Chapter 4 DOUBT

SIN

I tried to keep some distance between us, the rumours were flying around wildly and overwhelming, female teachers were telling not to ruin my great academic start up life, basically everyone warned me off him so I decided to give a little bit of space but his eyes lingered too long, his hand stayed too long on my back and I should've been scared of him. Everyone said he was dangerous. Tattoos. The leather jacket. The motorcycle that roared like thunder. The way he gave orders to the Vikings like he was their president but sitting with him on the admin steps as the sun set? I didn't feel threatened. I felt safe and that scared me more than anything.

"Angel Mark," he'd said softly.

Nobody had called me that in years. It used to sound like hope. Now it felt like he was digging up bones I buried.

I told myself to get up, to walk away. But then he smiled at me. Not the cocky smirk everyone else knew him for. This was different. A little shy, a little careful. Like if he moved too fast, he'd break the moment.

And little by little, my walls began to crack.

We started talking more.

At first, it was light. Him walking me to class. Bringing me coffee with fake names scribbled on the cup-Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock one time, Mrs. Steel another. Sitting in the back row during my art presentations even when I hadn't invited him.

He made me laugh. He made me want to talk again.

One afternoon, I asked him, "Why do you keep showing up?"

He leaned against his bike, arms crossed, hair messy in the wind. His voice was low when he answered.

"Because I blew my chance once. I'm not doing it again."

Catalina, my best friend, once again tried to warn me.

"Sin, I love you, but be real. Guys like him don't settle with girls like you, stop giving him the chance to use you.

His kind experiment and you're just the new flavour."

I wanted her to be wrong. But the doubt? It rooted itself inside me.

Until Steel showed up again.

One afternoon, I caught a girl shoving my sketchbook into the fountain. Before I could react, Steel was there. He grabbed her by the arm, pulled her aside, and his voice was calm but sharp as a knife.

"Touch her stuff again, and I'll make sure you never walk this campus feeling safe again."

The girl paled, stammered something, and ran.

Steel turned to me, his jaw tight. "You good?"

I nodded, clutching my sketchbook like it was my heart. "Yeah. Thanks."

He studied me, eyes softening. "Don't thank me. Just... let me be here."

Another time, I tried to disappear. One day, I didn't text him back. Didn't meet him after class. Didn't answer his calls. I drowned in everyone else's voices until I couldn't hear my own.

He found me anyway, sitting behind the studio building.

He didn't speak at first. Just sat down beside me. Our shoulders almost touched. A minute passed, then two. Finally, he said quietly,

"If I'm the one scaring you off, I'll go. But if it's still them? Then I'll spend every damn day proving them wrong because I'm not going to leave Angel."

My throat closed up. "I don't know how to do this," I whispered.

His hand found mine, rough and steady. "Then we'll learn together. But I'm not leaving, Sin. Not unless you tell me to."

Something in me broke open then. Because everyone else always had one foot out the door but not him. Not Steel.

He showed up in other ways too.

Like the morning I overslept before a big exam and thought I'd blown everything. I ran out of the dorm in a panic, only to see him parked right in front of the building, helmet in hand.

"Get on," he said.

I blinked at him. "How do you even know-"

"You always oversleep before exams," he cut in, smirking a little. "Now hurry. I'm not letting you fail because you missed a bus."

I climbed on behind him, clutching his jacket, and he roared us across town like the devil was chasing us. I made it to class with seconds to spare.

He winked at me before I ran inside. "Told you. I've got you."

Or the night after my presentation, when my piece got torn apart by a professor. I held it together until I got outside. Then the tears came.

Steel was leaning against his bike again, waiting. His smile fell the second he saw my face.

"What happened?"

"Nothing," I sniffed, trying to brush past him.

He caught my arm gently. "Angel. Talk to me."

I shook my head. "They hated it. Said it was messy. Said it didn't mean anything. I worked on it for weeks and-" My voice cracked.

Steel didn't argue. Didn't try to fix it. He just pulled me into his chest and let me cry. His hand stroked the back of my head, slow and steady.

When I finally calmed down, he tilted my chin up. "You know what I think?"

"What?" I croaked.

"I think they're blind and I think your art scares them because it's too real."

I laughed wetly. "You're just saying that."

He shook his head. "No. I don't say shit I don't mean."

For the first time that day, I believed him and instantly felt enormous relief.

Steel shows up in big ways. In loud, dramatic ways that make people step back but he also shows up in small ways.

Like the way he texts me good luck before every class, even when he's busy.

The way he makes sure I eat when I skip meals, shoving a sandwich into my hands with a gruff, "Don't argue, just eat."

The way he notices when I'm too quiet and won't leave until I admit what's wrong.

The way he looks at me-not like I'm Sin, the distraction, the temptation-but like I'm Angel. The girl I used to be before the world buried her.

One night, I asked him again. "Why me, Steel? You could have anyone. Why me?"

He didn't hesitate. "Because you don't want anything from me except me. You don't see the captain, or the biker, or the guy everyone whispers about. You just see me, believe in my future without being told and nobody's ever done that before."

His eyes locked on mine then, steady and sure.

" I'm not letting you go. Not again."

And that's how I knew.

The world could whisper, they could sneer, they could throw doubts at me until my skin bled with them. But Steel?

Steel would always show up.

And that made me want to show up too.

For him.

For us.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't just surviving.

I was beginning to live.