“And Jamie?” I add, my voice dropping to a whisper.
“If you don’t, I’ll make you.”
His eyes flare. With anger. With something else.
I turn before I can read it.
I don’t look back as I walk away.
I can’t.
Because if I do, I know I’ll see the one thing I can’t stand to acknowledge—
That he hates me.
And that hate is the one thing I understand.
The one thing I know how to control.
And the only thing I’ll allow myself to feel for him.
Ever.
****
By the time the final bell rang, the entire day felt like a fuse burning straight through my skull. I should’ve been satisfied—humiliating Jamie like that, putting him back where he belonged, underneath my shoe. But the sickest part?The part I’ll never admit to anyone, not even myself?
I can still see his face.
That split second where his eyes went wide. Anger, humiliation, and something like hurt all bleeding together.
And fuck me—something about that expression burrowed under my skin and refused to leave.
Get out of my head.
I repeat it like a prayer. It doesn’t help.
I stride through the university parking lot, jaw grinding, shoulders tight. My friends peel off toward their own cars, still laughing about the cafeteria scene, but I barely hear them. I just want out of here. Away from the noise. Away from the version of myself I almost slipped into—again—around him.
My finger swipes across the Maserati’s key fob and the lights flash. I drop into the driver’s seat, slam the door harder than necessary, and start the engine. The low growl of the motor should be grounding. It isn’t. My head is full of Jamie fucking Lancaster— my annoying stepbrother, and his stupid smile, his stupid friends, that stupid expression when I pinned him under my words like a bug.
Then my phone vibrates.
1 New Notification.
Your package has been delivered.
My grip on the steering wheel loosens.
Heat floods my chest.
A smile—sharp, feral, and wrong—cuts across my mouth.
Not happiness.
Not exactly.
But something close.
