Gia

the academy had a way of holding noise inside its walls even when the halls were empty. the old stone seemed to keep every insult, every threat, every laugh that went too far. doors slammed somewhere down the corridor, boys shouted across the courtyard, prefects barked rules nobody respected for longer than a minute, and through all of it the school carried on with the stiff, expensive dignity of a place convinced it was above its own ugliness. you had only been there three weeks when you realized that if you wanted a decent afternoon, you had to steal it from the school with both hands and hide it somewhere private.

the library was usually your best option.

it was warm in there, dust-lit and quiet in a way bullworth never quite managed anywhere else. not silence, exactly. pages turned, chairs shifted, the radiator hissed, and sometimes somebody coughed with theatrical misery behind a stack of atlases. still, it was close enough. you could spread your things across a table near the windows and pretend, for a little while, that you attended a normal school with normal students and not a crooked little kingdom where every boy seemed to be trying to prove something violent by lunch.

you sat with your books open and your loose papers arranged in thoughtful, hopeful piles that would not remain thoughtful or hopeful for long. a pencil was tucked behind your ear. your skirt brushed your knees when you crossed one leg over the other. outside, the late afternoon had gone pale and gold over the grounds, turning the hedges and stone paths almost pretty. from that distance, with the glass between you and the rest of the school, bullworth looked almost civilized.

“you organize your notes like somebody preparing an alibi.”

you looked up to find gary smith standing at the end of your table as though he had simply unfolded out of the air.

he had a talent for appearing without warning, and it was a talent made worse by the fact that he always looked deliberate. even when he slouched, there was intention in it. his shirt was crisp under the green sweater vest, tie straight, hair combed back into that careful, sharp little style that only made his face seem more fox-like. he was pale in the soft library light, his expression composed in that smug, unreadable way of his, like he found the entire world mildly amusing and almost never worth the effort of honesty.

you stared at him over the rim of your book. “and you speak like somebody who enjoys hearing himself think.”

“true.” he pulled out the chair across from you without asking and sat down. “but i’m not wrong.”

you should have told him to leave. that would have been the sensible thing. sensible, however, had very little influence over the way bullworth ran, and even less over gary. he had already made himself comfortable, one elbow resting on the table, pale eyes skimming over your notes with insulting ease.

“what do you want?” you asked.

“i haven’t decided yet.”

“then go decide somewhere else.”

instead of moving, he smiled. it was not a pleasant expression. it looked too neat for that, too small and precise, like something folded into shape with a knife.

“you’re not very friendly,” he said.

“i am, actually. just not with you.”

“smart girl.”

that should have sounded complimentary. coming from him, it sounded like he was cataloguing you.

you had noticed him before that day, of course. everybody noticed gary smith, even the students who preferred to pretend they did not. he was difficult to place in the school’s social order because he was never fully inside any of it and somehow always at the center. he drifted around the edges of every clique without belonging to one, whispering in ears, supplying rumors, nudging quarrels into fights and fights into small local wars. boys twice his size listened when he spoke. boys with richer families and louder mouths ended up doing exactly what he suggested while convincing themselves it had been their own idea all along.

the faculty treated him the way people treated a hairline crack in expensive glass. they knew it was there. they knew it might spread. they went on as though not looking at it would make the problem less real.

he had started noticing you at lunch first. then in the main hall. then out on the front steps when you took your tea in a paper cup before first period. never for long. just a passing comment, a glance that lingered too intelligently, a remark that suggested he had been paying attention longer than you liked. you were used to being looked at. bullworth was not subtle where girls were concerned, and you had become skilled at sorting attention into categories: stupid, harmless, tiresome, dangerous. gary’s did not fit neatly into any of them.

it was not hungry in the way some boys’ attention was. not clumsy either. it felt worse than that, somehow, because it was careful.

he rose from your table after five minutes of irritating you with observations about your handwriting and the suspicious optimism of your color-coded notes. he left without explanation, and you told yourself that would be the end of it.

it was not.

once gary smith began orbiting a thing, he did not do it halfway.

sometimes he would lean against the wall outside your classroom and watch the hallway empty, not speaking until you came out last with your books hugged to your chest. sometimes he would fall into step beside you and start talking about someone else entirely, as if you had both agreed to continue a conversation that did not exist. once, during lunch, you found him sitting in your usual seat with your apple in his hand, turning it slowly between his fingers as if he were considering it from a moral distance.

“that’s mine,” you said.

“so i assumed.”

“then why are you touching it?”

he glanced up. “to upset you.”

you had to bite back a smile at that, which irritated you almost as much as he did.

that was the worst part of him in the beginning, not the arrogance or the intrusion or the unnerving tendency to know things he had no business knowing. it was that he was occasionally, against all good judgment, funny. not in a bright or easy way. there was nothing easy about him. but he could say something so dry and exact that it caught you off guard and dragged a laugh out of you before you remembered who he was.

he always noticed when that happened.

his face never changed much, but there would be the faintest flicker around his eyes, a tiny cruel satisfaction, as if he had proved a point you had not realized he was trying to make.

you started avoiding certain routes because of him. that did not help. he merely changed his own.

one tuesday afternoon you cut behind the gym to avoid a group of shouting jocks and nearly ran straight into him where the path narrowed beside the hedges. he had one shoulder against the brick, hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a boy who had just happened to stop there for air and not like somebody who knew enough about your schedule to predict where you would be within two minutes.

