“Fine,” Jace said suddenly, breaking the silence with a dramatic sigh. “So, maybe I don’t have stalkers. But I’ve still got that extra inch on you, so really, who’s winning here?”
I turned, snarling before I could stop myself. “It’s a quarter of an inch, asshole.”
Parker choked on his water all over again, laughing so hard it echoed around us.
Their laughter carried down the hall, easy and careless, but it barely touched me. Because underneath it all, one thought kept looping through my head—if she was gone for good, why did it feel like I’d just lost something I never actually had?
CHAPTER 7
OPHELIA
Ishivered as I stood on the sidewalk, the morning air slipping through my sweatshirt and sinking straight into my skin. It was freezing…though maybe that was just me. Maybe it was the kind of cold that came from the inside, that settled in your bones when you’d finally run out of feeling.
I stared at the glass doors of the communications building like they were guarding something dangerous, monsters waiting on the other side to tear me apart if I dared to walk through. My breath came out in white clouds, fogging in front of me before drifting away.
After the call with my mom yesterday, I’d collapsed back into bed, too drained to cry anymore. My body had felt heavy, my head aching from everything I’d held in. I’d told myself I’d just lie there for a minute, but sleep came fast and mean.
I dreamed of him.
Not the Matty I used to imagine, the one who smiled when he saw me, who would someday understand…but the real one. His voice, hard and cold, slicing through my head.Clingy.Desperate.Pathetic. Over and over, until I’d jolted awake with those words clawed into my chest.
I’d fumbled for my phone on the nightstand, the screen lighting up just long enough to show me I was late—only twenty minutes until class. There’d been no time for anything. No shower, no fixing my hair, no painting my face into something better than what it was. I’d yanked on a sweatshirt and jeans, grabbed my notebook and backpack, and ran.
A burst of wind swept across the sidewalk, catching the ends of my hair and sending another shiver down my spine. I hugged my arms tighter around my notebook, taking a deep breath for what lay ahead. This was a good thing. Not fixing myself up, not trying to be someone worth noticing. Because that had been part of the problem, too—every careful outfit, every dab of lip gloss, every way I’d tried to make him look at me.
This was better. Honest. Ugly, even. The real me. The one who needed to stop.
You’re done, I told myself.You’re getting clean.
No more circling him. No more watching. No more letting Matty Adler drag me under just by existing. I was finished.
But apparently, the universe liked to test me fast. Because my brand-new vow to get clean was already being tested first thing this morning—eight a.m. sharp, in Sports Media and Communication. The only class I’d managed to get into with him.
Back when I’d registered, it had felt like fate. Now, it just felt cruel.
My fingers tightened around my notebook, the edge cutting into my palm, and for a second, I almost believed I could do it, walk in, take notes, focus on anything but him. Then the door swung open, and I stepped inside…straight into the jaws of temptation.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as I walked in, the heat of the room a jarring contrast to the crisp cold outside. I hesitated in the doorway, my pulse loud in my ears. I knew thisroom too well, from the rows of desks to the smell of burnt coffee from the cart outside, to the hum of chatter that always died down the moment the professor entered.
Normally, I was here early. Early enough to claim my usual seat, two rows over and one back from his. Close enough to see the slope of his shoulders when he wrote, far enough away that no one would notice I was watching. I’d time it perfectly, arriving just before him and pretending to scroll through my phone, as if I didn’t already know exactly when the door would open and exactly how he’d look walking through it.
Obviously, that hadn’t happened today. Not after waking up late, not after running across campus with my hair still tangled from sleep and my heart racing for all the wrong reasons. But that was a good thing. It fit the new plan. The one where I stopped trying so hard, stopped showing up early just to breathe the same air as him. This was progress, I told myself. Messy, unplanned, barely held together, but still progress.
I took another hesitant step inside, the door clicking shut behind me, and instantly wished I hadn’t.
The room was already full…completely full. Every desk occupied, every backpack slung over the backs of chairs, every laptop open and glowing. My gaze swept the rows in a panic, searching for a miracle, for some forgotten corner seat I could slip into unnoticed.
But there wasn’t one.
My stomach dropped as I saw it.
Two empty seats. Both of them were beside him.
He was already there, leaned back in his chair like he owned the air around him. One arm draped lazily over the back of the seat next to his, hoodie sleeves shoved up to his forearms, the fabric stretching across his shoulders. He looked down at his phone, earbuds hanging loose, completely unaware of the chaos detonating inside me.
He was beautiful—unfairly beautiful.
I was frozen in place, gripping my notebook so tightly I could feel the cardboard bending. The sound of laughter and the clatter of someone dropping a pen blurred together into static. My mind went blank except for one truth I didn’t want to admit.
