Too bad. That meant they were out of the question. I didn’t mind their shaggy hair and laid-back attitude, but if it meant dealing with Aria’s commentary, I was out.
At least for tonight.
“Just don’t do anything rash,” Jas said, touching my arm.
I stifled a scoff. When had Ieverdone that?
Same old Sierra — always composed, always cautious. Always doing what I was supposed to do. The girl who color-coded her planner and scheduled self-care like it was a meeting with the dean.
Predictable.
Boring.
I didn’t know how to give up control. Chaos made my skin crawl. To me, surprises were just disasters with good PR.
I used to thrive on being the person people followed, the person who had everything figured out. Now?
I was trying so hard to be better. To be softer. To begood.
But being good had rules. It meant saying the right things, staying calm, staying composed. It meant not messing up. Ever.
So I triple-checked everything. My schedule, my grades, my tone. Unsurprisingly, I majored in Public Relations because I was my own best PR campaign.
Flawless image. Impeccable narrative. A rebrand in heels. I could control how people saw me, could frame the story before anyone else had the chance.
It wasn’t just a persona anymore — it was a compulsion. The control. The polish. The effort to be someone who was beyond criticism, especially now.
After everything. I might not be Queen Bee anymore, but I’d be damned if I let anyone see the cracks. If I seemed a little rigid or boring, well, that was better than falling apart.
Was that why David had done it?
Was I just notexcitingenough?
“Me? I would never, you know that,” I finally answered.
Ugh. I ordered a hard seltzer and checked to make sure it was still sealed. This wasn’t some shady house party, but that didn’t mean nothing bad could happen to me here.
“Hey, I’ll be right back, okay? I have to see Cade for a minute, he needed something earlier. You gonna be alright?”
I chuckled. I wondered how long she’d wanted to go over to his booth. The two of them had been dancing around each other ever since they started working on a group project together.
“Sure, I’ll be fine. The others are still here.”
After three more follow-up questions from her, which I waved off with increasing vehemence, she finally made her way to the booth where Cade was sitting with a few other guys.
I watched the exact moment he spotted her. His eyes lit up, and he tried to appear deliberately nonchalant, although to me and, judging by his friends’ reaction, it wasn’t quite as subtle as he’d intended.
My heart constricted painfully. Had David ever looked at me like that?
A few hours ago, I would have said yes, without a doubt. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Nothing like walking in on your boyfriend pounding into another girl, followed by the obligatory, “It’s not what it looks like”.
Yeah, right.
I snorted disdainfully, swirled the liquid in the can, and took a sip before looking around again. Suddenly the back of my neck prickled — an unmistakable sign I was being watched.
I had a kind of sixth sense for this. Inconspicuously, I turned my head in the direction in which I suspected the culprit without rotating my entire upper body like a fool.
