บททั้งหมดของ Off Camera : บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

"No fucking way." "Yeah, that's what I thought when they told me too." I dropped onto my bed face first, my body stretching off the pent up exhaustion in it. Hori was standing in the middle of the room, one sock half off her foot. She'd stopped attempting to remove it the moment I started talking. "Since when did the school start giving a shit about things like that?" Hori asked, her eyebrows raising even though she knew there was no way I could possibly have an answer to that. “One of the reasons I turned them down.” I said, my face still flat on the bed, muffling my voice in some way. “And besides, the dude's an ass, he legit told me to fuck off in class today.” Hori's mouth flew wide open and I could have sworn that I saw a mocking smile cross her face for a second. “Are you being serious? You mean the hot transfer kid told you to fuck off.” She burst out laughing, unable to hold it back in anymore. Her gaze caught my still body after a while and she stopped. “Well, he isn

"Were you not taught how to knock?" He turned to face me, his hands reaching out to cover his pelvic region."Ummm…excuse me." I snapped at him. "I didn't know you were here. And besides, I knocked on the front door several times.""Well…this isn't the front door." He snapped back. "Get the fuck out."I grabbed the handle and slammed the door then turned around and walked back downstairs because if I stayed in that room for one more minute I was going to do something that I would definitely not enjoy.Downstairs was louder than when I came in, more people had filtered in—some I recognized from the profile pictures on the website, while some I didn't. I found a corner that had a good sightline to most of the room and stood there for a while, just watching. That was always the first step—you didn't walk into a new social setting and start walking around immediately. Instead, you watch, you let people show you who they are when they thought nobody was paying close attention.Near the fa

"I'm telling you," I said, "he's such a jerk."Hori had her legs pulled up onto the common room couch, shoes off, feeling completely at home in a building she didn't live in."How bad are we talking?" she said, her eyebrows raising as her eyes gleamed with curiosity."He responds to whatever I say with one word, Hori. He barely even pays attention to me." I whispered, my gaze shifting to the far end where kyrian was seated, still pressing his phone. “He snores, and he's messy.” I continued. “He literally flinged his shoe across the room last night.”Hori pressed her lips together, probably trying to hold back herself from bursting into laughter. "I should go over and warn him," she said, with zero intention of doing anything of the sort."That wouldn't be necessary." I laughed, stealing another glance at him. "He'd probably just say cool and go back to his phone.""The audacity." She shook her head solemnly, reaching over and stealing a piece of fruit off my plate without asking, whic

"It's just the first day and your rankings are already this low." Vress didn't even look up when he said it. He was reading something on his desk, his pen moving across the page like I wasn't worth his slightest attention.I sat across from him with my hands in my lap and my face completely still."Kyrian is a tough nut to crack," I said. "I need more time."He set the pen down and looked up slowly."Time," he said, "is the one thing we don't have." He held my gaze for a second longer than necessary. "So better get cracking."He gestured toward the door.I stood, picked up my bag and left without another word because there was genuinely nothing left to say to him that wouldn't put me in a tough spot.The corridor outside his office was empty and I stood in it for a moment, just breathing.My feet started moving before I'd actually decided where I was going. Past the main hall, down the back stairs and out through the side exit that opened toward the athletics complex.I didn't know wh

"Good morning, good morning, good morning." Pat's voice came through the house speaker at eight sharp, which was pretty abnormal for a Tuesday."Two weeks in and you are all still here, which either means you're doing something right or the audience finds your disasters entertaining. Either way, congratulations." She paused for a moment, letting her words settle. "Now. I have news."The common room, which had been mid-breakfast and mid-conversation, went quiet immediately, everyone knowing that when Pat pauses like that, It means something is coming. "Playbook is welcoming two new additions to the house. Wildcards. They arrive within the week and I won't be telling you who they are, what they look like or where they're coming from." She paused again, longer this time. "What I will tell you is that starting from their arrival, you will no longer be scored as individuals. You'll be scored as rooms. Chemistry, coordination, audience engagement—all of it pooled." Her voice brightened. "G