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“Exceptionally proud,” my father says, and his hand lands heavily on my back. “He’s already being courted by several firms for internships. The boy’s got a bright future.”

They talk about me like I’m not standing right here. Like I’m a commodity, an investment that’s finally paying dividends. The conversation shifts to their own sons’ accomplishments, each man trying to one-up the others with tales of success and prestige. It’s exhausting. It’s always been exhausting, but tonight it feels particularly suffocating, like the cigar smoke is filling my lungs and choking out everything real.

I’m contemplating how to extract myself without causing a scene when Gwen appears at my elbow like a guardian angel in a cocktail dress.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” she says with an assertive, disarming smile. “I need to borrow my brother for a moment. Family matter.”

She links her arm through mine and pulls me away from the patio, away from the suffocating weight of my father’s selfish pride. We end up in the side garden, where the air is clearer, and I can finally breathe.

“Thank fucking God.”

“You looked like you were about to jump off the porch,” Gwen says, studying me with keen eyes that have always seen too much. “Dad’s friends are particularly insufferable tonight.”

“They’re always insufferable.”

“True.” She pauses. She’s gearing up to ask me something. “So. Claire.”

My stomach tightens. “What about her?”

“She called me last week. Said you two broke up.”

“We were barely together.”

“She seemed pretty upset about it.” Gwen cants her head, watching me. “You know half the girls at St. Anne’s had a crush on you, right? You could have hooked up with any of them. Claire, Madison, even Sophia, and she’s usually so picky. But you chose Claire, and she moved to attend school with you. And then you just…ended it.”

She broke up with me. But the truth is too complicated. How do I explain to Gwen that every girl I’ve ever talked to, every flirtation, every date, every carefully orchestrated romance, was meant to keep them from Cameron? How do I tell my sister that I was playing a game I didn’t even want to win?

“It wasn’t fair to her,” I finally say. “To keep seeing her when I wasn’t…invested.”

“Invested. That’s a shitty way to put it.”

She’s not wrong.

“You know what I think?” she says. “I think you were never interested in any of those girls. I think you’ve been playing some kind of game, but I can’t figure out what the rules are.”

She’s so close to the truth it makes my heart race.

The game. God, it’s been exhausting. Talking to Madison at that party, making sure she was focused on me instead of wandering off to talk to other guys. Texting Sophia back immediately so she’d stay interested, stay occupied. Dancing with Claire at parties, keeping her attention locked on me like I was the only thing that mattered.

It looked like I was being competitive. Like I was trying to rack up conquests, prove something about my desirability. Even I almost believed that’s what I was doing.

But the truth is so much worse.

I was keeping them away from Cameron.

Every girl I talked to was a girl who wasn’t talking to him. Every date I went on was a night those girls weren’t at some party where Cameron might be, weren’t sliding into his DMs, weren’t touching him with their perfectly manicured hands. If Cameron showed any sign of interest or I heard a girl was interested in him, I swooped in.

The thought of anyone else touching Cameron, kissing him, having him in ways I couldn’t… It made me feel like I was being flayed alive. So I collected those girls like shields, kept them close and busy, told myself I was protecting something precious.

But I was really just being selfish. And dishonest. And so fucking exhausting to myself that some nights I’d lie in bed and feel like I couldn’t breathe under the pressure of preserving the lie.

“Luc?” Gwen’s voice pulls me back. “You okay? You look…”

“I’m fine,” I say automatically. Then, because she’s my sister and she’s one of the few people who might actually care, I add, “I’m just tired of pretending.”

She doesn’t ask me what I mean. Maybe she doesn’t want to know. Maybe she already suspects.

“Well,” she says after a moment, “whoever it is…” She looks at me, almost like she wants me to tell her. My throat closes. I look away, and then she finishes her thought, “I hope they’re worth it.”