“do you mind?” you said, stopping short.

“usually,” he replied. “depends who’s asking.”

“move.”

“ask nicely.”

you looked at him. really looked at him. the narrow, composed face. the faint freckles across his nose that the autumn light made more visible. the pale lashes. the expression that was never quite mockery and never quite interest and therefore managed to be both at once. he held your gaze without blinking, perfectly calm under the weight of your annoyance.

“you are doing entirely too much,” you told him.

that made him smile in earnest, or as close to earnest as he got. “there you are.”

“there i am where?”

“being interesting.”

“gary.”

“yes?”

“move.”

he moved, still smiling, and you brushed past him with your jaw tight and your books held a little more firmly than necessary. you only made it halfway down the path before he called after you, in a voice mild enough to be almost gentle.

“you’ve got ink on your cheek.”

you stopped, swore under your breath, and heard him laugh softly behind you.

the fact that he noticed things like that was what ruined your attempts to write him off as just another nuisance.

he noticed when you switched from tea to coffee because you had stayed up too late studying. he noticed when you had a headache and kept your answers shorter than usual. he noticed that you folded the corners of pages you meant to come back to and that you tapped the spine of a book twice against your palm before opening it. he noticed when another student borrowed your notes and returned them bent. he noticed when you wore your hair pinned up instead of down, and though he never complimented it directly, he stared one beat longer on those days in a way that was impossible not to feel.

you told yourself it meant nothing. gary noticed everything. that was how he operated. a boy like him collected details the way other students collected enemies.

then came the afternoon that tipped your irritation into something less manageable.

you were in the common room after classes, enjoying a rare patch of peace. one of the younger preps had claimed the chess table by the window, two girls from your literature class were revising by the fireplace, and a fourth-year from town, a decent enough boy with serious eyebrows and a talent for rambling about history, had sat down across from you with all the confidence of someone who assumed a conversation was a mutual gift. he was not unbearable. merely long-winded. you had been polite for about five minutes, nodding at the right intervals while keeping one finger tucked between the pages of your novel so you could return to it the moment he ran out of steam.

he did not run out of steam.

he was midway through an opinion on military uniforms when a shadow fell across the table.

gary dropped into the chair opposite you with the kind of smooth timing that made interruption look choreographed. he did not ask whether anyone minded. he folded himself into the space as if he had always belonged there, one ankle over the opposite knee, chin tilted slightly, that poisonous little smile already in place.

“don’t stop on my account,” he said.

the other boy frowned. “we were talking.”

“were you?” gary’s gaze moved to him with lazy contempt. “i thought she was waiting for you to finish.”

you closed your book carefully. “gary.”

the warning in your voice did nothing.

“i’m helping,” he said, not looking at you. to the boy, he added, “you ought to let people leave a conversation before they die in it.”

the room had not gone silent, but you felt attention shift anyway. bullworth loved a spectacle. the other boy’s face tightened with embarrassment, then annoyance. he looked at you, perhaps expecting you to rescue him, perhaps realizing too late that remaining seated would make the whole scene worse.

“right,” he said, standing abruptly. “i’ll talk to you later.”

“i’m sure she’ll treasure that,” gary said.

the boy left with a muttered curse and a look sharp enough to cut. you watched him go, then turned back to the boy now occupying his chair like a victorious disease.

“what is wrong with you?” you snapped.

gary rested his chin on his hand, eyes on your face. “a long list, apparently.”

“that was rude.”

“yes.”

“you embarrassed him on purpose.”

“obviously.”

you stared at him, waiting for something remotely defensible. an excuse. a lie. even a performance of innocence. instead he just watched you, composed and almost serene, like your anger was not only expected but interesting to him.

“why?” you demanded.

his answer came light and immediate. “you were boring me.”

you blinked at him. “i beg your pardon?”

“painfully.” his eyes dropped to your closed book, then back to you. “you do that expression when you’re bored. right eyebrow lifts first. you were being polite, which is noble, but very dull to watch.”

“nobody asked you to watch.”

“no, but here we are.”

you should have left. instead you stayed planted in your chair, heat moving up your neck, half fury and half something else that felt too close to embarrassment. there was a beat of silence between you, crowded with everything he was not saying.

then he spoke again, softer this time.

“you pay attention to everyone else like that?”

the question sat strangely in the air.

his voice had changed. it was quieter, almost level, but his eyes had not. there was something in them that made your stomach shift, not because it was sweet and not because it was kind, but because it was intent. unsettling, unwavering intent. he looked at you as if he were trying to catch the truth before you had the chance to hide it behind a clever answer.

“like what?” you asked, more carefully than before.

“like they matter.”

you gave a short, incredulous laugh because the alternative was to take him seriously, and that felt unwise. “you interrupted me to ask that?”

“among other reasons.”

“you are unbelievable.”

“that has also been said.”

he reached out then, faster than you expected, and slid your book out from under your hand.

you caught air.

“gary.”

he stood in one smooth motion with your novel already tucked under his arm.

“give that back.”

