The roof terrace above Westgrave was technically closed during storms, but the latch had been loose for months. Céline knew that. Everyone knew that. It was where students smoked during parties and kissed people they would avoid in daylight. The stone was slick with rain, the low ledge dark and wet beneath the storm.
The wind hit us immediately. The air was cold, salted, and violent.
Céline released my wrist and turned to me.
“What do you want?”
The question was so ugly because she genuinely did not know.
I stared at her.
My best friend. My invention. The girl I had loved so much I had built a life around keeping her close, and hated so much I wanted to rip that life apart with my teeth.
“What doIwant?” I repeated.
She flinched at my tone.
“You stole my proposal.”
Her face went white.
There it was. No denial first. No performance. Just plain old fear.
Then Céline returned, fast and polished and insulting.
“I didn’t steal it.”
I laughed. The sound came out wrong, almost broken.
“You submitted my work under your name.”
“I changed it.”
“You changed three words!”
“I needed—”
“You needed?” I stepped closer. “You needed my clothes. You needed my school. You needed my name for you. You needed my notes, my help, my friends, my boyfriend, my entire life apparently, and now you needed my proposal too?”
“Thad was not your boyfriend.”
The fact that she said that, of all things, nearly made me scream.
“No,” I said, voice shaking. “He was just the first thing I wanted that wanted you instead.”
I saw her face turn with guilt, but I didn’t care.
“You think I don’t know what I did?” she asked.
“I think you know exactly what you do. That’s the problem.”
Her eyes filled, but she did not cry.
Céline rarely cried when it mattered. She became sharper instead, prettier in the cruelest possible way.
“You had everything,” she said.
The words came out low and dangerous.
