Captive Audience: I'm sorry about tonight. You have no idea how much I want to be the hero in your story.
My pen pal and I talk more than our assignment requires, and I've admittedly become a fiend. This girl has me wrapped around her finger.
Academic Hostage: I'm not into heroes.
Captive Audience: Villains then?
Academic Hostage: Always the villain. What they say, they do.
Captive Audience: Is that an invitation?
Academic Hostage: I want it to be.
I pushed my head into my pillow with a groan as I bit my bottom lip hard and then poked my bare foot out from beneath the sheet, took a picture, and sent another text.
Captive Audience: Should I get dressed then?
Academic Hostage: It's only 10 pm! I thought I was the goody two-shoes in this relationship.
Academic Hostage: Will you be at the dance tomorrow?
Captive Audience: Yes.
Academic Hostage: Don't Lose Your Phone.
There was no way I was coming to this dance without it. One, because she asked me to come, and two, because I'm ninety-five percent sure the dark, stormy eyes glaring back at me belong to my pen pal. Early on, she slipped in one of our very first text exchanges, mentioning an Indian dhol. I never said anything because I was new at school. It was possible that another student had the same ethnic background, but I did my research and read between the lines of every conversation since. It has to be her, which is another reason it’s been too damn easy to fall. She may not want to break the rules, but I've never been a rule follower. I'd shatter every last one to have her. Consequences be damned.
"Emma."
I let out a sharp laugh, tongue in cheek. "Funny how the girl managing your campaign is the same eyewitness to my alleged vandalism. Maybe you should be asking yourself why the person you trust always seems to have her hands dirty when it comes to you. I have no motive to mess with Penn's car. I beat him fair and square, and his girl spends her free time thinking about me."
Her hand cracks across my face before I see it coming. The sound echoes across the now-silent dance hall.
"You're an ass," she breathes.
My cheek stings, but I don't touch it. Don't give her the satisfaction. "Sold to Preston Hughes." I hand her back the microphone and rub the stubble lining my jaw. "Always the villain," I quote the text I'm sure she sent to a nameless man I know she has feelings for. Technically, I'm not breaking any rules. I'm not giving anything away; I shouldn’t. But if she is indeed the person I think she is, she'll hear my words for what they are. Her glossy lips roll, a small crease forming between her brows when I lean an inch closer and add, "I'm not the one who let you wear that dress alone tonight."
Her eyes flash with hurt, then fury, then something I can't quite read.
"For the record," I add, my voice dropping lower, "a little sugar wouldn't stop me."
She stares at me for a long moment, her chest rising and falling with barely controlled rage. As I turn to leave the stage, the entire hall is still quiet. My shoes echo against the stage floor, each step measured and controlled, even though my pulse is racing.
"Always the villain."The moment those words left my mouth, I saw it, that split second where her eyes widened, where the possibility crashed into her. She'll spend tonight dissecting every word, every conversation, wondering if I'm him. If theperson she's been texting, the one she actually opens up to, has been standing in front of her this whole time.
I reach the stairs, my jaw still tight.
Let her wonder how I know about that text. Let her replay this moment over and over, questioning everything. She wore that dress for someone she thought cared enough to show up, but he didn't. And now she's realizing maybe, just maybe, the person who actually noticed, who actually said something, was the last person she expected.
She'll lie awake tonight thinking about me. About us. About what's real and what's pretend in this war we've been waging. We're enemies. We have to be. Because admitting anything else would change everything. She'd have to admit she not only remembers me, but we'd have to talk about the day I'll never forget—one I'm still uncertain if she remembers or is determined to erase.
In the silence at my back, I can’t help but wonder if it’s all clicking into place. She won’t take it all back, but maybe she’ll extend an olive branch and end this nonsense auction. The girl I once knew would have.
"The last lot of time up for auction tonight is a week of private polo lessons from the star of last night's polo match, Trigger Hale. Bidding starts at five hundred dollars."
I shake my head. I should have known. Not an olive branch. No one wants my time.
Hollis is at my side before I make it to the exit. "The dance sucked anyway," he tries to make light of what just happened.
