Novels by Sandywrites

JOURNEE'S POVSleep hadn't done what it was supposed to. I'd woken up twice in the night convinced I could still feel his hands on my face, and both times I'd lain there in the dark hating how much I wanted to feel it again. This was supposed to be simple. Kingston was supposed to be the enemy, the bully who had made the last few days miserable. Yet my stupid heart kept racing at the thought of him.By the time my alarm actually went off, I'd already rehearsed the lie I was going to tell myself all day, that it meant nothing, that I'd forget by lunch, that my body wasn't still humming from a kiss I never should have let happen. I almost believed it, right up until I sat down for first period and realized none of it had faded at all. No matter how many times I tried to focus on my notes or the lecture, my mind dragged me right back to last night in the quiet hallway near the locker room.The way Kingston had pinned me against the wall, the raw hunger in his kiss and the feeling of his

KINGSTON'S POVThe ice was still cold under my skates by the time I stopped hearing the sauce dripping down my collar and started hearing everything else instead, my own pulse, too loud, and her voice underneath it: You're just standing there, letting them destroy me. She wasn't wrong, and that was the part I couldn't skate off.I told myself the locker room would be quieter. It wasn't. My head was still splitting, my shirt was still ruined, and somewhere under both of those was the one thought I refused to let all the way in — that I'd rather take a plate to the face every night than watch her look at me like that again. I sat on the wooden bench in the locker room, both elbows resting on my knees as I stared at the floor The friendly match we just finished had been brutal, but that was not why my head felt like it was splitting open. The migraine throbbed behind my eyes and I knew exactly what caused it.Or rather, who caused it.The door to the showers opened and Malik walked out,

JOURNEE'S POVThe rink smelled like popcorn and cold metal, and for the better part of an hour I'd been watching the game without actually seeing a second of it. My eyes kept finding him instead, a flash of dark hair cutting across center ice, gone before I could decide if I was angry or something worse. Every time the crowd roared I flinched like it was aimed at me, half convinced the whole building already knew what I'd walked in on days ago.His voice kept circling back, quiet and infuriating: "Not a chance, little spy." I hated that it was the only thing loud enough to drown out the noise around me. I told myself I was only watching the clock, only counting down the minutes until I could disappear into the crowd and forget his face existed. I almost believed it.The final whistle blew across the ice rink, and I let out a long breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.The hockey match had ended in a solid win for Kingston's team, as expected, but I could barely focus on the celebra

JOURNEE'S POVThree weeks into this treaty, and I still hadn't found a hallway in this building that didn't feel like enemy territory. Every stare followed the same pattern — a flick of the eyes, a slow once-over, then dismissal, like I was something they'd been forced to tolerate rather than someone they'd agreed to welcome. My father's last text was still open on my phone: Keep your head down. Six more months. He always made peace sound so simple from three hundred miles away.I hadn't planned on thinking about any of that today. I had a schedule, and I was going to stick to it drop off the assignment, get to tutoring, survive until curfew without incident. Simple. Manageable. The kind of day that didn't require bracing for anything.I adjusted the strap of my bag and walked down the empty hallway toward Mrs. Cross's classroom. My headphones blasted Westlife bangers straight into my ears, the beat thumping through my chest and helping me push off the overwhelming anxiety.I nodded a