3

The cafeteria was filled with noise; Shouts from the jock table, the high-pitched laughter from the cheerleading squad, the general chaotic hum of students. In our corner, tucked away by the large windows, it was quieter.

“So, if you really think about the temporal mechanics introduced in season three,” Ben was saying, gesturing wildly with a French fry, “the entire ‘alternate reality’ arc is actually a bootstrap paradox. They didn’t create a new timeline; they were always the cause of the original anomaly!”

Maya rolled her eyes, meticulously dissecting her yogurt. “Oh, please. They just retconned it because the writers wrote themselves into a corner. It’s not a ‘bootstrap paradox,’ it’s bad plotting. You’re giving them way too much credit.”

I managed a small smile, pushing my own sandwich around its plate. “Maybe the real anomaly is why we’re still watching a show that clearly hates its own audience.”

Ben looked scandalized. “It’s about the themes! The philosophical implications of choice and destiny!”

“The only philosophical implication I’m seeing is that we’re destined to make bad choices every Tuesday night for forty-three minutes,” Maya deadpanned.

I let out a genuine, quiet laugh.

“Hey,” Ben said, lowering his voice and leaning in conspiratorially. “Did you guys hear about the chem final? I heard Mr. Finch is making it cumulative. The entire year. We’re all going to die.”

“Speak for yourself,” Maya said. “Some of us have been studying and not just memorizing fictional star charts.”

“They’re not fictional! They’re based on real celestial navigation—”

Their bickering faded into the background as my eyes, against my will, drifted across the crowded room. It was a reflex, a stupid, self-destructive habit I’d never been able to break. My gaze always found him.

Asher Hayes.

He was sitting at the center of the soccer team’s table, surrounded by his teammates. He was laughing at something, his head thrown back slightly, and the afternoon sun from the high windows caught the warm brown of his hair. He looked like a poster for the perfect high school experience. Kind, popular, untouchable. My chest ached with a familiar, hopeless longing.

And then my gaze, traitorously, slid to the person sitting next to him.

Jax Ryder.

He was leaning back in his chair, one arm slung over the back of it, holding court. He wasn’t laughing like Asher; he had that trademark smug, knowing smirk on his face, like he was in on a joke the rest of the world wasn’t privy to. He said something, and the guys around him roared with laughter. Asher nudged him with his elbow, still smiling, and Jax’s smirk widened into a grin.

The sight was a physical blow. They were a unit. The captain and his ace. Asher, who was too decent to see the darkness in people, and Jax, who seemed to see nothing else.

As if he could feel the weight of my stare, Jax’s head turned. His green eyes scanned the room, lazy and arrogant, and then they stopped. On me.

The smirk vanished from his face. It wasn’t replaced by anger or a threat. It was that same, cold, blank look of revulsion he’d given me at the cafe. He didn’t scowl. He didn’t narrow his eyes. He just looked at me, his expression utterly closed off and contemptuous, as if he’d just noticed an unpleasant stain on the far wall.

My face flamed. I instantly dropped my gaze back to my uneaten sandwich, my appetite completely gone. My heart was pounding again, a frantic, scared little bird trapped in a cage of ribs.

“...so I told him, the integral of the derivative is just the original function, it’s not rocket science! Elliot? You okay?”

I looked up at Ben, forcing my eyes to focus on his concerned face. Maya had stopped eating her yogurt and was watching me too.

“Yeah,” I croaked, clearing my throat. “Yeah, fine. Just… thinking about that chem final. It sounds brutal.”

I tried to inject a laugh into my voice, but it came out strained and false.

Ben’s eyes widened, his chem final woes forgotten. “Whoa. Holy—”

I followed his gaze, my own heart sinking for a different reason. It wasn’t directed at me this time. It was Anna Meyers.

She was weaving through the tables with the practiced grace of a queen, her blonde hair swinging, a blindingly white smile plastered on her face. She made a beeline for the soccer table, and the guys there erupted in a chorus of whistles and catcalls. She ignored them all, her focus entirely on one person.

