MasukTamine’s POVI didn't sleep.I lay in the massive, impossibly soft guest bed in the Thorpe estate, watching the moonlight filter through the heavy velvet curtains. Every time I closed my eyes, Vance’s warning echoed in my ears.He will frame Evans as a teenager caught up with a volatile, lower-class family. He will use your mother to destroy him.At 6:00 AM, I couldn't take the suffocating silence of the room anymore. I threw the covers off, pulled on my oversized sweater, and padded barefoot down the carpeted hallway to Evans’s bedroom.I pushed the heavy oak door open.Evans was already awake. He was sitting on the edge of his mattress in a pair of gray sweatpants, a hockey playbook resting on his knees, staring blankly at the wall.He looked up when the door clicked. The tense, rigid line of his shoulders instantly dropped."Couldn't sleep?" he asked softly, tossing the playbook onto the floor and holding his hand out to me."Not even for a minute," I admitted, crossing the room an
Tamine’s POVThe Thanksgiving dinner was a masterclass in psychological warfare.Richard Thorpe sat at the head of the table, steering the conversation toward high-yield corporate bonds, the NFL draft, and the Boston hockey playoffs. He never addressed me directly again, but he systematically ignored my presence, attempting to render me entirely invisible.It didn't work. Every time Richard praised Atlas’s passing yardage, Atlas would immediately pivot the conversation, asking me a highly technical question about urban infrastructure. Every time Richard asked Evans about his NHL prospects, Evans would seamlessly intertwine his answer with how proud he was of my Vanguard midterm.They were flanking him. They were forcing their billionaire father to acknowledge me in his own house.By the time the dessert plates were cleared, Richard’s polite veneer was stretched to the absolute breaking point."I have a conference call with the London office," Richard announced, standing up sharply, to
Tamine’s POVThe automatic doors of the Philadelphia International Airport slid open, and the freezing November air hit my face. But for the first time in three months, the cold didn't feel like a threat. It felt like coming home.I adjusted the strap of my canvas bag, scanning the crowded curbside pickup lane."Looking for a ride to the city, or just admiring the architecture?"I spun around.Evans was leaning against the side of his black Land Rover, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of a dark wool peacoat. His breath plumed in the freezing air. The purple bruising along his jaw had faded to a faint, yellowish shadow, and the exhausted, hollowed-out look in his green eyes was completely gone.He looked solid. He looked like the boy I had left at the train station in August.I didn't say a word. I dropped my bag onto the concrete and ran.Evans caught me flawlessly, his arms wrapping around my waist and lifting me entirely off the ground. I buried my face in the crook of his nec
Evans’s POVThe hardest part about a Grade 3 concussion wasn't the nausea or the headaches. It was the absolute, crushing boredom.Dr. Thorne’s orders were absolute: no screens, no reading, no bright lights, and no elevated heart rate. For a guy who had spent his entire life in perpetual, high-adrenaline motion, being confined to a blacked-out dorm room felt like a straightjacket.It had been three weeks since the hit.I was lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling I couldn't even see in the dark. My phone was resting on my chest, on speakerphone."...and the integration of brutalist aesthetics in the mid-century municipal buildings was largely a reaction to the economic austerity of the post-war era," Tamine’s voice drifted through the speaker, calm and steady.She was reading her architectural history textbook to me. She had been reading to me every single night for three weeks. She knew I was going out of my mind with boredom, and since I couldn't watch TV or read a book, she
Tamine’s POV"You look like you're going to throw up, Chloe. Please don't throw up on the 3D model."It was Thursday afternoon. Three days since I had flown back from Boston.I was standing at the front of the architecture studio next to Chloe Kensington. Resting on the pedestal between us was our massive, fully rendered urban renewal model of the West Loop commercial district. It was flawless. The structural engineering was sound, the material cost analysis was perfectly within budget, and the aesthetic design was a seamless blend of modern glass and functional steel.But Chloe was hyperventilating softly, adjusting her designer blazer for the fifth time."Aris is looking at me like she wants to dissect my brain for science," Chloe whispered frantically, not moving her lips.Professor Aris was sitting in the front row, her clipboard resting on her knee, staring at our model with her terrifying, unreadable hawk eyes."She looks at everyone like that," I muttered back. "Just breathe. Y
Atlas’s POVThe Boston air was freezing, but I barely felt it. I was pacing the sidewalk outside the private neurology clinic, my phone pressed to my ear."I need a complete legal audit of Coach Kavanagh's communications," I barked into the receiver. "Subpoena the athletic department's donation records. I want the exact dollar amount Richard Thorpe transferred to that program last month, and I want it traced back to his corporate accounts.""Atlas, you're asking me to launch a hostile legal inquiry into your own father," my sports agent, David, sighed over the line. "You're a top-five NFL draft prospect right now. If you declare war on Richard Thorpe, he's going to use his connections to tank your media narrative. He'll label you a locker-room cancer.""Let him try," I sneered. "My brother is sitting in a dark room with brain trauma because that bastard wanted to play puppeteer. Do your job, David, or I'll fire you and hire someone who will."I hung up before he could respond.I leane
The feeling of Evans’s cheap, worn pen in her pocket was a constant, irritating reminder that her Rule Number Two was officially compromised. Tamine had spent the evening trying to convince herself that keeping the pen was simply a matter of principle—she was holding it hostage until he improved hi
Tamine spent the whole day trying to forget the sight of Atlas Thorpe outside the window. And the even worse sound of Evans’s last sentence: “I already broke your first rule. Let’s work on the others.”She found Evans waiting for her after school in the same stuffy room, 214. He wasn't sprawled out
After the series of events from the past weeks, everything died down and everyone began settling into their normal lives, i was back tutoring evans with a renewed resolve and unshakable defence or so i thought. I was more than determined not to notice he and his sly moves.Tamine clutched the three-
/Tamine/I walked in on monday morning, I could already feel it before stepping through the school gates, the stares, the phones tilted just enough to record my reaction. I didn’t have to look their way to know what they were saying.Me again? What has charlotte done this time, surely she is not go