“come get it.”

the look he gave you was infuriatingly pleased. then he turned and walked away, not even hurrying, which somehow made it worse. by the time you pushed your chair back and followed him, several students were openly staring. one of the girls by the fireplace covered her smile behind her hand. you ignored her and swept after him into the hall, your shoes striking smartly against stone.

“do not make me chase you through this building,” you said.

“then don’t chase me.”

“you stole my book.”

“borrowed.”

“without asking.”

“i know you’d have said no.”

you almost caught him near the stairwell, but he pivoted neatly out of reach and kept going with a maddening little glance over his shoulder. he was enjoying himself now, which made him more agile, more precise. you followed him down the corridor past a line of cracked portraits and a notice board littered with club announcements no one read. he never quite broke into a run. he did not need to. he kept just ahead of you with the casual confidence of somebody who knew exactly how long your patience would hold.

“gary, i mean it.”

“you’ve said my name a lot today.”

“because you are aggravating.”

“only today?”

you nearly laughed again, which only made you angrier.

he finally stopped in the alcove near the old science room where the windows threw thin bands of evening light across the floor. when you reached him, slightly out of breath and thoroughly irritated, he held the book out at last. you snatched it from his hand and opened your mouth to tell him precisely what he could do with his games.

then you looked down.

all your loose papers were tucked neatly inside, aligned by size, the bent corner smoothed, the half-fallen notes from your last lecture gathered and organized between the proper chapters. even the little scrap with your reading list, the one you had thought you lost at lunch, had been slipped in near the front. nothing was creased. nothing was missing. it was better arranged than when you had packed it yourself.

for a moment you just stared.

gary leaned one shoulder against the wall, watching your face with quiet satisfaction. “you’re welcome.”

you looked up slowly. “when did you do this?”

he shrugged. “while you were pretending to listen to captain monotone.”

you turned another page, incredulous. “you had my papers?”

“they were sticking out.”

“and instead of giving them back like a normal person, you stole the whole book and made me run after you.”

“yes.”

“why?”

that smile again, smaller now, less meant for show. “because you came.”

you should have hit him with the book. you thought about it with vivid sincerity. instead you clutched it to your chest and looked at the boy in front of you, this infuriating, elegant little menace with his neat uniform and his impossible face and his absurd, infuriating thoughtfulness hidden inside behavior so obnoxious it ought to have canceled the effort out.

“you are not right in the head,” you said.

“that’s old news.”

“and deeply rude.”

“also true.”

“and weird.”

he tipped his head. “you still followed me.”

you hated that he said it so softly.

you left him there before he could see what that did to you. or before he could say something worse and make it impossible to pretend your pulse had not changed.

after that, things got more difficult.

not because gary became more obvious. if anything, he became subtler. the open intrusions continued, certainly. he still sat beside you when he pleased and inserted himself into conversations he had not been invited to join. he still appeared at uncanny moments, as if he had a private map of your movements pinned up somewhere with notes in the margins. but beneath all of that there was now a pattern you could no longer ignore.

things around you began falling into place.

a first-year who had been pestering you for answers in chemistry abruptly decided to avoid your section of the hall. the loudmouth jock who had made a comment about your legs during lunch ended up shoved into a trash can before dinner by persons unknown. your missing fountain pen reappeared on your desk in the dormitory wrapped in a strip of notebook paper that said, in tidy handwriting, you ought to keep better track of your weapons.

you stared at the note for a long time before folding it once and tucking it into your drawer.

“you know that boy likes you,” your roommate said one evening while you were pinning your hair up in the mirror.

you met her reflection. “that boy likes causing structural damage.”

“same thing, sometimes.”

“not with him.”

your roommate raised a brow. “you keep saying that, and yet you look happier when he starts bothering you.”

you turned back to the mirror because there was no good answer to that.

you were not happier, exactly. you were more awake.

gary had a way of making a moment feel sharpened. brighter and more dangerous, yes, but also more specific. when he entered a room, your attention shifted whether you wanted it to or not. part of that was self-preservation. with a boy like him, it was wise to keep track of where the knife was, even if the knife happened to be wearing a tie and speaking in a bored voice. but part of it had become anticipation, and that was harder to forgive in yourself.

it did not help that he knew how to behave when nobody else was looking.

one rainy evening you found him in the library again, though this time he was not talking. he sat two tables away with a book open in front of him, one hand braced against his temple, the other turning a page with absent precision. the windows were dark. the lamps cast pools of amber light over the tables, leaving the corners dim. in that setting, stripped of an audience, he looked younger and stranger, less like a schoolyard tactician and more like a boy built too sharply for softness and trying very hard not to require any.

you would have passed him quietly if he had not spoken without looking up.

“you drag your left foot when you’re tired.”

you stopped. “do you ever choose peace?”

“rarely.”

“i can tell.”

only then did he glance up. his eyes moved over your face, your books, the damp hem of your skirt from the weather outside. “sit down.”

“that isn’t a request.”

“didn’t mean it to be.”

“and you wonder why people call you rude.”

“i don’t wonder at all.”

still, you sat. perhaps because you were tired enough not to argue. perhaps because the rain drummed softly at the windows and the library felt almost private. perhaps because you wanted to see what he would do if you gave him less resistance for once.

he closed his book, marking the page with one finger. “how did your exam go?”

you narrowed your eyes. “how do you know i had one?”

