But Asta is right.
I’m not an idiot. I’m underestimated.
I’m very fucking aware of the consequences.
Dray might walk away from our engagement once this article is out in nothing but a lowly school newsletter—
But he will break me before he goes.
15
Courtney is getting on my last nerve.
She has made it clear as a diamond we aren’t friends anymore, yet she is more interested in me now than ever before.
Whether it’s a closet, the dorm, a bathroom, she drags me into secrecy and asks more whispered questions for her article.
Herexposé, as she calls it.
‘It isn’t ready,’ she tells me each time. ‘Soon. I just need a little more.’
More time or questions answered, I don’t know.
I just know that, in the meantime, I have started working on the redesign of my own mask.
I do what the Snakes do.
I play along.
Landon wants to live in my pocket, so I let him.
Serena wants to be my shadow, so I let her.
My mask is to lull the Snakes into a false sense of security with me, to ease Dray and Oliver—so they don’t watch me too closely.
I practice it now in the mess hall.
Landon’s grip is tight on a mug of hot chocolate as he loudly retells his latest win at snow-rugby. The game started back up over the second weekend of the semester, and he isn’t one of thearistos seniors to give up his passion for decking others in the name of sport.
But behind my smile, schemes are brewing; behind my eyes, wheels are turning.
Landon throws back his head with a howl of laughter at something Oliver said.
I tuned out, don’t know what he said, but I go along with it and let a smile linger on my face for a heartbeat.
Dray’s gaze latches onto me.
Even at the Snake’s table in the mess hall, I can’t let my smiles loiter too long.
It has to be believable.
It’s a fine line to walk, avoiding Dray’s suspicions while convincing him I’m starting to warm to the group again, or at least that I’m so desperate for their friendship again, tobelong, that I’m starting to thaw.
A week of this bullshit and it’s eating at me already. The muscles of my cheeks ache a bit too much, and each smile and laugh feels more forced than the last.
It’s a relief when the bell rings and bursts the bubble around the table.
Movement rustles through the mess hall, bags being lifted off the floors, trays clattering, coffees sloshing down throats, chairs and benches scraping over the floorboards, conversations lifting quicker and faster now that time is cut short.
