“During the AP Chem projectandthe AP Physics project we were partners on,” I finish flatly. “The classes I needed the college credits for. The projects I ended up doing alone. The ones I bombed, tanking my entire junior year GPA. And when I asked our teachers what happened to you—they said you wouldn’t be working with me anymore. That you’d already finished them. On your own. And had gotten A’s.”
I let out a dry laugh, no bite to it—just regret and resentment. Not at him. Not at the kid who ruined my life. At me. At the girl who ruined her own.
“Fuck,” he breathes, low and hoarse.
“You didn’t answer my texts or calls,” I continue. “I even stopped by your house once.” I shake my head, remembering. “Your sister answered the door. I asked her if you were going to come back to school, or if you were around to help me finish the projects. She looked at me like I was out of my mind.”
I pause. My throat tightens.
“She said you weren’t available. She said—” I swallow. “She said, ‘What fuckin’ projects? Nico doesn’t need that shit. Nico’s?—’
I look at him. He already knows.
“‘Nico’s gonna be valedictorian. Nothing’s gonna stop him. No thing. No one.’”Especially you, she had said, along with some other harsh expletives and vague threats that led seventeen-year-old me to believe he was sabotaging me, but I don’t tell him this, because I realize now that the face his sister had on? The twist in her face, the curl of her lip? She wasn’t taking her brother’s side in some new competition. The face wasn’t one of malice. It was one of grief.
“You know the rest,” I mutter.
Senior year, after I was sabotaged, used, disposed of, bested? I took it all out on the person who had done it to me. The perfect valedictorian with the perfect family and loving parents. And after high school? It was all downhill from there.
“I don’t know the rest,” he says gently. “Tell me the rest, Annie. Let me in.”
Open up. I drag my fingers through my hair, fist it at the crown, tug like I can root the shame right out. I pace to the edge of the cliff, where sunlight crashes off the water—blinding, brutal, and bright enough to carve me open.
It makes everything inside me rise to the surface.
But I don’t think that’s what’s giving me the urge to tell him. It’s not because the pain is unbearable or the silence is too loud or whatever trite bullshit.
It’s because he’s still here.
Because he’s seen the worst of me,nasty, problematic Annie, and was okay with it. Liked it, maybe. And didn’t flinch. Gave me a hug instead. Told me I was something. I was Annie Li.
And he maybe wanted some of it for himself.
Somewhere between Brooklyn, New York and Durham, North Carolina, in a Mustang convertible and a Honda Civic, my worst enemy carved out an Annie-shaped space inside of himself.
So I can’t hold the rest back from him—not now.
Because Nicholas “Nico” Giannuzzi, my oldest nemesis, is somehow the only one I want to give it to.
“In high school, I pushed myself so hard I forgot what breathing felt like,” I start.
I feel Nico come up next to me, a steady, silent sentry. We stand next to each other, staring out at the water.
“Straight A’s weren’t enough. Honors weren’t enough. I had to be valedictorian, as you know. Student council, volunteer ofthe year, write award-winning essays for shit I didn’t even care about—because if I didn’t, my parents would eviscerate me.”
He turns to look at me. “Define eviscerate.”
I shake my head.
“Like, physically?”
“Among other things,” I admit. “Mostly verbal. And I wouldn’t get my ass totally beat, but… Little things. Maybe it’s a cultural thing,” I add weakly, not sure why I’m feeling the need to defend them, but the truth is a lot of us grew up this way.
He blows out a breath. “Annie. Baby. I’m so sorry.” He squeezes my hand. “Just in high school?”
“Since childhood, it had been like that.”
“What the fuck, Annie? And how about May? Why?”