“you revised for three nights and stopped sleeping properly. plus you carry your bag differently after a test.”

“that is absurd.”

“is it wrong?”

you looked down at the table. “no.”

“there we are.”

you should not have smiled at that, but you did.

his gaze caught on your mouth for half a second and then lifted again, expression unreadable. “well?”

“it went fine,” you said. “i think.”

“that means well.”

“you are unbearable.”

“and yet.”

“and yet nothing.”

he leaned back slightly. “you sat down.”

you breathed out through your nose. “you really do think you win every conversation.”

“not every conversation.”

“which ones do you lose?”

the answer came almost immediately, but not with his usual glibness. “the ones where you stop talking.”

that held you still.

for a moment the rain sounded louder than it had before. somewhere behind the circulation desk, an old clock ticked with officious patience. gary’s face had not softened, not exactly, but the sharpness in it had shifted. there was no performance in his expression now, no visible joke. just the quiet fact of him watching you like your response mattered more than he wanted it to.

you looked away first.

that should have been warning enough.

instead you kept letting him closer.

not easily. not all at once. you argued with him every step of the way. you corrected him when he was cruel for sport and told him so when he crossed lines that other people were too intimidated to mention. sometimes he listened. sometimes he grinned and did it anyway. but he started seeking you out less like a hunter and more like a habit. breakfast, if your schedules aligned. the path to class. the library on fridays. the back steps after dinner when the air was cold and the grounds smelled faintly of wet leaves and chimney smoke.

he never asked permission in so many words. asking would have been unlike him. instead he made presence seem inevitable and waited to see if you drove him off. when you did not, he treated that as answer enough.

one saturday he found you trying to pin announcements for the literature society to the board outside the main hall while a draft from the front doors kept flipping the corners loose.

“this seems beneath you,” he remarked.

you did not turn. “your concern is touching.”

“need a hand?”

you almost laughed at the novelty of it. “from you?”

“don’t look so alarmed.”

“i am alarmed because generosity from you usually comes with an invoice.”

“not always.”

“most times.”

“fair.”

he took the pins from your mouth before you could protest and held the paper flat while you fixed the top corners properly. his fingers were cool where they brushed yours. he stood close enough that you could smell clean soap and paper on him, something crisp and faintly dry. not cologne. not anything flashy. just the ordinary scent of somebody who looked composed even when everyone else at bullworth resembled a bar fight with tuition.

when you finished, he stepped back and tipped his head at the notices. “there. now the three people who attend will know where to be.”

you looked at him. “why are you like this?”

“efficient parenting failure, probably.”

your laughter escaped before you could stop it.

he went still in that tiny way he had when something genuine slipped between you. then he smiled, smaller than before. “there you are again.”

“do not make a thing of it.”

“too late.”

you pushed his shoulder lightly with the back of your hand as you walked past, more to keep from lingering than out of actual irritation. but his eyes followed you down the hall with such obvious focus that the warmth in your face lasted all the way to dinner.

if it had remained just that, the schoolyard hovering and the dry conversation and the careful little gestures hidden inside obnoxious behavior, perhaps you could have kept pretending there was no danger in it.

bullworth, however, was not built for quiet developments. it fed on attention. and boys, especially boys, noticed when someone stopped being available in the ordinary way.

his name was daniel, and you liked him only in the way a person likes good weather and decent handwriting. he was a prefect on afternoons, a senior, broader in the shoulders than most boys at school, with a tidy manner and the sort of face adults trusted on sight. he had been polite to you for months without trying anything, which you appreciated. then one evening after study hall, he walked with you down the front corridor and asked whether you might like to come into town next weekend for coffee and a bookshop if permissions could be arranged.

it was a sensible invitation. very nearly sweet.

you were still considering how to answer when you noticed movement by the trophy cases.

gary was leaning in the alcove beside the display cabinets, half-shadowed by the poor light, as still as an accusation. you had no idea how long he had been there. with him, that meant nothing. he could have arrived two seconds ago or five minutes ago and you would not have known the difference. what mattered was that he had clearly heard enough.

daniel, oblivious, was saying something about the weather being better next week when you felt gary’s attention land on you with cold, surgical precision.

you did not answer immediately, which was mistake enough.

“that sounds nice,” you said at last.

daniel smiled, relieved. “shall i ask mrs. pease about the pass tomorrow?”

“all right.”

he seemed pleased, properly pleased, and after a few more courteous words he continued down the corridor toward the prefects’ office. you watched him go for a beat, then turned toward the trophy cases.

gary had not moved.

“how long have you been standing there?” you asked.

“long enough.”

“that is not an answer.”

“it’s the only one you’re getting.”

you walked toward him slowly, your books held against your cardigan. “were you eavesdropping?”

“don’t flatter yourself. your prefect speaks like a public notice.”

“he is not my prefect.”

“no?” gary’s expression turned almost lazily curious. “sounds like he’d like to be.”

you stopped a few feet away. “what is that supposed to mean?”

“exactly what it sounds like.”

“you do know normal people simply say what they mean.”

“normal people are boring.”

“and you are impossible.”

“you just agreed to go out with a hall monitor.”

you blinked. “what?”

the bite in his voice had sharpened so suddenly it almost startled you.

“he’s not a hall monitor.”

“close enough.”

