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“I’m writing the email now.” Wendy would appreciate Allison’s quote from “The Pardoner’s Prologue,” and she was bound to be every bit as disgusted by Colin’s theft as Allison was.
That presentation had been her best work. She’d been mulling over her analysis of beauty in medieval romance for years. She’d never come up with something to match it, not in four days. Maybe not ever.
She had no choice. She had to tell Wendy everything.
Sophie yanked the licorice from her mouth and flailed it around for emphasis. “Let her know they need to act fast. I want him expelled before I kill him.”
Allison snorted. Her pulse felt like it was directing her fingertips as they clacked against the keys. No matter how fast they flew, they couldn’t keep up with the angry thoughts roiling like a stormy sea through her head.
She had to focus on this presentation, on school, on the thing shecould fix, because if Allison let her mind drift toward the ache at her center, she’d fall apart.
She wouldnotfall apart. Not for him. Not for anyone.
She swiped her knuckles at her burning eyes and kept typing. She was adding the final letters to her signature when someone called her name.
It sounded muffled, like a voice yelling through a phone. Or from somewhere far away. Both she and Sophie were on their feet the next time they heard it.
Allison’s bedroom window faced the street. Throwing it open, she hung her head out to see past the porch’s overhang.
Colin stood on the sidewalk, still dressed in that awful cardigan, the gel on his head still shiny and sleek. He’d exploded her whole world, and he didn’t even have a hair out of place. It only made her hate him more.
“What are you doing here?” Allison dipped her voice low so he’d have to strain to hear her.
Shielding his glasses from the sun, he gazed up. “You aren’t answering my texts.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Please. You have to.”
“I definitely do not.” Allison stepped away and began to close the window.
“Fuck off, Colin,” Sophie yelled from behind her.
“Allison, please.” Colin sat on the ground and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
He was stubborn enough to mean it, and Allison would never figure out what to do about her own presentation with fucking Colin Benjamin (thief, liar, asshole) sitting out there lurking.
Slamming the window shut, she stalked toward the stairs. “I’ll be back.”
“Give him hell, girl,” Sophie declared.
Allison’s heart rammed in her chest, but she did her best to appearcompletely calm, nonplussed even, as she stepped out onto the porch. Silently thanking Sophie for the dress, she pushed back her shoulders and stared Colin down.
He jumped to his feet. She could imagine his knobby bones rattling beneath his skin. Any other day, the way his eyes slipped over her body would have made her shiver, but today she felt only rage. This dress was forher, and her alone.
“Thank you—”
“You have two minutes.” Allison folded her arms.
He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, finally mussing it. “I’m sorry. I thought… I thought changing my topic would level the playing field. Put us on the same page. It—”
“Bullshit.” Allison’s fists were cement. Heavy and dangerous. She clenched them at her sides. “We’re so far from on the same page. If I present my work Tuesday, it will look like I copied you. I’ve been planning that lecture for weeks. On an idea I’ve been building on for years.Now I havenothing.” She stomped down the porch steps until they were at eye level. “Be honest. Were you only pretending to be conflicted about your topic so I’d share mine?”
She was shaking, all the words she couldn’t hold back pinging small cracks into her bones, forging fault lines she’d never fill. “How far back does this little ruse of yours go?” It was a struggle not to yell, but she wouldn’t give him her anger. She wouldn’t give him anything anymore. “Was anything between us ever real? Or have you been using me from the start, some insurance to guarantee you’d win?”
“No. That’s not—Allison.” Her name wasn’t a sacred word. It was an entreaty. His jaw quivered.
But he’d ripped too many holes in her. There was nothing left. He’d taken the parts that Allison loved best—her ideas, her interpretative skills, her close readings—and used them against her. She was already a bad teacher. Now she’d look like a bad scholar, too.
