Page 52

A few days pass, and I don’t see Kento once.

Kiss and ditch, hm?

Fucking insect.

Not like I want to see him.

The farther away he is, the better for me. Better for my blood pressure. Better for my self-respect. Better for the part of my brain that still occasionally replays the exact shape of his mouth on mine.

So no, I don’t want to see him.

I just think it’s interesting that he vanished right after kissing me twice, getting stabbed, bleeding on my furniture, and generally detonating what little peace I had left. Very interesting. Very telling. Very fucking punchable.

He’s probably fucking Sasha.

The thought comes out of nowhere and makes me homicidal.

Sasha. Tall, fake-sweet, has been after him for months. Maybe longer. One of those girls who thinks batting her lashes at the right monster makes her special. To be fair, everyone seems to run after Kento. Men, women, probably small woodland creatures if given enough exposure.

By the time I get to the academy, I’m already in a mood.

Alone, of course.

Dimitri and Alexei barely come anymore. They still show up sometimes to box, not really study, but mostly they’re busy. Dimitri with Rei. Alexei with Marco. They both have their own lives now, their own people, their own routines that don’t orbit me the way they used to.

I don’t say that out loud, and I barely let myself think it.

But it stings.

A little.

Or a lot.

Whatever.

I just feel… weird.

Like I’ve been set a few inches outside the shape of things and everyone else adapted faster than I did. Don’t get me wrong, I like Rei. And I adore Marco, which is not a sentence I say lightly about anyone, because most people deserve to be buried in a ditch. But still, I’m not used to this. For years my time was always occupied by my best friends, by Dimitri’s noise, Alexei’s silence, all of us tangled in each other’s disasters so thoroughly there was never room to feel the empty spaces.

Now there is.

And apparently, when left unattended for too long, my mind fills those empty spaces with black eyes and bad decisions.

Not ideal.

I shake the thought off and drag myself through classes I have absolutely no interest in.

When I step back into the hallway between classes, some guy from my department, too eager, too alive for my liking, catches up beside me.

“Hey,” he says. “You having another party this weekend?”

I turn my head and look at him. I usually do throw parties when no one’s home, but I’m not in the mood for it lately.

So I glare at him, and his mouth shuts.

He mumbles something about seeing me later and disappears into the crowd.

I keep walking, then a shadow falls over me.