“and why exactly do you care?”

that did it.

his jaw tightened first, a subtle shift, but on gary even subtlety registered like weather change. then he laughed once, humorless and brief, and pushed away from the wall.

“care?” he repeated. “please.”

“then do not stand here looking like somebody stole your inheritance.”

he took one step closer. “you think he sees you?”

the question landed so strangely you forgot your irritation for a moment. “what does that have to do with anything?”

“everything.”

“gary.”

“he sees a pretty girl who says thank you at the right times and laughs politely when he wants her to.” his eyes were bright now, too bright. “he sees an outing. he sees a little performance where he gets to feel important because you agreed to be looked at on purpose.”

your mouth parted. “that is unfair.”

“is it?”

“yes, it is, and you know better than that.”

“i know men better than that.”

“he is a boy at school, not some villain in a trench coat.”

“same instincts, smaller vocabulary.”

despite the tension twisting through the conversation, you nearly smiled. nearly. then you caught the expression on his face and stopped yourself.

he looked furious. not loud, not wild. gary was rarely messy with anger. but his restraint made it more startling. it sat under his skin like heat under glass, concentrated and dangerous. for the first time since meeting him, you understood that the cruelty he showed other people so casually might one day turn sharp enough to cut you too if you stepped wrong.

the knowledge should have driven you back.

instead you asked, very quietly, “what are you actually mad about?”

he looked at you for a long moment. the corridor had emptied around you. dusk pressed blue against the high windows, and the trophy case glass reflected the two of you back in fragments, your skirt, his tie, the hard line of his shoulders.

when he spoke, his voice was lower than before.

“i’m mad because you said yes like it wouldn’t matter.”

your breath caught.

“to coffee?” you asked.

“to him.”

“gary.”

“what?” he bit the word off. “you want honesty, don’t you?”

“yes.”

“fine. i hate when people touch what they haven’t earned.”

silence opened between you.

you could hear distant laughter from the courtyard, the whistle of wind under an old door somewhere down the hall. gary’s eyes stayed on yours, unblinking, almost hostile in the force of their attention. he looked like he resented having said any of it and also like he could not bear to take it back.

“i am not a prize,” you said at last, steadying your voice.

“i know that.”

“and nobody earns the right to speak to me.”

“i know that too.”

“then what are you saying?”

he exhaled, short and sharp, and rubbed a hand once over the back of his neck. the gesture was so unguarded it startled you more than the jealousy had.

“i’m saying,” he said, slower now, “that watching you hand your attention to somebody dull and obvious makes me want to do something unhelpful.”

you ought not have enjoyed that. you did.

“unhelpful how?”

“don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

that, at least, was honest.

you looked at him, at the boy who had made a career of manipulation, at the architect of a hundred petty disasters, at the pale, precise troublemaker standing in the fading light and admitting jealousy like it offended him personally to feel it. you should have been alarmed. part of you was. the rest was trying very hard not to smile.

“you are deeply dramatic,” you said.

his stare turned flat. “i’m serious.”

“i can tell.”

“and that’s your response?”

“what would you prefer, a violin?”

that did it. against all logic, despite himself, he laughed. it escaped him abruptly, low and genuine, and the furious edge in him eased just enough for the air between you to shift.

“you’re impossible,” he said.

“coming from you, i will take that as a compliment.”

he stepped closer then, not enough to crowd you, just enough that the space felt altered. the kind of distance that noticed breathing.

“are you going?” he asked.

“with daniel?”

his mouth thinned.

you let him wait half a second longer than necessary, then shook your head. “no.”

something unreadable moved through his face. relief first, naked and fast, then composure snapping over it like a lid. “good.”

“do not say that like you had jurisdiction.”

“i didn’t say i had it. only that i prefer the outcome.”

“you really do need everything in your favor.”

“yes.”

“that sounds exhausting.”

“for other people, certainly.”

you looked down to hide the smile threatening your mouth. “you are awful.”

“you’ve mentioned that.”

“because it keeps being true.”

“and yet.” his gaze lowered briefly to your hands on your books, then back up. quieter now, he said, “you stayed.”

there it was again, that dangerous softness he only seemed to reveal by accident. not sweetness, exactly. something more brittle than that. like he had set honesty down between you and now refused to touch it in case it broke.

you went back to your dorm that night with your heartbeat doing unreasonable things and your roommate looking far too knowing for your comfort.

“you look like you won an argument and lost your senses,” she said.

“that is not helpful.”

“was it him?”

you sat on the edge of your bed and pulled off your shoes. “he is annoying.”

“that was not my question.”

you pressed your lips together.

after a beat, she laughed softly. “lord help you.”

the next few days at school felt different in a way that would have been difficult to explain to anyone else.

gary was still gary. he still needled people for sport. he still spread rumors when it amused him and spoke with that cool, surgical sarcasm that made idiots bleed without realizing they had been cut. he still carried himself like rules were made for slower minds. but with you, the tension had shifted. there was less pretense in it now. less of the game for the game’s sake.

he sat with you at breakfast one morning and stole a piece of toast from your plate only to push his untouched apple toward you in exchange because he had noticed you skipped fruit when you were busy. he met you outside literature and wordlessly took the heavier stack of books from your arms before you could protest, then spent the entire walk to the next hall insulting the assigned reading. he showed up after dinner with your scarf, which you had left in the common room, and when you asked how he knew it was yours, he gave you a look that said the question itself was stupid.

you should not have found any of this endearing. the problem was that endearing did not cancel out unsettling. with him the two traveled together.

one friday evening the power flickered during a storm, knocking half the lamps out in the academic building and plunging the upper floor corridor into a gloomy blue half-dark. prefects were stomping around downstairs trying to pretend they had control over the situation. students shouted from room to room, delighted by any disruption that broke routine. you were collecting your notes from an empty classroom when the door clicked shut behind you.

gary leaned against it, hands in his pockets.

