002

LEAH

Mr. Romano hadn’t come home last night.

I lay awake longer than I meant to, staring at a ceiling that wasn’t mine yet, turning that fact over until it lost its edges. He’d been out somewhere in this city while his son’s face sat framed in a hallway downstairs, and I still hadn’t found the nerve to ask my mother a single question about it.

Asher. My stepbrother now, apparently, in whatever twisted math this new life ran on. The thought sat in my stomach like something I’d swallowed too fast.

I pushed myself out of bed before it could settle any deeper and was dressed in twenty minutes.

My mother was waiting outside my door when I opened it, hand raised like she’d been about to knock. “I was just about to come knock on your door," she said, her voice dripping with amusement. "It seems you are enjoying your new home so much that you have completely forgotten you have school today."

I rolled my eyes. She’d always had a flair for the dramatic that never quite matched the moment.

“I’m ready,” I said, and followed her down to the car.

She dropped me at the curb outside school.

"Be good today," my mother said, offering a warm glance.

"I will," I replied, hopping out of the car and slamming the door shut behind me.

I stood there a second, scanning the courtyard, my eyes darting between groups of students, actively looking for one specific face just so I could go in the complete opposite direction. I had to avoid Asher at all costs.

“There you are.” Emilia fell into step beside me, backpack half off one shoulder. “You look like death. What happened to you?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Tired how? Yesterday was Sunday. Sunday is for sleeping, not whatever this is.” She gestured vaguely at my face.

"I will explain everything to you later," I promised, shaking my head to clear the fog. "What do we have this morning?"

"We have English," Emilia said, grabbing my elbow and pulling me along with the flow of the crowd. "We should get to class before we are late."

We slid into our seats with barely a minute to spare. I pulled out my phone under the desk and typed out a message to Noah, my boyfriend *where are you, you’ve been ignoring me since yesterday* and hit send before I could second guess the tone of it. He had not responded to a single text of mine since yesterday.

“You good?” Emilia whispered, catching something in my face I hadn’t meant to show.

“I’m fine.” I wasn’t. My stomach had been in knots since I woke up and Noah’s silence wasn’t helping.

The door of the classroom swung open, and my breath caught instantly in my throat. Asher walked in.

Heat crawled up my neck and into my face so fast I had to look down at my desk, at nothing, at anything that wasn’t him.

“God, he’s so hot,” Emilia breathed beside me, not bothering to lower her voice much.

I kept my eyes on my notebook. Didn’t look up as his footsteps passed my row, didn’t look up as he dropped into a seat somewhere behind me. My pulse hadn’t gotten the memo that I wasn’t supposed to care.

When we were much younger, we used to be so close. Back in New York, at our old school, it had always been him, my twin brother, and me. We were inseparable, before whatever happened between him and my brother happened. After that day, we never spoke again. It was as if the friendship had never existed. I still didn’t fully understand what broke it. Just that it broke, cleanly and neither of them ever spoke of it again.

When my mother and I relocated to Florida, seeing him walking the halls of this school had been a total shock. But we were much older now. Everyone had changed, and Asher had changed the most. He was famous now, the undisputed golden boy of the entire school, surrounded by a constant orbit of people. Day after day, I kept convincing myself of the one thing that kept me safe: he probably did not even remember who I was anymore.

The second the bell rang I was up and out before Emilia had even packed her bag, moving fast through the hallway toward the spot Noah and his friends always claimed at lunch. I needed to see Noah. I needed him to tell me why he had been ignoring me.

I hurried through the corridors, The crowded noise of the school faded as I neared the concrete benches.

My footsteps halted.

Noah was there, but he was not waiting for me. His hands were resting on the waist of Sasha, the school queen bee, and his mouth was pressed firmly against hers.

I stood frozen on the pavement, staring at them, completely unable to process the sight of my boyfriend wrapped around someone else.

As if sensing my gaze, Noah pulled back. His eyes shifted past Sasha’s shoulder and locked directly onto mine.

His posture went completely rigid, and he instantly straightened away from her.

“Leah—”

I was already turning. Already walking, fast, not caring which direction, just away.

“Leah, wait!” His footsteps chased mine down the hallway. “Let me explain—”

“There’s nothing to explain.” I didn’t slow down. “You’re a sick bastard, Noah.”

"Leah, it is not what it looks like," he stammered, reaching out a hand.

"Is it because of Sasha that you were ignoring my messages?" I demanded, the humiliation stinging the backs of my eyes. I did not give him a chance to answer. "Forget it."

“Please, just wait—”

“Leave me alone.”

His hand closed around my wrist and yanked, spinning me to face him before I could pull free.

“Let go of me.” I twisted against his grip, and it didn’t loosen, his fingers tightening instead, and something close to panic started climbing up my throat.

“You heard her.” A deep voice cut through the hallway, low and flat and absolutely certain. “Let go of her.”

Every hair on my arms rose before I even turned my head.

I knew that voice. I’d know it anywhere, in any hallway, after any number of years.

Standing right there, his dark eyes locked onto Noah’s hand, was Asher.