Page 10 of Kiss Me Like I Didn't Kill You

He will find out.

Of course he will.

Octavia’s gaze flicks sideways. The instant she catches the students staring, she takes a step toward them, tension rolling off her in waves.

I catch her wrist before she can go further. “Leave it,” I murmur. There’s no point. They’re too many.

Her jaw flexes, but she lets me hold her back, eyes still locked on the group until they drop their gazes.

“You still look pale,” she says after a moment, her brows tightening. “Let’s get some food in you.” She turns toward the dining hall, and I follow.

My sister is twenty-two, older than me by a year. She repeated a class just to stay by my side. She claims it’s because of my condition, because someone needs to look out for me. But I know it’s more than that. She’s always had this need to protect me, my friends did too. And no matter how many times I tell them I can take care of myself, they never listen.

Octavia has always carried the weight for both of us. She calls it instinct. I call it martyrdom. And while I’m grateful for her fierce loyalty, there are moments, like now, when I wish she’d let go of the idea that I need protecting.

I glance at her profile, unable to shake the thought that she looks different, haunted, even. I can’t tell if it was always there, buried in her eyes while I was too wrapped up in myself to see it, or if it took root in the years I’ve lost, in the time I can’t remember.

The dining hall is nearly empty when we walk in. A few students linger at scattered tables, murmuring over breakfast.

Our circle has always been small, just the five of us, though even then appearances had to be kept.

Most of the time it was only Adelaide, Octavia, and me in public. Piper and Eleanor sat apart, playing their part, pretending we weren’t close.

Our families tolerated one another, but they were hardly allies, and open attachment would have looked like weakness, an invitation for betrayal.

We had acquaintances at the academy, of course, faces you nod to in passing, people you might share a table with at an event, but they were never friends.

We cross the hall and settle into what must be our usual spot.

Every table has a glass screen built into its centre, the ordering system for meals. I scroll through the menu and place my order, Octavia does the same.

Minutes later, a member of staff delivers our trays, mine, an açaí bowl crowned with berries and a cappuccino made with coconut milk, hers, another bowl, piled with different fruit and granola, alongside a black coffee.

Black as sin, without sugar or milk. She insists anything else is sacrilege.

I take one sip of the cappuccino and nearly grimace. It’s dreadful, but I need it badly enough that it will have to do.

I have a proper machine in my dorm, imported from Florence, and it makes the kind of coffee worth living for.

Perhaps I am a touch obsessive about it, Octavia calls it an addiction, but at least it isn’t drugs, so she can hardly complain.

She studies my breakfast, then lifts her gaze to me, one brow arched. “Go on. Eat,” she says.

I roll my eyes but don’t argue. “You might consider doing the same,” I murmur.

She only lifts her cup, taking a slow sip of coffee. When she sets it down again, her plate remains untouched. Her eyes stay on me instead, assessing, as though weighing something unspoken. Neither of us is certain what we’ll find.

I take another spoonful of the açaí bowl, let the sweetness linger, and level my gaze at my sister.

“What day is it?”

Octavia snorts, rolling her eyes. “You’ve got a phone. It tells you the date. You’ve lost two years of memory, not woken up in the bloody eighteenth century.”

“I’m aware,” I snap, though without much heat. “But when I woke this morning, I was rather more concerned with blood pouring from my forehead than checking the calendar.”

“Alright, point taken.” She lifts a hand in mock surrender. “It’s the thirtieth of August.”

I nod slowly, turning it over. Two days before term begins. Which means— “We’re starting our third year.” It comes out sounding more like a question than a statement.