* Present *

Six weeks of college, and I’ve learned that hope is just disappointment wearing a pretty dress.

Here’s the thing about applying to twelve universities: you think you’re buying options, but really you’re just collecting different flavors of the same disappointment.

I had acceptances from everywhere—UCLA, NYU, places with actual seasons and zero Caleb Thorntons per square mile. But no. Dad pulled the “family needs to stick together” card. Catherine deployed the weaponized puppy eyes.

The local university had an excellent pre-law program, they said.

We’d already been through so much change, they said.

So I caved. Of course I fucking caved. Because I’m Serena Lakin, professional people-pleaser and gold medalist in sacrificing my happiness for family harmony.

I told myself it would be fine.

We pretended that nothing happened in my bedroom near, kept our distance through the rest of the high school senior year and Caleb had no interest in college anyway.

He’d made that clear for years—school was just a social playground, academics beneath him. He’d probably take a gap year, travel, do whatever bad boys with charming smiles do when the world hands them everything.

A girl can dream.

Then orientation day arrived, and I saw him across the quad.

The bastard had applied after me. After. Found out where I was going and followed like some kind of stalker.

Even won grants and scholarships—including the one from his high school presidency, the position he’d stolen from me senior year—to make it work.

My fresh start rotted before it even began.

Today the family picnic sprawls across our backyard like a Norman Rockwell painting gone wrong.

Checkered blankets dot the grass. Neighbors mill about with paper plates and forced laughter. Catherine floats between groups, the perfect hostess, while my father mans the grill with practiced ease.

I’m arranging a fruit platter when I hear it. That voice.

That specific frequency of feminine giggle that makes my eye twitch.

“Caleb, this is so cute! Your family is adorable.”

Jade stands at the garden gate, her hand threaded through Caleb’s arm. Her sundress clings to curves I remember from the locker room, curves I heard him worship in his bedroom while my body betrayed every principle I claimed to hold.

My fingers tighten around the serving spoon until the metal bites into my palm.

He brought her here. To our home. In front of our parents.

“Oh, Caleb!” Catherine practically levitates with maternal joy. “You didn’t mention you were bringing someone! Jade, sweetheart, welcome! There’s so much food!”

“Thanks, Mrs. Lakin.” Jade’s smile stretches wide and vacant. “Everything looks amazing. Did you make all this yourself?”

Of course she did. It’s her house. Her party.

“Most of it,” Catherine beams. “Serena helped with the fruit platters.”

Jade’s gaze slides to me, and her smile shifts into something I recognize—that subtle female assessment that happens in microseconds. “How domestic! You’re so good at this stuff, Serena.”

The compliment lands like a slap wrapped in ribbons.

This stuff. Like I’m some 1950s housewife in training while she’s out here being decorative and touchable and everything I’m not.

She has no idea she’s a weapon.

Or maybe she does, and the vacant smile is just better armor than mine.

Caleb’s eyes find mine across the yard. That familiar smirk tugs at his mouth, the one that says ‘I know exactly what I’m doing.’

I look away first. Always do.

“We’re so proud of both of them,” Catherine tells the Hendersons from next door, who definitely didn’t ask. “Adjusting to college life so beautifully. And it’s just wonderful having them home together!”

“Serena’s doing wonderfully,” Dad adds, because he can’t help himself. “Dean’s list material, her advisor says.”

“Well, she has to excel at something,” Caleb says pleasantly, his voice carrying that razor edge wrapped in charm. “Competition’s tough when you can’t coast on personality.”

The Hendersons laugh uncomfortably while I smile so hard my molars ache.

“Some of us prefer substance over charm,” I reply sweetly.

“Kids.” My father’s warning glance cuts between us.

“Babe, you two are hilarious!” Jade giggles, pressing closer to Caleb until she’s basically wearing him. “It’s like watching real siblings bicker!”

Real siblings.

Every time she touches him—and she’s always touching him—my jaw clenches tighter.

She doesn’t know him. Doesn’t know he checks the locks three times before bed. Doesn’t know he still has nightmares about his father. Doesn’t know he reads Bukowski when he thinks no one’s watching.

And you do? My brain supplies unhelpfully.

You know him because you’re obsessed, not because you matter.

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