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“You’re done with this now, right?”
Colin finally looked at her. “What?”
“You can’t possibly think, after what happened at Brown—no,what youdidat Brown—that it’s okay to compete with me for this.” Allison shoved to her feet.
Pain creased his face. “Allison.” He had the audacity to reach for her. She slid around the table. “I have to,” he whispered.
Her eyes seared into his. Every part of her felt ablaze. It was happening again. She’d tried to do everything different this time, and yethere she was, caught in some cruel time loop that would never let her loose. Never let her win. Sophomore year endlessly dragging her back. Beating her down.
“No, you don’t.”
“Allison,” he said carefully.
“Oh, fuck you.” The words rushed from her like a breath.
Colin reared back, acting for all the world like she’d tossed a pot of scalding water at him.
It took incredible self-control not to bash him in the face with her anthology as she packed it in her bag. One of her notebooks bent awkwardly against the spine, and something else deeper in the crevices tore. None of it mattered.
Anger beat through her forcefully enough to make her sick as she stalked from the lecture hall.
After the Rising Star announcement, Allison didn’t leave her room for two days. Colin called, he tried to visit, he slipped notes under her door, but she refused to talk to him. She was mad, yes, “fit to be tied,” as her grandmother would say, but she’d also been so defeated. She’d never lost anything before, especially not something for which she’d worked this hard. She’d had no idea how to sit with those feelings of failure. Everything seemed pointless. Without the Rising Star, it felt as if Allison would never achieve her dreams. And to have Colin be the one who’d taken them from her had only sharpened the knife.
Now he was twisting that same blade deep into her back. Making sure it stuck for good this time.
In her rush to leave, she’d turned the wrong way out of the classroom and trapped herself in an alcove. And there he was, right behind her. Always there. A shadow she couldn’t shake. She pressed her spine to the wall. This time she’d be the one leaning.
Only the bastard took her cue and angled himself against the window, resting on the sill. He’d pushed up the sleeves of his gray cardigan, accentuating the line of muscle in his slim forearms, and hisposture seemed to broaden his shoulders. Sunlight sliced russet streaks into his blond hair and drew gold sparks through his green eyes.
Fuck the sun. Fuck nature. Where was a washed-out fluorescent lightbulb when Allison needed one?
His eyes dipped over her. “You need to understand.”
“I don’t need to understand anything. You stole the one thing I wanted at Brown. Now you’re going to try to do it again.”
Sighing, he scrubbed at his forehead with the heels of his hand. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might have needed the Rising Star? That I mightneedthis?”
“You were practically a celebrity at that school. Everyone loved you. You had the best recommendations, top scores, a department-chair approved sample essay. Like hell, you needed the Rising Star.” She hiked her bag higher on her arm and stepped away from the wall. Her gaze grabbed his like it had hands. She wished a look alone could bruise. Mangle. Scar. “And you don’t need this advisee position or this trip. It’s just another chance to feed your ego. Another trophy for your wall. By this time next year, some new ‘huge’ thing will have caught your eye, and you’ll leave medieval lit behind. Like it never mattered.”
The same way he’d left her.
“Allison.”
“No.” She raised a hand. “I’m done here.We’redone here.”
Allison would not relive what happened at Brown. She would break the time loop. She’d find a different ending.
No. Fuck that. She’dmakeone.
Chapter 16
Colin broke up with Allison to the jaunty tune of “Jingle Bell Rock.”
It had been late March, but the Christmas Diner embraced its name and celebrated the holiday year-round. Tinsel and ornaments were strung from the ceiling and glittered from every window frame, hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies were always on the menu, and every booth boasted its own tiny Christmas tree while festive music blared nonstop from the speakers.
Usually, Allison loved the kitsch of it all—the winter holidays were her favorite, and let’s be honest, some of those songs were bangers—but on that day, a little over a week after Colin had stolen the Rising Star Award right out of her hands, she’d found the garishness repulsive. Or maybe it was just the sight of Colin striding toward her.
She hadn’t seen him since the night before the announcement. They’d been up late at his apartment, hands wandering all over each other as they pretended to study for midterms. Cocooned in the quiet of his room, her fingers teasing the skin of his hip bone under his maroon cardigan, his palm easing across her stomach and drifting toward her breasts, everything had felt warm. Comfortable. Safe. He’d been so supportive of her as she’d worked on the application, and even after it was done, he was more complimentary and attentive than ever. Asif something significant had shifted between them. Allowed them to grow closer.
