Page 15

Tripp leans forward sharply, his elbows hitting his knees, the casual air around him dissolving as his gaze hardens.

The easy smirk he usually wears is replaced with a tight line, the weight of his own frustration bubbling to the surface.

His voice drops, quieter but sharper, each word a deliberate cut.

“The point,” he says, “is that you’re so wrapped up in what you think is best for everyone else that you might not even hear what’s best for you.

” His fingers flex, curling into loose fists before relaxing again, a visible sign of restraint as he meets Knox’s fiery stare head-on.

“And Remi is the best?” he scoffs, showing how much of an asshole he can be when backed into a corner.

“Yes,” Tripp replies. “Remi is a goddess. You saw it. Hell, both Boone and I saw it, too. She’s … perfect.”

My mind drifts unwillingly to Remi, the kind of memory that invades even the strongest resolve.

I remember the way her laughter fills a room, bright and effervescent, wrapping around everyone like a blanket of warmth.

Her personality is magnetic, pulling people into her orbit as though they belong there, as though staying away is never an option.

And then there is her presence—unapologetic and commanding without pretense.

Her curves are a masterpiece, the kind that demands admiration without artifice, fluid and strong like poetry in motion.

She moves with an unspoken confidence that makes the world seem smaller, as if it revolves around her and her alone.

I can’t deny that she is unforgettable, though Knox tries to.

He tries harder than anyone I know. But it’s impossible not to recall the way her energy shifts the atmosphere, creating sparks where there is only air.

She is wild and untamed, a force of nature that frightens and fascinates all at once.

I hate how often I think about her, how the memory of her lingers like a flame refusing to extinguish.

And yet, in the quiet corners of my mind, I know for a fact Knox can’t help but acknowledge one terrifying truth: she is perfect in ways he’d never want to admit.

It’s the very reason he’s fighting this as hard as he's fighting.

He's just trying to come up with excuse after excuse so that he can stay on track with his campaign to become the Mayor. It’s becoming ridiculous at this point with the way he’s fighting this so hard. Clearly, we can all see him fighting a losing battle.

“You’re too stubborn for your own good,” I retort as I start looking through the papers lying on my desk. I have about thirty essays to complete before tomorrow’s class, and this conversation is making it incredibly difficult to focus on my work.

It needed to be done, though. Knox is so incredibly busy that this was one of the only times we could pencil in an appointment with him that didn’t require us to ambush him when he got home after a long day.

I know I would hate it if that happened, so this was the only way.

After the election is over, we’ll have more time with Knox.

However, by that point, the subject of this conversation would be a moot issue.

I refuse for Remi to be moot of anything.

She deserves better. She deserves the world. Fuck, she deserves better than the lot of assholes I see sitting in front of me, myself included.

“I may be stubborn. There may be a lot of things that you all want to call me. At the end of the day, though, I’m the leader of this pack, and I always have this pack’s best interests at heart. I don’t make decisions all willy-nilly. You all know I think of every facet before I make my decision.”

Thinking about that, I feel my entire body deflate.

No matter how much I want things to change, they stubbornly remain the same, like a ship refusing to surrender to the pull of the tide.

The ache of watching Knox bury himself in excuses and duties feels like an endless loop, a reel that plays over and over again, each repetition wearing me down just a little more.

I crave the moment when he stops fighting the truth—where he finally lets it crash over him like a breaking wave.

I sit here, surrounded by my work, yet this maddening stalemate consumes my thoughts.

The idea that we are all hiding behind our own walls —Knox behind his ambition, me behind my frustration, and Tripp behind his terror —gnaws at me.

It’s a suffocating weight, the kind that presses down on your chest and leaves you gasping for air you can’t quite reach.

Remi deserves more than this tangled mess we’ve made of things.

She deserves honesty, deserves to be seen and chosen without hesitation, without fear.

And yet, here we are. Knox, so determined to hold the reins, blinds himself to the obvious.

His campaign, his plans, his carefully constructed world—they’re all distractions from the thing he refuses to confront.

I want to scream at him, shake him, force him to see what’s right in front of him.

Instead, I sit here, my desperation simmering under the surface, an unspoken plea for a reality where things aren’t so complicated, where we don’t have to pretend not to care, where Knox doesn’t have to fight battles that are already lost.

I know I shouldn’t care this much about it, shouldn’t let it pull me into its gravitational field, but I can’t help myself.

The truth is too loud to ignore, too persistent, too raw.

Maybe that’s the crux of it—the unbearable truth that we can’t seem to acknowledge but can’t seem to escape either.

I just wish it didn’t hurt so damn much.