Page 117 of The Drama King

I'd found my perfect match and destroyed any chance of keeping her in the span of twenty minutes.

And the worst part was, she was right about everything.

I sank into the chair she'd abandoned, surrounded by the textbooks and notes she'd been using to study for exams I'd now disrupted twice, and tried to process the magnitude of what I'd lost.

My fated mate was going to reject the bond.

And I had no one to blame but myself.

forty-one

Vespera

Theknockonmydorm room door came at eight in the evening, soft but insistent. I almost didn't answer. Exams had finally ended three days ago, but I'd been existing in a careful bubble of solitude between the required Alpha interactions, trying to process the constant pull that made every hour feel like swimming against a riptide.

But something about the hesitant quality of the knocking made me pause. When I opened the door, Stephanie stood in the hallway looking smaller than I'd ever seen her, her usual confident posture replaced by something that looked almost like shame.

"Hey," she said quietly, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "Can we... can we talk?"

I stared at her for a long moment. Three weeks ago, this was the person who'd told me I was "bringing drama on myself"and that maybe I should "keep my head down." Now she was standing in my doorway looking like she'd been crying.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Can we?"

She flinched like I'd slapped her. "Fuck. Okay, I deserved that." She ran a hand through her hair, messing up her usually perfect style. "Look, I know I was a complete bitch to you. I know I totally bailed when you needed me. But I... God, Vespera, I fucked up so bad."

Against my better judgment, I stepped aside. She practically collapsed into my desk chair, looking smaller than I'd ever seen her.

"I heard what happened," she said, not meeting my eyes. "The whole... claiming thing."

"Yeah, well." I crossed my arms. "Join the club. Everyone's heard by now."

"No, I mean—" She looked up, and her eyes were red. "Jesus, Vespera. They actually did it. After everything they put you through, they actually fucking claimed you during your heat."

Something in her voice made me pause. Not the casual gossip-hungry tone I'd expected, but genuine horror.

"Stephanie—"

"I should have been there," she burst out. "When your heat hit, when you needed someone, when they were... God, I should have been there instead of avoiding you like some kind of social pariah."

The rawness in her voice caught me off guard. "You were protecting yourself," I said, surprised by how tired I sounded instead of angry.

"I was being a coward," she shot back. "I was so fucking scared they'd come after me next that I threw you under the bus. My best friend. The person who'd been there for me through everything, and I... abandoned you because it got too hard."

I sat down heavily on my bed. "Yeah. You did."

"I know." Her voice cracked. "And I hate myself for it. I hate that when it actually mattered, I chose my stupid sorority connections over you. I hate that I was more worried about being uninvited to parties than about what they were doing to you."

"Why are you here now?" I asked bluntly. "Feeling guilty?"

She was quiet for a long moment, staring at her hands. "I was at Madison's party last weekend. You know, that end-of-exams thing she always throws." Her voice turned bitter. "And someone brought up your... situation."

I waited, not making this easier for her.

"They were talking about how 'lucky' you were," she continued, her voice gaining anger. "How rare fated mates are, how you'd hit the jackpot with them, how you were probably set for life now. And everyone was nodding along. Like it was this amazing fairy tale ending."

"And that bothered you."

"It made me want to throw up," she said fiercely. "They were talking about you like you'd won the lottery instead of being claimed by the same assholes who spent months making your life hell. And I sat there, saying nothing, because I was too much of a coward to speak up."