“you’re going to get us written up,” you said.

“for what, standing near a door?”

“for cornering me in an empty classroom during a blackout.”

he considered that. “fair point. scandalous.”

“move.”

instead he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the desk nearest yours. lightning flashed beyond the windows, whitening the old glass and turning him briefly into a cutout of light and shadow.

“they’re all downstairs,” he said. “you can stop pretending you’re in a hurry.”

you set one notebook atop another, not looking at him. “and if i actually am in a hurry?”

“you’re not.”

“you do love deciding things for me.”

“i love being right.”

“same disease.”

a pause. then, “come here.”

you looked up. “absolutely not.”

his mouth twitched. “that sounded frightened.”

“it sounded sensible.”

“are you sensible?”

“more than you.”

“that’s a very low bar.”

you should have stayed where you were. instead you crossed the few feet between you because the storm had made the room feel enclosed and strange and because his voice had gone quiet in that way that always pulled at you before you could brace for it.

when you stopped in front of him, he tilted his face up to look at you. with him seated and you standing, the usual angles had reversed. for once you felt less caught off balance than he did, though the impression vanished when he reached out and touched the cuff of your sleeve with two fingers.

“this is new,” he said.

you glanced down. “the sweater?”

“yes.”

“and?”

“it suits you.”

the compliment was so direct that it hit you harder than a hundred of his cryptic remarks. you stared at him. he stared back, perfectly calm except for the tension in his fingers where they still held the fabric.

“well,” you said after a moment, because silence had become impossible, “you clean up decently yourself.”

that drew a softer expression from him than any smile so far.

“decently,” he repeated.

“do not fish for more.”

“i wasn’t.”

“good.”

“you’d give it anyway.”

“gary.”

“what?”

you shook your head, but you were smiling now and he knew it. he always knew.

his hand slid from your sleeve to your wrist, light enough that you could have pulled away without effort. he did not grip. he simply held that point of contact like a question neither of you had phrased properly yet. rain battered the windows. thunder rolled somewhere far off over old bullworth vale.

“you don’t have to keep looking at me like that,” you murmured.

“like what?”

“like you are trying to solve something.”

his thumb moved once against the inside of your wrist, tiny and absent. “maybe i am.”

“and what have you got so far?”

his gaze dropped briefly to your mouth, then rose again with unnerving steadiness. “that you say no like it means maybe. and maybe like it means ask better.”

your breath stalled.

“that sounds like a dangerous theory.”

“most good theories are.”

before you could answer, a voice barked in the hall outside and footsteps clattered past the door. the moment snapped cleanly in half. gary released your wrist at once, expression flattening back into composure so quickly you almost doubted what had just happened.

almost.

“go on,” he said lightly. “before your reputation suffers.”

you stared at him. “you are a menace.”

“and you like me anyway.”

you should have denied it. you could not manage a lie that flimsy.

the first time he kissed you, it happened behind the library after dusk where the stone wall kept out the worst of the wind and the windows glowed amber above your heads. you had been arguing, naturally. he had done something small and infuriating, intercepting a note meant for you from one of the literature girls because, in his words, “the handwriting offended him.” you told him he could not simply snatch messages addressed to other people. he replied that he had read it first and determined it was harmless. you told him that was not the point. he told you your points were usually inconvenient.

then you stepped closer to tell him so, and he looked at your face with that terrible, focused stillness and said, “you come nearer when you’re angry.”

you opened your mouth with every intention of correcting him. instead he kissed you.

gary did not kiss like a boy uncertain of himself. he kissed the way he did most things, precisely, as if he had studied the problem beforehand and disliked wasted motion. one hand came up to the side of your neck, not forceful, just cool and sure. his mouth was warm, controlled, and for one shattered second you were too startled to do anything but feel the fact of him.

then you kissed him back.

the noise he made was small, almost swallowed before it existed. his fingers tightened once at the nape of your neck, and when he drew back there was something frankly dazed in his face that made him look younger than you had ever seen him.

you stared at him. he stared at you.

“well,” you said, because one of you had to say something.

he laughed under his breath and touched his forehead lightly against yours for the briefest moment. “well.”

after that, jealousy became less theoretical and far more annoying.

you had not expected the particularity of it. most boys got loud when they were jealous. they puffed up. they picked fights. they became stupid in public. gary’s version was sharper and, in some ways, more inconvenient because it came wrapped in civility thin enough to be dangerous.

if a boy spoke to you too long at lunch, gary would arrive, sit down beside you, and steer the conversation so expertly that the other person left feeling outmatched and vaguely foolish without quite knowing how. if someone borrowed your books, he somehow knew and made sure they came back in better condition than before, accompanied by a look that suggested the borrower had been educated on respect. once, when a jock from the football field called out to ask whether you were “busy saturday,” gary, without breaking stride, answered for you with a cool, “she’s busy now,” and kept walking.

