“Because you are scared of people seeing me with you,” I say. “But you want me out of sight? I do not do secrets.”
She bites her lip. “Please.”
I should walk away. I know what this is. I know what she wants. I know it is not me, exactly. It is rebellion wrapped in hormones. But she looks at me like I am something she has never been allowed to touch before. And I am fourteen, not an idiot.
“Fine,” I say.
She exhales in relief and pulls me behind the shed, where the overhang hides us from the path. Snowflakes melt on her hair as she lifts her chin and kisses me harder than before. Hands roam. Breathing deepens. Heat builds fast. She is inexperienced. She is eager. She is terrified. And she is not thinking about me at all. Not Aleks. Not the person. She is thinking about what I represent. Danger. Difference. Something outside her curated world.
When she pulls away again, her lipstick is smudged and her eyes are shining in a way that makes her look less polished and more… human.
“Do not tell anyone,” she whispers again.
I nod once. “I won’t.”
She touches my cheek, almost apologetic, then pulls her coat tighter and walks away into the snow.
I stand there a long time, watching her disappear between the buildings.
I am not stupid. I know she will ignore me tomorrow. Pretend this did not happen. Pretend she did not kiss the scholarship boy behind a shed like a secret sin. But I also know something new now. Rich kids break too. They just break in prettier places.
Chapter Five
The Pattern
The first one surprises me.The next four do not.
After headband girl melts down my spine like she regrets her entire socioeconomic position, I pretend life returns to normal. I skate. I study. I keep breathing even though some days it feels like violence. And then another girl shows up.
This time it is the redhead from my biology class. Perfect posture. Perfect eyeliner. Perfect way of never letting her gaze land on me for more than half a second, like eye contact might stain her.
It is three days after the first girl. The snow is heavier now, thick enough to mute sound around the rink. Practice ran late. The building is nearly empty. I step outside and she is standing by the lamppost, pretending to check her phone. She looks up. Blushes instantly. Walks toward me with the kind of forced confidence girls get when they have never actually been told no.
“Kilovac.” Her voice trembles a little. “Can I… talk to you?”
This again.
I nod once, because apparently this is my life now.
She takes a breath. Her hand fiddles with the strap of her designer schoolbag. “I saw you hit Volkov,” she says, cheeks flushing deeper like the memory embarrasses her physically.
Everyone saw. Half the school acts like it were a televised event.
She steps closer. “I liked it.”
I blink. “What?”
“You were…” She searches for a word her vocabulary apparently was not built for. “…strong.”
Her breath puffs white in the cold. Her eyes flick between my mouth and the ground. She is terrified someone will see this. See her.
She leans in and kisses me so fast it feels like a confession. Her lips taste like strawberry lip gloss. Her hands shake when they touch my jacket. She whispers, “Please don’t tell anyone.”
There it is again. The ritual. The plea. The fear.
Something cracks inside me—not an emotional crack, not softness, not anything pathetic. A realization. This is not about me. It is about what I represent to them. Their rebellion. Their weakness for something real. Their hiding place. I do not meet her the next day behind the gym. I let her kiss me behind the chemistry lab instead. It is over before it becomes anything.
The third one comes a week later. This one is loud normally, always surrounded by people, always laughing. She corners me in the equipment hallway, out of breath like she ran here.
