Page 41 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

COURTNEY

I stared at Bryce, and Bryce stared at his feet, shoulders hunched and brows furrowed.

“Oh,” I said so softly I wasn’t sure he heard. I didn’t know what else to say.

Though I tried to hold it back, my heart went out to him like a runaway puppy down a street—recklessly, with no thought for the consequences.

My throat clogged, and my eyes prickled.

I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around him, but I’d noticed traditional forms of comfort often scared him more than anything else.

Now I knew why. The people who felt the closest to him were the ones who hurt him.

So I just stood there, helpless, imagining little Bryce at nine years old, feeling so guilty for something that wasn’t his fault, so hurt he wished he were a slug.

It made sense why he kept people at a distance, maybe even why the thought of being the Chosen One when no one had ever chosen him might be appealing.

I was wrong about him. He didn’t fight for people because he thought they’d reciprocate his effort.

He fought for people because no one had ever fought for him.

My heart constricted slowly, like a neglected old machine whirring to life, dust flying and rusty cogs groaning.

Bryce, the guy who’d fretted about me getting grass cuts, who’d faced a dragon for me, who’d lost the person he loved most, he deserved someone to fight for him too.

Gasps from the crowd rose above the crashing waves. Navy-blue light rolled like smoke off Bryce’s shoulders. His head snapped up, and when his eyes met mine, they shone even bluer than normal. Magic.

I’d let him win the Chosen One competition, and while he was at it, he’d also won me. The proof of my feelings shone before my very eyes. Like it or not, I cared about two things: nothing, and him.

Woman down.

I was a goner.

The light billowed, roiling to the ground like a cloak made of storm clouds.

Bryce lifted his hands, color curling off his fingertips.

He was too beautiful to look at, and even while my heart burst with affection, some darker part of me squirmed with envy.

Bryce with his red hair and his tortured backstory and his throbbing magic.

And yes, maybe I’d let him win, but destiny was destiny, and yet again events fell in just the right sequence that resulted in me taking my place in the shadows.

He was light, as bright as the glow of a Thanksgiving dining room, and I was the darkness watching from outside the window. He surpassed everyone’s expectations, and all I did was let people down. He was a Chosen One, and I’d… accidentally unleashed a dragon and raised an undead army.

I was like… the anti–Chosen One.

No. It couldn’t be.

… Could it?

Slowly, a sticky, uncomfortable feeling spread through me. It reminded me of the same sort of feeling I got trying to chase success, then failing. The same sort of feeling I got when Will dumped me. The not-good-enough feeling.

The kind of feeling I tried to ignore when I failed to tick all those boxes on a first date.

The feeling that told a truth I couldn’t run from: there was still some part of me deep down, a little girl who wanted to be liked.

A little girl who thought, if she tried hard enough, maybe someone would think she was special.

A frustrated little girl who hid her face in her pillow and cried at night because it seemed so easy for everyone else.

It was quite the villain origin story.

My mind raced, putting together the pieces.

As soon as I got here, people started getting kidnapped.

Granted, that wasn’t my fault, but Amy said the presence of an Evil One brought with it other great evils, that bad things happening were a sign the Evil One was near.

Perhaps my very presence was a catalyst that awoke evil in everyone’s hearts and began spreading crime and chaos throughout the city.

Maybe the kidnappings were just a manifestation of the darkness I’d brought into the world… as the Evil One.

I licked my dry lips and took a tentative step toward Bryce. “Bryce.” I swallowed hard. “I need to tell you something.”

I’d always been pretty sure I wasn’t a hero.

It hadn’t bothered me too much until now, until learning I was the villain.

Now I felt a particular brand of ick, the same sort of feeling you get when a guest steps into your home, and all the things you used to be content with suddenly feel shabbier. Inadequate.

As a child, I believed I was a hero. Even later, when I knew better, I at least thought I was a peasant. I never would have thought I was my worst nightmare: the villain.

I’d inadvertently put on a new cape. The villain cape. I’d done the thing I was so convinced I was avoiding: I’d lost myself. Again. I’d failed. I’d failed like I’d never failed before, and everyone would suffer for it.