Jax.

He watched her approach, that smug, self-satisfied smirk back on his face. He didn’t stand up. He just spread his legs a little and patted his thigh. With a theatrical little laugh, Anna slid right onto his lap, looping her arms around his neck. Jax’s hand settled possessively on her waist, his fingers splayed against the tight fabric of her dress, a dress that was, without a doubt, against the school’s dress code.

“Disgusting,” Maya muttered, her voice dripping with such pure contempt it could have stripped paint. “She’s like a performing seal. Look at her. She lives for this.”

“She’s the head cheerleader, Maya,” Ben said, his voice full of awe. “It’s, like, her job description to be with the star jock.”

“It’s nauseating,” Maya corrected, stabbing her yogurt with renewed violence.

“Get a room, Ryder!” one of the players shouted.

Jax just grinned, a lazy, arrogant look. “Jealous, Thompson?”

Anna giggled, leaning forward to pluck a fry from his plate. She ate it slowly, deliberately, her eyes locked on his the entire time. The guys at the table whooped and hollered.

I couldn’t look away. Jax was whispering something in Anna’s ear, and she threw her head back and laughed, a sound like tinkling bells that somehow cut through the cafeteria noise. Asher was smiling too, but it looked a little more polite, a little more distant. He was the only one at the table not leering.

Of course, my mind taunted me. Asher is too decent to leer. He’s probably thinking they make a nice couple. He doesn’t see how cheap it looks.

A bitter, acidic thought rose in my throat, so sharp it surprised me. He gets disgusted with me for having feelings. He calls me sick for just looking. But this? This public display, this performance… this is perfectly fine for him.

The hypocrisy was a physical ache. My quiet, hidden crush was a perversion. But Anna Meyers sitting on his lap, eating from his plate, putting on a show for the entire cafeteria? That was normal. That was acceptable. That was what a guy like Jax Ryder deserved.

Of course, the nasty little voice in my head whispered. She’s beautiful. She’s popular. She’s a girl. I’m none of those things. My feelings are wrong simply because they’re mine.

“I mean, look at them,” Ben sighed, a little dreamily. “They’re like royalty. Jax Ryder and Anna Meyers. It’s like they’re from a different planet.”

“A planet with a severely deficient atmosphere and an overabundance of hair gel,” Maya snapped. “She’s not even that smart. I had to explain basic photosynthesis to her in bio last year. Twice.”

“She doesn’t need to be smart,” Ben argued. “She’s Anna Meyers.”

“That’s the most depressing thing you’ve said all week,” Maya retorted.

I stayed silent, my own sandwich turning to dust in my mouth. I watched as Jax whispered something in Anna’s ear, making her giggle and swat his chest playfully. His hand on her waist tightened, pulling her closer. There was nothing subtle about it.

And he had looked at me like I was the one doing something dirty.

The bell rang, a sharp, jarring sound that made me jump. The spell was broken. Anna slid gracefully off Jax’s lap, giving him one last, lingering look before sauntering away with her friends. The soccer team began gathering their trays, their laughter still echoing.

As I stood up, my legs feeling weak, I chanced one last look. Jax was standing now. His eyes, cold and dismissive, swept over our corner of the cafeteria once more. They passed over Ben, over Maya, and for a split second, locked with mine.

“Coming, Elliot?” Maya asked, already heading for the door, her own tray in hand.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.” I followed them out of the cafeteria, the noise fading behind us into a dull roar. The hallway was marginally quieter, filled with the shuffling of feet and the slamming of lockers.

Ben was still chattering, his brain already having moved on from the dramatic display to the impending doom of the chem final. “...so if it’s cumulative, that means we’re responsible for the polyatomic ions from chapter four. I’m going to have to make new flashcards. This is a disaster.”

“Your life is so hard,” Maya said without any real malice, bumping his shoulder with her own.

I walked a few steps behind them, their conversation a distant buzz.