It made something ugly twist low in my stomach.
“Mathieu, I told you things were complicated. I told you about the guys,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice low even as the hallway noise swelled around us. “I wasn’t lying.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “You told me. But that’s not what you’re lying about.”
A cold crack split through my chest. “Excuse me?”
“You keep pretending you don’t want them,” he continued, voice still quiet, still too calm. “But the way you look when their names come up? The way you talk about them? You can’t even say you don’t have feelings. Not really.”
My breath stuttered.
He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t accusing me of anything in a way that made sense. He was doing something much worse because he seemed to imply he understoodmebetter than I understood myself.
“I’m not lying,” I said, and it came out thin. Weak. “And Iamtrying to figure things out. That’s all.”
“Then figure them out,” he murmured. “But don’t pretend I’m the one you want if I’m not.”
That landed with surgical precision, leaving heat crawling up my throat. He wasn’t wrong—but he wasn’t right either. And he definitely wasn’t being fair.
“Mathieu, you’re cornering me,” I said, finally pushing against the locker. “Can you just—let me breathe?”
“I’m trying to talk to you.”
“Yeah, well maybe don’t do it like you’re trapping me.”
Something flashed across his face—hurt, frustration, something dangerously close to jealousy. Which was weird as hell after he said he wouldn’t ask me to homecoming and that I needed to figure out what I wanted.
Then he said the thing that broke whatever fragile balance was left. “You kissed Archie. That’s not nothing, Frankie. Stop lying to yourself about it.”
My lungs forgot their job.
For a second, the hallway noise faded out, replaced by a sharp ringing in my ears. My heart kicked painfully against my ribs, and suddenly everything—this morning, yesterday, the weekend—collapsed into a single overwhelming weight.
“I’m not lying,” I whispered. “I’m trying to survive.”
“Then tell me what you want.”
“I don’t know!” It came out louder than I intended as I shoved off the lockers to try and go around him. Too loud. Heads turned.
Mathieu didn’t flinch, but his nostrils flared. How he could be so cool in the middle of an emotional tsunami made my stomach hurt.
“Frankie,” he said again—gentler, reaching for my arm.
He never touched me.
Because another hand closed around Mathieu’s wrist before he could.
I didn’t have to look to know who it was. I felt the tension coil in the air like a live wire. Felt the shift in the hallway’s attention. Felt the floor tilt all over again.
Archie’s voice came from just over my shoulder, low and lethal in a way that made my pulse skitter.
“Leave her alone.”
The world narrowed to the three of us.
Mathieu’s jaw tightened. “This is none of your business.”
“You corner her like that again,” Archie said, voice a razor wrapped in velvet, “and I’ll make it my business.”
