Chapter 17

Rowena

I stifled a yawn as I glanced at the clock; only nine-thirty in the morning. I still had a few hours left of my shift in the manager’s office.

Normally, I wasn’t this sleepy in the mornings. But I had been up later than usual last night with Eric, practicing my dance moves. I had to admit, though; he was right about us making good dance partners.

After spending the night practicing together, it felt surprisingly natural. It was probably just because we were siblings. We just clicked, in a way.

Suddenly, the door swung open. I looked up and felt my heart almost stop when I saw a familiar head of black hair push into the room.

“Adrian.”

“Rowena.” Adrian walked up to me and sat down in the chair across from me. “Can you look at my shoulder? I think I pulled a muscle.”

Nodding, I set my notebook down with trembling hands and circled around the desk to look at Adrian. I swallowed as I poked at his shoulder, tugging the collar of his shirt aside to peer at his tense muscles. We were impossibly close, and to think that I was feeling his warm skin beneath my fingers…

I needed to focus.

“I was lifting weights in the weight room and thought I felt a tear or something,” he said, grunting softly as I prodded at the muscle. “Hurts like a bitch.”

“I can tell.” I put his shirt back into place and walked back around to my chair. “You’re training too hard, Adrian. You need to let yourself rest.”

Adrian sighed and rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. We all knew that he was hard on himself; and sometimes, he could go too far. But that was also part of what I liked about him. Ever since I had met him, I had been watching his efforts, and he really had improved as a warrior.

It was inspiring, to say the least.

I gave him a prescription for some pain relief ointment and handed him the paper. “By the way,” I said, swallowing again, “um… Congratulations on finding a date to the homecoming dance.”

Adrian froze as he was taking the paper from my hands. “What?” he asked.

I frowned. “The homecoming dance?” I said. “You found a date, didn’t you?”

“No.” Adrian suddenly stood, tucking the paper into his pants pocket. “I was actually just about to ask you.”

When Adrian finished speaking, I felt my heart somehow seem to impossibly soar and sink at the same time. On one hand, none other than Adrian was inviting me to the dance.

But on the other hand…

…

I burst into the courtyard, where Eric was tapping away at his phone in a bright patch of sun. He was lounging on the edge of a stone picnic table, fully engrossed in some texting conversation—probably the newest girl, the newest object of his desires.

My footsteps seemed to pound through the cool air as I stormed up to him. With my fists clenched at my sides and my curly hair billowing in the wind, I must have looked like the very picture of anger. I could feel the gazes of the other nearby students on me, but I didn’t care.

“We need to talk. Now.”

Eric slowly raised his gaze from his phone and shot me a confused look. “Huh?”

“Now,” I hissed.

Without waiting for a response, I grabbed him by the shirt collar and forcefully hauled him to his feet, taking him and the surrounding students by surprise. Eric barely struggled as I dragged him out of sight and behind a large stone pillar, where we could argue in peace.

“What’s all this about?” he asked, smoothing down his shirt where I had wrinkled it. “You messed up my shirt, Rowena.”

“You bloody liar,” I growled. “You know how much I like Adrian. Why the hell did you go and tell me he had a date?”

Eric’s eyes widened slightly. He seemed at a loss for words.

“If this is another one of your jokes, then you’ve gone too far,” I said. “This isn’t fair, Eric. How could you do something like that to me?”

“It wasn’t a joke,” he said softly. His bright blue eyes met mine and a flicker of something I couldn’t quite read flashed through them. One thing was for sure, though; it wasn’t remorse. It was something else. Something that made me even angrier.

“What is it, then?” I hissed. “What, do you think that I’m not good enough for Adrian or something? That I’m a nerd and I shouldn’t pursue someone I like?”

Eric’s face darkened and he folded his arms defensively across his chest. “No. That’s not it,” he whispered.

I furrowed my brow and shook my head, my hands roughly raking through my hair of their own accord.

“So why did you lie?” I asked desperately. “Why did you tell me that Adrian had a date when he was really planning on asking me to the homecoming dance this whole time?”

Suddenly, another group of students passed by. Eric sighed and grabbed my hand, leading me out of the courtyard and inside. We slipped into a nearby storage closet where we could argue in peace.

As soon as we were out of eyeshot, I yanked my hand away.

“You’d better have a damn good explanation,” I snarled. “Because what you did was fucked up, Eric.”

Eric seemed to wince at my words. “Look,” he said softly, “I just… I don’t think that Adrian is the right guy for you.”

I quirked an eyebrow in disdain. “Who are you to decide?”

Now, Eric’s voice darkened. “Look. I care about you, Rowena,” he said. His voice came out as a low growl, and he took a step forward, sandwiching me between his body and a shelf behind me. “I don’t want you to fall in love with the wrong person.”

I wasn’t fazed by my brother’s dominating attitude. I roughly shoved him away and stormed over to the door, gripping the handle. “You don’t know the first thing about who I should love.”

Eric scoffed. “Yes. I do.”

I froze with my hand still on the door knob and bit out over my shoulder, “Who should I love, then, oh wise and mighty brother?” I hissed. “Since you seem to know so much.”

At my words, Eric fell silent. I turned fully so I could look at him; hot tears pricked at the backs of my eyes, and my throat seemed to close up. In front of me, Eric said nothing. He just opened and closed his mouth once again. As if he had something to say all this time, but he couldn’t just let himself say it.

In the wake of his silence, my tears spilled out.

And for the first time in three long years, I cried.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” I growled, my voice catching in my throat. “You think that you know everything, but you don’t. You’ve been gone for three years, Eric. You don’t know the first thing about me anymore, let alone who I should and shouldn’t love.”

With that, I whirled back around and flung the door open. I fled away from the storage closet, away from my brother, away from the school so I could cry in peace.