Chapter 2

Chloe's POV

By the time I was discharged, I'd spent several hours being watched, questioned, and reminded to rest. Nathan collected my medication and instructions while I waited in the corridor.

A glimpse of my reflection in the glass doors stopped me dead in my tracks.

There was a literal pothos leaf tangled in my hair.

My hair wasn't just a disaster; it was a crime scene. My pale, bruised face wasn't doing me any favors, either.

Looking like this? There was zero chance his little "let's kiss" proposition was born out of sudden, burning desire. He couldn't possibly have wanted to kiss me.

It hadn't been romantic tension back in that room. He was just setting up a spectacularly elaborate insult.

"Coco. Got everything. Let's go home."

Nathan came toward me with the pharmacy bag in his hand and a smile I hadn't seen in years.

My breath hitched.

I forgot about the leaf.

That was the boy I'd fallen for.

So when, exactly, had we ruined everything?

In junior year, Nathan was seventeen and I was sixteen. I'd skipped a grade, and our parents had helped arrange for us to be in the same class.

He was handsome, annoyingly good at every subject, and popular enough that people found reasons to walk past our classroom.

He carried my bag.

He took over my classroom cleanup duty. After finishing his thousand-meter fitness test, he ran beside me while I struggled through eight hundred meters.

"Keep going, Coco. I'll carry you home if you're tired afterward."

He never got impatient with me. If I forgot a jacket, he had one. If I wanted candy my parents wouldn't let me have, he found some.

Falling for him seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do. Half the school had already done it.

Then Evan Parker transferred in before our midterms.

He was just as good-looking and just as smart. Our teachers looked delighted every time the two of them answered the same question.

Two days before the exams, Nathan came down with pneumonia. He returned to class pale and thinner, coughing into his sleeve, and spent the breaks with his head on his desk.

I wanted to fuss over him. I also wanted him to sleep. So I left him alone and struggled with a math problem by myself.

Evan stopped beside my desk, glanced at my page, and pointed out the step I'd missed.

The answer clicked into place.

I gave him a thumbs-up. Okay, fine. He might actually be smart enough to compete with my Nathan.

I was the youngest in class, still round-cheeked, bundled into the fluffy fleece Nathan had brought for me. Maybe I looked like something that needed petting, because Evan ruffled my hair.

"Nice work, Coco."

I hadn't moved away in time.

A prickling feeling made me turn.

Nathan was watching from his folded arms. He looked as if Evan had broken into his house.

That afternoon, the sky darkened, and by the last bell, rain was hammering the windows.

Nathan went straight out into the downpour without waiting for me.

Normally, we walked the short distance home together. Despite our families' bank accounts, our parents insisted on keeping a low profile at school—which meant zero chauffeurs waiting by the gates to rescue us from the weather.

But today, he'd just left me there.

I stood under the entrance awning, watching his back disappear into the grey rain.

Then an umbrella opened over my head.

"Didn't bring one?" Evan asked. "Come on. I'll walk you home."

I went with him, wondering what I'd done to upset Nathan.

Long after I got home, I went up to our third-floor attic and looked across at Nathan's study. His light was off. He still wasn't back.

He'd left before us. Where had he gone?

I was about to go downstairs and ask when he appeared in his window, soaked through. Water darkened his shirt and dripped from his hair.

Usually he looked across to see whether I was there.

That evening, he closed the curtains.

He waited for me the next morning, but he didn't speak as we walked.

"Nathan, yesterday—"

"Evan walked you home."

He took my bag off my shoulder while he said it and slung it over his own.

At least he was talking to me again. I couldn't help smiling.

Then I spotted Evan at the school gate. He smiled in our direction.

Nathan looked at him, then at me.

"That happy to see him?"

Things got worse from there.

Sabrina Wells, widely considered the prettiest girl at school, told someone Nathan had given her an umbrella the day before.

So that was why he'd left me. He'd gone to take care of Sabrina.

Then I noticed a small amethyst crystal hanging from her bracelet. She said it came from that trendy little metaphysical shop up in Cedar Hill, where people drive out to buy stones for good vibes. Hers was supposedly charged to bring luck for finals.

Nathan had taken a mysterious solo drive up to Cedar Hill just before he got sick.

I didn't ask him about either thing. What was I supposed to say? Why were you buying lucky charms for her instead of me?

Someone started a rumor that Evan and I were dating. I never found out who.

I did hear Nathan say, in a careless voice, "What am I to her? What right do I have to ask?"

That hurt more than the umbrella.

When Evan left to study abroad, I was absolutely miserable—mostly because Nathan and I could barely exchange two words anymore.

Nathan, of course, completely misread the situation. He caught me zoning out one day, took one look at my face, and scoffed.

"Still heartbroken over your boy leaving?" he sneered, his tone dripping with disdain. "Tell you what. I'm going to take that contract your dad has been eyeing. Consider it my way of giving you something actual to cry about."

After that, every conversation became a contest. Neither of us was willing to be the first to give in.