“you cannot keep doing that,” you told him later.

“doing what?”

“speaking as if i belong to you.”

his expression changed so quickly you nearly missed it. not offended, exactly. wounded, but only for an instant, before pride covered it.

“i didn’t say that,” he replied.

“you imply it.”

“i imply that they should keep their hands to themselves.”

“and what about you?”

he looked at you, then took your hand and kissed the inside of your wrist with infuriating calm. “i asked better.”

you had no good response to that, which annoyed you because he knew it.

still, for all his possessiveness, he listened when you drew lines. not perfectly, not gracefully, but he listened. when you told him he was not allowed to threaten people on your behalf, he said he had never threatened anybody in his life with such bland dishonesty that you had to sit down. when you told him he could not read your private letters, he returned the one he had pocketed that morning and said, “fine, but i reserve the right to judge whoever wrote it by the envelope.” when you told him jealousy did not entitle him to rudeness, he looked at you for a long beat and then, in a tone so quiet it almost vanished, said, “i know.”

it was difficult to stay angry with him when he did that.

the softness, when it came, arrived in fragments.

he waited for you outside late study sessions and walked you back to the girls’ dorm steps without making a show of it. he memorized the days you had extra coursework and appeared with tea before you asked. he learned the titles of the books you liked and pretended he had not. he tucked folded notes into the pages he borrowed from you, never sentimental, always just enough to tilt your mouth upward.

chapter three is smug. reminded me of you.

stop underlining everything as if the author can see it.

page 86, third paragraph. terrible sentence. i thought you’d enjoy hating it.

once, during a cold snap in november, you found a pair of gloves left on the library table beside your usual seat. inside one cuff was a strip of paper in his precise handwriting.

before you complain, yes, i noticed. your hands go red in this weather.

you carried that note in your pocket for three days before admitting to yourself that you were gone beyond recovery.

he, meanwhile, grew stranger in private and calmer in your presence, which was perhaps the same thing viewed from different angles. around everyone else he remained dry and sly and vaguely menacing. around you he still had those traits, but there were moments, small bright slippages, where he let himself be pleased. when you laughed at something he said. when you reached for his tie and straightened it because he had tugged it crooked. when you let your knee rest against his under the library table. when you took his face between your hands one evening after he had been especially difficult and kissed him until his sarcasm deserted him completely.

“that is deeply manipulative,” he murmured when you pulled away.

“learned from the best.”

“i should be offended.”

“you adore me.”

his eyes half-closed, lazy and warm for once. “unfortunately.”

bullworth noticed, of course.

there was no official announcement, but schools like that did not require one. they ran on glances and rumor and a thousand tiny acts of observation. within two weeks, girls in your literature class were giving you little looks over the tops of their books, and boys who used to try their luck with you had mostly stopped. even the prefects seemed reluctant to interfere if gary was leaning on the wall nearby with that unreadable smile.

“you have made me a public curiosity,” you told him one afternoon as you crossed the courtyard together.

“you were already one.”

“not like this.”

“and how is ‘this’?”

“like i am keeping a spider in my pocket.”

he laughed. “that’s almost romantic.”

“it is absolutely not.”

“pity.”

you glanced at him sidelong. the wind had put color into his cheeks. his hair, though still neat, had been disturbed slightly by the weather, one reddish strand fallen near his temple. there was a bruise fading yellow near his jaw from some conflict he had not told you about, and you had not pushed because with him that was often wiser. he walked with his usual deceptive ease, shoulders relaxed, hands in his pockets, but his gaze kept touching the space around you in that old habitual way, checking, tracking, collecting.

“gary.”

“yes?”

“come here.”

he looked amused, but he stepped closer. you rose on your toes and smoothed the fallen strand of hair back into place.

he went completely still.

there in the middle of the courtyard, with students crossing behind you and a prefect shouting in the distance, his whole sharp, clever, troublesome self seemed to narrow to the point where your fingers had touched his forehead.

“better,” you said.

he looked at you for a long second. then, very quietly, “you do know that makes me worse.”

“for who?”

“everyone.”

you smiled. “i can live with that.”

the winter formal was a stupid idea, and everybody knew it.

bullworth had never been a school capable of elegance for longer than half an hour, and asking its students to put on clean clothes and behave under string lights bordered on satire. still, crabblesnitch loved the illusion of refinement, so the assembly hall was decorated with tired greenery and paper lanterns, the punch was terrible, and some teacher had forced a gramophone arrangement that made everything sound one degree sadder than intended.

you attended because your roommate insisted and because a girl could only hide in the library so many evenings before people started treating her like a local ghost. your dress was simple and dark, borrowed from a cousin, fitted enough to feel grown and slightly dangerous. your hair was down. when you met your own reflection before leaving the dormitory, you looked like yourself and not quite yourself, which felt appropriate.

gary found you fifteen minutes after you entered the hall.

he was in uniform, but somehow even that looked sharper on him tonight. tie precise, shoes polished, sleeves sitting cleanly at his wrists. he moved through the room with effortless awareness, as if the dance were only another board on which everyone else had been arranged for his convenience. boys greeted him carefully. girls watched him and then looked away. he ignored most of it.

when he saw you, he stopped.

it was only a pause. most people would not have noticed. you did.

then he crossed the floor.