“Bryce,” I whispered, gazing into the eyes of the man I was predestined to destroy, “I’m the Evil One.”

Bryce’s lips parted, and his head shook infinitesimally. Of course he was in denial. He was too pure not to think the best of me.

Someone screamed.

And then another scream, and another.

Except they weren’t screaming at my proclamation. They hadn’t even heard it. Instead, they were leaping to their feet and pointing down the beach.

I pushed past Bryce and ran up the amphitheater steps, stomach plummeting. As Bryce caught up, the magic around him dissipated in the wind.

The shadowy silhouettes of the skeletal army we had accidentally summoned emerged from the fog. They were probably drawn to me somehow, and they’d shown up because they assumed I’d want to start planning world domination.

Fuck. I needed to figure out how to control my own army, and quickly.

“Back to the castle!” the king yelled, hiking his robes and charging away, heels kicking up sand in the faces of the peasants who followed.

I turned to retreat, only to find Amy standing behind us, looking at us with watery, expectant eyes. “It’s time,” he said, like we were supposed to understand what he was talking about. “You’re ready.”

“We need to run, Amy,” I said. “The king told us to retreat, so not running away from the murderous skeletons would not only be stupid, it’d basically be treason.”

Amy shook his head and smiled a toothless smile. “This is the true trial. The Evil One is on the rise. It’s up to you.”

“Can we count on your sword?” I asked, trying to imitate the inspiring speeches from my books, reaching past Bryce to squeeze Amy’s knobby shoulder.

“This isn’t my fight,” Amy said mysteriously, backing away. “I must leave this place. But remember…” He spread his hands in front of his face. “The strength of a maple leaf.”

And then he ran away in a flurry of flappy robes and flailing appendages, all frailty apparently healed.

Bryce and I stood alone on the beach as the dry clack of bone on bone grew louder, signaling the army’s approach. He lifted his hands, now empty of magic. “I need you to go back to thinking nice thoughts about me, or we are going to die.”

I did want to think nice thoughts about him. It was all I wanted to do. But I didn’t trust myself not to hurt him. I was a villain , and he was… he was my world. Villains did nothing but destroy worlds. As much as I tried, I couldn’t free my feelings.

Bones clattered. Rusty blades glinted. Sightless eye sockets and toothy smiles provided a backdrop to Bryce’s face like the most deeply upsetting school picture background ever.

Desperate to reawaken his magic, I drew Bryce’s hands out of his pockets to entwine our fingers, but he held something in his hand. Turning his wrist, I opened his fingers. There in his palm was a smooth, oblong pebble. I looked from the stone to his face.

He’d kept a rock I’d given him. Ridiculous man. It made my heart ache.

To awaken his magic again, all I had to do was tell him how much I truly, truly liked him, and how I was so fucking grateful he was not a slug because he was the best man I knew, and I would make sure he never hurt again—but something held me back.

Because I knew I’d inevitably be the one to hurt him again.

Someone like me would have to be a complete asshole to entertain the idea of being with someone like him.

He had abandonment issues, and my literal one goal in life was to have no commitments.

I couldn’t let him know I cared for him, only to break his heart one day—not after what he’d told me about his mother.

Before I could decide what to do, one skeleton detached from the mob and jogged toward us, gangly bones swinging and clanking. We were out of time.

“Move. Go, go, go.” Frantically, I pushed Bryce, trying to get him to run.

Instead, he tripped and went down. I stumbled over him and fell hard.

My foot got caught under his leg. I yanked on it, twisting around to see behind me.

The skeleton slowed as it came up to us.

Sunlight streamed through its rib cage, half of which was exposed by deteriorating rags that might have once been a magnificent gown.

A tarnished tiara rested crookedly on the skeleton’s brow. The skeleton queen.

“I’m your leader, remember?” I tried, raising my hands, palms out, in the universal sign for surrender.

The universal sign for surrender must have only been universal in our universe, because the last thing I saw was the blunt end of a battle-ax swinging for my head.