hands.
Embarrassment heats my skin, making me feel so hot all over, I’d take his blazer off if he wouldn’t think I was trying to seduce him. If I could die, I would be dead right now. Death by sexual shaming.
“Anne, please don’t take that the wrong way.”
It’s a line he’s made famous for me. Don’t take my cold shoulder the wrong way. Don’t take the implication that you’re a total slut the wrong way . He repeats my name, but he keeps his distance. I shake my head like it’s no big deal. I need to disappear. I need to rewind to the moment he first appeared at the top of the cliff and do this all over again, but this time I’ll make him feel like a sexual deviant.
“You’re angry.”
I shake my head again. “It’s cold. I should go find my room. Unpack. And stuff. I’m really sorry you got Garnet for a Guardian, Ben.”
“ A-Anne .”
“Please don’t,” I whisper, stepping past him and shaking him off when he reaches for me. “I wasn’t suggesting what you think I was. I just liked… It doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t leave,” he says, following me. “I don’t know why you’re taking this so poorly.”
You wouldn’t know , I think. You’re always the one doing the rejecting; I’m always the one receiving it .
“Good night, Ben.”
“Anne, please!” he shouts after me.
My head is in a daze as I rush down the hill, cross the quad, and run toward the girls’ dorm. All I can think about is Ben with Garnet. Sure, he talks like she was a proxy for me, but I’m damn sure that he got a lot closer to my would-be understudy than he’s willing to get to me.
I reach the girls’ dorm before he can catch up with me. I shove the door to the squat stone building open and dart inside, closing it behind me to distance myself from him. The whole way here, I could hear his breath as he ran a timid five or so paces behind me. He could’ve overtaken me at any point, but evidently he’s smarter than that.
The lights are dim inside the dorm. The stained-glass windows won’t let me see if he’s still outside.
“Doesn’t matter,” I whisper. I stare at the wall next to me. And then lean into it.
Here, with my forehead pressed against a copy of the Cania Christy Code of Student Conduct—featuring BS rules like no fraternizing with the villagers , who are basically gone now anyway—I close my eyes and see Ben with Garnet. Doing everything he says he doesn’t want to rush into with me. I relive the time I cowered at the edge of the Zin property and watched as, standing with Ben in his kitchen, Garnet lifted his hand to her mouth; there was nothing innocent about that. I’d be more than a little naive to believe they never slept together. Ugh. They totally did. They def-in-ite-ly did. Ben slept with Garnet. And the mechanics of it! I can’t help torturingmyself with each painstaking step in a process I’m unqualified to imagine. The taking off of clothes. The selection of a suitable location. The spoken or unspoken agreement that this is going to happen. I squeeze my eyelids until I see bright orange dots instead of two intertwined bodies. Where I’d be a tense, awkward mess, they probably weren’t even shy about it. Garnet’s so damn confident, and Ben’s so impossibly gorgeous. They slept together. Naked. Skin to skin. Probably more than once. Oh, God. Probably a lot. In a bed. In his bed. Where else? Anywhere else? Everywhere else.
“Wake up, loony bird,” Harper calls down to me, her twang thicker than ever.
I glance up to see her leaning over the railing of the second floor and snickering at me. Her long bangs are pinned back perfectly, and she’s wearing pajamas that look more comfortable and less overtly sexy than I would have expected.
“Not sure how y’all do it in Broke Assville, California,” she says and drums her fingers impatiently on a newel post, “but here we sleep in actual beds, not leaning against walls. So haul ass up here and make yours.”
I
Embarrassment heats my skin, making me feel so hot all over, I’d take his blazer off if he wouldn’t think I was trying to seduce him. If I could die, I would be dead right now. Death by sexual shaming.
“Anne, please don’t take that the wrong way.”
It’s a line he’s made famous for me. Don’t take my cold shoulder the wrong way. Don’t take the implication that you’re a total slut the wrong way . He repeats my name, but he keeps his distance. I shake my head like it’s no big deal. I need to disappear. I need to rewind to the moment he first appeared at the top of the cliff and do this all over again, but this time I’ll make him feel like a sexual deviant.
“You’re angry.”
I shake my head again. “It’s cold. I should go find my room. Unpack. And stuff. I’m really sorry you got Garnet for a Guardian, Ben.”
“ A-Anne .”
“Please don’t,” I whisper, stepping past him and shaking him off when he reaches for me. “I wasn’t suggesting what you think I was. I just liked… It doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t leave,” he says, following me. “I don’t know why you’re taking this so poorly.”
You wouldn’t know , I think. You’re always the one doing the rejecting; I’m always the one receiving it .
“Good night, Ben.”
“Anne, please!” he shouts after me.
My head is in a daze as I rush down the hill, cross the quad, and run toward the girls’ dorm. All I can think about is Ben with Garnet. Sure, he talks like she was a proxy for me, but I’m damn sure that he got a lot closer to my would-be understudy than he’s willing to get to me.
I reach the girls’ dorm before he can catch up with me. I shove the door to the squat stone building open and dart inside, closing it behind me to distance myself from him. The whole way here, I could hear his breath as he ran a timid five or so paces behind me. He could’ve overtaken me at any point, but evidently he’s smarter than that.
The lights are dim inside the dorm. The stained-glass windows won’t let me see if he’s still outside.
“Doesn’t matter,” I whisper. I stare at the wall next to me. And then lean into it.
Here, with my forehead pressed against a copy of the Cania Christy Code of Student Conduct—featuring BS rules like no fraternizing with the villagers , who are basically gone now anyway—I close my eyes and see Ben with Garnet. Doing everything he says he doesn’t want to rush into with me. I relive the time I cowered at the edge of the Zin property and watched as, standing with Ben in his kitchen, Garnet lifted his hand to her mouth; there was nothing innocent about that. I’d be more than a little naive to believe they never slept together. Ugh. They totally did. They def-in-ite-ly did. Ben slept with Garnet. And the mechanics of it! I can’t help torturingmyself with each painstaking step in a process I’m unqualified to imagine. The taking off of clothes. The selection of a suitable location. The spoken or unspoken agreement that this is going to happen. I squeeze my eyelids until I see bright orange dots instead of two intertwined bodies. Where I’d be a tense, awkward mess, they probably weren’t even shy about it. Garnet’s so damn confident, and Ben’s so impossibly gorgeous. They slept together. Naked. Skin to skin. Probably more than once. Oh, God. Probably a lot. In a bed. In his bed. Where else? Anywhere else? Everywhere else.
“Wake up, loony bird,” Harper calls down to me, her twang thicker than ever.
I glance up to see her leaning over the railing of the second floor and snickering at me. Her long bangs are pinned back perfectly, and she’s wearing pajamas that look more comfortable and less overtly sexy than I would have expected.
“Not sure how y’all do it in Broke Assville, California,” she says and drums her fingers impatiently on a newel post, “but here we sleep in actual beds, not leaning against walls. So haul ass up here and make yours.”
I
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