“well,” he said, coming to stand before you. “that’s unfortunate.”

you folded your arms. “for who?”

he looked at you from head to toe once, not leering, just arrested. “for my concentration.”

you tried not to smile and failed. “that might be the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

“don’t get used to it.”

“too late.”

he offered you his arm with exaggerated formality that looked absurd and somehow still elegant. you took it. his sleeve was warm under your hand. when he led you toward the side of the hall away from the loudest cluster of students, there were looks. plenty of them. you felt some of them land and slide away. gary, predictably, seemed to enjoy that.

“people are staring,” you murmured.

“let them.”

“you say that as if it costs nothing.”

“to me? very little.”

“terrible answer.”

“honest one.”

you stood together near the windows while the dance unfolded in all its awkward glory. boys stepped on hems, girls exchanged judgment with polite smiles, one drunk senior nearly took down a lantern and had to be steered toward a chair by a furious teacher. the whole thing was ridiculous enough that you ended up laughing more than once, and each time gary’s attention settled on you with that private intensity he never fully learned to disguise.

then a slow record came on, and without ceremony he held out his hand.

you looked at it. “you dance?”

“adequately.”

“that sounds ominous.”

“it means i won’t disgrace you.”

“confidence is exhausting in company.”

“good thing we’re above company.”

still, you put your hand in his.

to your surprise, he really did dance adequately. more than adequately, in fact. he guided rather than dragged, his hand steady at your waist, movements controlled and spare. he was not affectionate in public by nature, but with your bodies aligned under the low lights and the music soft around you, some of the edge came off him. just enough.

“who taught you?” you asked.

“nobody. i watch.”

“that explains too much.”

“i thought so.”

you looked up at him. “are you jealous right now?”

“probably.”

“of who?”

“everyone with functioning eyesight.”

you laughed, then shook your head. “that is absurd.”

“i know.”

“at least you admit it.”

“only because you make it difficult to lie convincingly.”

there was something almost tender in the annoyance of that statement, and you felt it all the way down.

when the song ended, he did not let go immediately. his hand remained at your waist for one extra beat, thumb resting lightly against the fabric of your dress. then he released you and stepped back with that faintly dangerous composure returned.

“come outside,” he said.

the air beyond the hall was cold enough to sting. the front steps were empty at that hour, the grounds silvered by moonlight and the weak yellow spill from the windows. music thudded dully behind the doors. somewhere far off, somebody shouted and was answered with laughter.

you stood beside him under the portico, arms folded against the chill.

“so dramatic,” you said. “pulling me out into the night.”

“you came.”

“you say that every time as if it means you discovered gravity.”

“it means i was right.”

“again, exhausting.”

he turned to look at you. the moon caught the side of his face, drawing the fine line of his nose, the pale shape of his mouth. without the noise of the hall around him, he seemed sharper and quieter both at once.

“you looked beautiful in there,” he said.

it was so direct you forgot to breathe for a second.

“gary.”

“don’t make me repeat it.”

“i was not going to.”

“good.”

you stepped closer, searching his face. “you know, for somebody who spends half his life acting untouchable, you are strangely easy to fluster once you say something real.”

his mouth curved. “that sounds like a threat.”

“maybe.”

“should i be nervous?”

“yes.”

you kissed him before he could answer.

the cold made his skin cooler than usual, but his mouth was warm, and when his hands came to your waist this time there was no hesitation at all. the kiss deepened slowly, not rushed, just increasingly certain, like the two of you had been building to this particular version of quiet all term without knowing it had a destination. when you finally drew back, his forehead fell lightly against yours.

for a moment neither of you spoke.

then he said, in a voice low enough that it almost blended with the wind, “you know i’m not nice.”

you smiled against his mouth. “i know.”

“i’m serious.”

“so am i.”

his hands tightened a fraction. “i get jealous.”

“i know that too.”

“i mean unreasonably.”

“yes, gary, i have eyes.”

a short laugh left him, but the seriousness stayed. “and i’m not good at simple things.”

“that is painfully obvious.”

“you could pretend to be gentler about it.”

“you would hate that.”

“true.”

you touched his face then, thumb brushing the line of his cheek where that old bruise had nearly faded. his eyes lowered briefly, not in submission, not anything so straightforward, but in a kind of brief, startled trust you had come to recognize as rare.

“listen to me,” you said softly. “i do not need simple. i need honest. i need you not to turn everything into a game when it matters.”

he held your gaze. “and if i try?”

“then i will know.”

“you usually do.”

“yes.”

there was a pause. then, with a sincerity so plain it nearly broke you, he said, “i do try. with you.”

that was the closest thing to a vow you were likely to get from him, and you knew it.

you kissed him again, gentler this time.

afterward, bullworth continued being bullworth.

students still fought. prefects still shouted. the food remained suspicious. the plumbing made noises in the night that sounded theological. gary still meddled where he should not and cultivated chaos with professional dedication. you still told him off when he deserved it, which was often. the difference was that now, when he drifted into your space with that poisonous little smile, it no longer felt like invasion.

it felt like home learning your name in a language only the two of you could stand.