Then he blinks, and it's gone, replaced by that competitive shine. He turns back to the front.
I exhale slowly.
Two years.
Since I walked into that lecture hall, a nineteen-year-old who thought he had the world figured out in spreadsheets and logic gates. And then Sam walked in.
He was late. He was flustered. He was wearing a bright red scarf that looked like it was trying to strangle him. And the moment the door swung shut behind him, the air in the room changed.
For everyone else, it was just a guy hunting for an empty desk.
For me, it was a shock to the system so violent, I nearly fell out of my chair.
Mate.
The word echoed in my skull, loud and absolute. Every instinct I'd been raised to suppress, courtesy of two brilliant, emotionally constipated parents, screamed at me to get up, cross the room, and bite him.
But Sam didn't look at me. He rushed to a seat, apologized to the professor, and started chatting with the person next to him.
He didn't know.
That's the cruel joke of the universe. Fated mates are supposed to be this cosmic collision. Two halves of a whole snapping together. But sometimes... sometimes the connection only opens on one side. Or maybe he was just too overwhelmed, or I was too closed off, or the wind was blowing the wrong way.
He didn't smell me. He didn't feel the pull.
And I, paralyzed by a lifetime of social awkwardness and a crippling fear that I was hallucinating, stayed in my seat.
I've stayed in my seat for two years.
Sophomore year, I "accidentally" signed up for a 7 a.m. yoga class because I heard him mention it to a friend. I don't do yoga. I'm six-three and about as flexible as a two-by-four. I went exactly once, pulled something in my hip, and limped for a week. He wasn't even there—he'd switched to the evening session.
Last semester, I spent forty dollars I didn't have on a ticket to some indie band I'd never heard of because he posted about going. I stood in the back of a sweaty basement venue for three hours, couldn't see him anywhere in the crowd, and then spotted him on Instagram the next day at a completely different show across town. Wrong venue. Wrong band. I still have the ticket stub in my desk drawer like a fucking serial killer.
I watched him date a beta sophomore. Watched him break up. Watched him flirt with half the student union. I've watched him from the shadows, starving, while my alpha paces the cage of my ribs, snarling at the bars.
There was one night—god, this is embarrassing—I was walking back from the library at like 1 a.m. and I saw him sitting alone on a bench outside the student center. He looked sad. Just... sitting there, staring at his phone. And I almost walked over. I had this whole thing planned in my head: "Hey, youokay?" Like a normal person. Like someone who knows how to talk to people.
I chickened out. Obviously. Walked past like I didn't see him, went back to my dorm, and ate an entire sleeve of Oreos.
I couldn't just walk up and say hello. So I became the asshole. The obstacle. I became the only person in his classes who didn't fawn over his charisma, who challenged him, who made him work for it.
It worked. He knows my name. He seeks me out to argue.
Sure, he thinks I'm an arrogant prick, but hethinks about me.
It's not a great system. I'm aware. I have the romantic instincts of a feral raccoon and honestly? I've made my peace with it.
"Now," Foster says, bringing up a slide that makes half the room groan and the other half lean forward. "Before we get to the syllabus for the term projects, we need to address the elephant in the room. Or rather, the tiger."
The screen displays a logo: The Johnston Internship.
The air in the room shifts. This isn't just an internship. This isTheInternship.A pipeline to the top tier of economic policy. One slot. A fifty-thousand-dollar stipend. A golden ticket.
"As you know," Foster says, leaning back against his massive oak desk, "Westbridge is one of only three universities invited to submit candidates this year. The selection process is brutal and exhaustive. And acts as the primary filter for the rest of your career."
It's not the work I'm worried about. I have a 4.0 and plenty of research hours. On paper, I'm perfect.
I look at Sam.
