draw.
The way your toes tap when you play harmonica.
The tiny smile when you feed cats.
Butterflies landing on your shoulder when you kneel by flowers.”
*I see it all.
And I want to hide you. Keep you all to myself.
And wanting that makes me…*
He stopped.
“Want what?” My voice was unnaturally calm.
He lifted his eyes to me.
Dark, wet eyes reflecting my face.
I want to lock you up.
He whispered, every word carved like stone.
*I want to keep you where only I can see you.
No one else can look at you.
No one else can be nice to you.
No one else can make you smile.*
*Your softness. Your kindness. Everything you are.
Only mine.*
His fingers tightened, nearly crushing my bones.
I know it’s sick. I know I’m broken. I know normal people don’t feel this way.
*Yell at me. Hit me. Call the police. Do anything.
But you told me to explain. So I told you everything.*
He pulled his lips into a weak, almost pleading smile.
“So, Beatrice… what are you going to do now?”
He fell silent after that, staring into my eyes, waiting for my verdict.
I sat across from him, fingers aching in his grip,
wall of my photos behind me,
notebook of madness on the desk.
The boy I thought I’d known for seventeen years
felt both familiar and alien.
But my heart beat steady.
I just looked at him for a long, long time.
Then I lifted my free hand.
I placed it gently on his cheek.
His skin was warm from the shower,
but I felt him tremble under my touch, like a leaf falling in wind.
He went completely still.
My fingers brushed his bangs back, exposing his forehead.
I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his forehead.
Soft, like a butterfly touching a petal, snow landing on a lake.
My lips stayed a second, then pulled back, looking into his eyes.
I smiled.
Not my usual faint smile.
Genuine, soft, helpless, endlessly gentle.
“Idiot,” I whispered softly, like comforting a naughty child.
He froze, eyes suddenly red.
“You called me an idiot?”
His voice shook, lips trembling, whole body shaking.
“Yeah. Idiot,” I repeated, thumb brushing his cheekbone gently.
“Now that I’ve yelled at you… let’s be together.”
Tears spilled down his face.
Silent, sudden, falling like beads from a broken string.
He bit his lower lip hard, his little tooth pressing into it, nearly bleeding.
I kept holding his face, wiping his tears again and again,
like I could erase all seventeen years of his pain.
“Beatrice,” he croaked.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
“I know.”
“Do you know how sick I am?”
“I know.”
“Then you still-”
“Yes,” I said. “I said let’s be together.”
He shot up from the chair so fast it fell over with a crash.
He pulled me up, crushing me against his chest,
so tight I could barely breathe.
He buried his face in my neck, shaking like a tree in a storm.
“You can’t take it back,” he mumbled into my shoulder, voice thick with tears and trembling.
“You said it. You can’t regret it.
If you do… I’ll-”
“You’ll what?”
He lifted his face, tears streaming, half-crying half-laughing,
his little tooth glistening in the lamplight.
I’ll lock you up.
He said, half-threat half-whine.
I mean it.
I pinched his cheek.
“You can’t lock me up,” I said.
“There’s only half a meter between our balconies. Remember?”
He froze for a second, then laughed.
The same laugh as always-eyes crinkled, little tooth sharp, sweet as honey.
Nothing like the Lucas in the notebook, the photo wall, the gasping midnight confessions.
But exactly the same.
He was my sunny childhood sweetheart.
And he was also dark, crazy, obsessive,
hiding all his darkness deep inside.
But none of it mattered.
Because since the day I was six, chewing grass and saw him for the first time,
since he knelt under the oak tree and said, “What are you eating?”
-I’d already been his.
Or he’d been mine.
Moonlight broke through the clouds outside, spilling over the rooftops.
Only a narrow balcony gap between us.
This time, we didn’t need to climb over.
Because I was in his arms.
And this was where I’d always wanted to be.
