Page 7 of Ruthless Edge

Paige gives me a look, the one she uses when she's exercising enormous restraint about not saying what she's actually thinking. She might be a photography major, but she’s spent enough time helping me go over my psychology notes to almost be a college-level expert.

"Fine," I say. "Maybe it's a little bit trauma."

"A little bit," she agrees, kindly.

Rory has been quiet for a minute, which with Rory usually means she's working up to something. "Okay," she says. "The obvious answer is that you step down. Let someone else do it. You don't have to put yourself through eight weeks of this, Emma."

I open my mouth to agree, because she's right, it's the obvious answer, and walking away would be so much easier than the alternative.

Then I close it again.

I sit there and I actually think about it. Quitting. Telling Dr. Neely something came up, some conflict, recommending James Whitfield like I'd already suggested, and just being done with it. Nobody would blame me. My friends would understand. Knox would probably be relieved.

And that's the part that stops me.

Knox would be relieved.

He'd go back to Dr. Neely's meeting next week, relaxed and easy, and take his seat at the table and maybe he'd even mention that it had worked out, everything sorted itself, no problems. He'd co-chair with someone else and he'd grin through the whole process and it would cost him nothing. Again. It would cost him absolutely nothing, same as last time.

I earned this position. I've been on the Student Activities Board for two years. I've run fundraisers and events and coordinated half the campus calendar. I worked for this co-chair role. I didn't volunteer for it because of Knox, I earned it before Knox was anywhere near it, and now I'm supposed to walk away because he makes me feel small?

He already took one thing from me. I'm not giving him this too.

"I'm not quitting," I say.

Rory blinks. "You don't have to prove anything⁠—"

"I know I don't." I straighten up in my chair. The thing that's been coiled tight in my chest all morning is still there, but it's shifting somehow, settling into something different. Still heavy, but more solid. Like something I can carry instead of something carrying me. "But this is going on my graduate school applications. It's one of the biggest events the SAB runs. I've been working toward this for three years and I'm not going to let him take it away from me." I pick up my coffee. "I'll be professional. I'll do my job. I'll make the auction the best one they've ever had. Knox Carter can smile at me all he wants and I will not feel a single thing about it."

There's a pause.

"Obviously I'm going to feel things," I say. "But I won't show it."

Paige makes a sound that is somewhere between a cheer and a sob. "I love you so much," she says. "That was a whole character arc. I watched a whole arc happen in real time."

"You're dramatic."

"I'm enthusiastic," she corrects. "There's a difference. And you're incredible. I need you to know that."

"I'm really not⁠—"

"You have a three-point-nine GPA," Rory says.

"It's a four-point-oh," Sienna says, without looking up from her coffee.

"How do you know that?" I ask.

"You mentioned it once."

That's Sienna. She remembers things like that, files them away somewhere and produces them without warning. She doesn't do it to show off. She just pays attention and retains everything, which is both impressive and occasionally unnerving.

"The point," Rory continues, "is that you're at the top of your program, you've been involved in literally every SAB event for two years, you have more campus leadership experience than most students who've been here twice as long, and you've dated plenty of people since freshman year, which means Knox didn't break you. He just hurt you. There's a difference."

She's right. There is a difference. I've had relationships since then, some that lasted and some that didn't, and I've been fine. I know how to be fine. I know how to be more than fine. I just apparently need a brunch patio and three people who love me to remember it when Knox Carter is in the room.

"You're right," I say.

"I know," Rory says, not unkindly.