School was supposed to be normal again.
Whatever that meant.
Celestia said she'd be dialing things down. "Just a little," she'd promised, brushing her lips against my cheek like she wasn't the most dangerous thing in a fifty-mile radius.
I thought I'd be relieved. I thought I'd be able to breathe again.
Then she walked in.
And every male eye in a three-hall radius nearly snapped out of their skulls.
She wasn't naked.
She didn't need to be.
Black turtleneck sweater — snug, but not obscene. Plaid skirt — thigh-high, with black boots that climbed past the hem like they were personally tailored by Satan. Hair down in effortless curls, lashes curled, lips glossy. The kind of walk that wasn't even a walk. It was a statement.
She looked like sin and sophistication got into a knife fight and decided to collaborate.
And for the first time all day, I wanted to hide.
Not because I was scared of her — okay, maybe a little — but because of them.
The looks. The whispers. The guys.
The rich ones.
The kind who had been watching ever since she arrived, but finally realized she wasn't just some mystery. She was… available. Sort of.
And I was the thing in the way.
Some random, glasses-wearing, awkward, ramen-slurping, 4.0 GPA nobody.
I watched one of the rich jocks — a Moretti, or maybe a Davenport? One of those second-name-has-a-trust-fund types — walk up to her locker with a white rose and a stupid smile.
And she smiled back.
Polite. Just polite but my stomach flipped anyway.
What was I even doing?
She could have anyone. And now that she wasn't hanging off my arm like a lovesick yandere shadow, people were lining up like it was a competition. Like I'd just borrowed her and needed to give her back.
And the worst part?
I hated it.
I hated them. The way they looked at her. The way she let them. The way I felt like nothing again — like just another background character in someone else's fantasy.
---
I didn't see her for the next couple of periods.
Which somehow made it worse.
I wasn't used to it. Not after the weekend. Not after waking up next to her, wrapped in her warmth and her lies and her laugh and her stupid soft hands.
I wasn't used to missing her and that made me feel even worse.
By lunch, I wasn't hungry.
By last period, I didn't even hear the professor.
And by the time the final bell rang, I was walking toward her locker, hands in my pockets, not even knowing what I was going to say.
Why do I feel like I'm losing you?
Why do I want to punch the guy who gave you the rose?
Why do I care so much it physically hurts?
I rounded the corner—
—and stopped.
She was on the phone.
I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I really didn't. But I heard his voice.
Lucien.
} "…Seriously, Tia, you spent the entire weekend at a guy's apartment?"
Celestia laughed. "You make it sound scandalous."
} "I'm not joking. You don't do that. You never do that."
> "I felt safe."
There was a pause.
She leaned against her locker, voice quieter. "With him… I felt like I didn't need to be on guard. Didn't have to pretend. He doesn't want anything from me. He didn't even know who I was until I told him."
Lucien was still silent.
She kept talking.
> "One of the guys at school today tried to impress me. Had a falcon deliver me chocolate-covered strawberries in chem class. A falcon, Lucien."
I blinked. What the hell?
"And I laughed," she said softly. "Because I didn't care. I could date anyone. But I'd still choose him. Even if someone jumped off a burning building while playing a violin and landed in a rose petal-filled pool—he's the one I'd go back to."
I froze.
Something cracked open inside me and for the first time all day… I could breathe.
She ended the call and turned the corner.
Bumped right into me.
"Oh—Kai!" she gasped, then blinked, grinning. "Hi, babe."
"Hi," I said, voice quieter than I expected.
She tilted her head. "You okay?"
I nodded.
She looked at me for a beat longer, trying to read me.
But I just smiled.
Because I was happy.
And I wasn't sure I was supposed to be.
---
We walked side by side out of school, her arm hooking around mine without needing to ask. She started talking. Ranting, really — about her classes, a boring professor, the falcon incident (which was apparently very real), and the terrible cafeteria coffee.
I didn't say much.
Her voice faded into the background a little, like a warm breeze behind my eyes.
Because somewhere in the middle of my meltdown, I realized something.
I didn't need her to prove anything.
She was mine.
Not because I earned her.
Not because I deserved her.
But because… for some insane reason, she chose me.
And yeah, that terrified me.
But it also made me feel—
"…happier than I'm supposed to be."
---
To be continued...