CHAPTER 13
OPHELIA
“Oh my gosh. I can’t stop watching!”
The phone was inches from my nose, the video looping for what had to be the tenth time.
“Too bad you can’t see your face.” One of the girls giggled, leaning over her friend’s shoulder. “If he’d known who you were, it would’ve been even better.”
Another laughed, tossing her hair. “Yeah, can you imagine? Matty Adler making out with you on purpose? That would’ve been the coolest thing ever.”
Their words hit harder than they meant them to. Because he didn’t know who I was…not in the way that mattered.
The others crowded closer, squealing as they watched Matty’s hands grip my mascot-clad head and kiss me like the world had stopped spinning.
“That’s so hot,” one of them shrieked over the music. “If that were me, I’d have never taken that costume off.”
“Do you even realize how viral this is?” another added, waving her drink for emphasis. “You’ve hit, like, a million views. Everyone’s talking about it!”
I tried to laugh, but it came out thin. The sound of it got swallowed by the bass thudding through the floor.
Some of the cheerleaders had invited me out after I’d run into the locker room, insisting I had to come out with them.
They’d never invited me before, and I knew it was only because of what Matty had done…
but the thought of sitting in my dorm room alone, obsessing over him, had been an unbearable thought.
So I came.
And it was a mistake.
I was surrounded by cheerleaders who smelled like vanilla body spray, half of them drunk, and all of them living for the gossip.
Music pounded through the walls, bass rattling the cheap cup in my hand. Someone’s playlist battled against the noise, a blur of drunk laughter, off-key singing, and a heated argument about fantasy football. The air was thick with perfume, beer, and the faint burn of weed drifting from the kitchen.
“I can do this,” I whispered to myself. It was good to be doing this.
Normal girls went to parties. Normal girls laughed, danced, flirted.
Normal girls also didn’t keep glancing at the door every thirty seconds, though, waiting for the guy they were obsessed with to walk through it.
“Hey,” a voice said beside me.
I turned.
The guy had been hovering around for the past fifteen minutes. He stepped closer now, smiling a little too wide.
“You’re in my class, right?” he asked, leaning closer so I could hear him over the music. “Intro to Psych?”
I nodded, trying to place him. I hadn’t been very good at noticing other people existed besides Matty. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Ryan,” he said, offering a hand. “Or maybe you already knew that.”
He had sandy hair, a clean jawline, and the kind of easy grin that probably worked on most girls. His T-shirt stretched just enough across his shoulders to say he played some kind of intramural sport, but not enough to make him dangerous.
The kind of boy Dr. Whitaker might even call safe for me because my brain wouldn’t attach to him.
“So,” Ryan said, still smiling. “You come to parties like this a lot?”
I laughed softly. “Not really.”
“Guess tonight’s a good night to start.” His gaze flicked toward the group of cheerleaders still showing the viral video to anyone willing to look. “You’re kind of the main event.”
I forced a smile, the back of my neck prickling. “Lucky me.”
His fingers brushed my wrist, casual, testing. My pulse didn’t quicken; it just existed, steady and dull. I tried to focus on his voice instead of the echo of Matty’s voice in my head.
You’re sick, I reminded myself. You ruin everything you touch. You need to find someone like this…someone normal.
Ryan’s hand lingered just long enough to make it clear he’d noticed I hadn’t pulled away. “It’s pretty loud in here,” he said, raising his voice over the music. “You wanna go outside? There’s a firepit out back. Way easier to talk.”
I hesitated, my gaze flicking toward the door again…the same door I’d been watching all night. No sign of Matty. Just smoke, laughter, and the faint glow of string lights through the kitchen windows.
“Sure,” I heard myself say. “Outside sounds good.”
He smiled, looking relieved. “Cool. Bring your drink.”
I did. And as he led the way through the crowd, I told myself this was progress.
Normal girls went outside with normal boys.
And I was trying so hard to be normal.
We stepped onto the porch, the night cool and damp.
Laughter spilled from inside, but out here it was quieter.
The firepit flickered in the backyard, flames bending in the breeze, the light catching on empty bottles and the edges of someone’s abandoned hoodie.
I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at the fire until my eyes blurred.
He moved closer, resting his hand on the railing beside mine. “You’re kind of hard to read, you know that?”
I shrugged, my eyes still on the flames. “Maybe you’re not reading the right language.”
He laughed, and it was easy and harmless, doing absolutely nothing to my insides. “Guess I’ll have to learn it.”
His face dipped toward mine.
I froze.
Every instinct screamed at me to move, to lean away, but I couldn’t, not fast enough. Before his lips could touch mine, a burst of cheers erupted from inside the house, the sound spilling through the open windows and rolling across the yard.
I turned toward the noise on reflex, and his kiss brushed my cheek instead.
Ryan blinked, confused, as the voices grew louder, spilling into the night, chanting Thatcher and Davis and Adler like they meant something holy.
And just like that, my pulse finally remembered how to move.
My breath hitched.
He was here.
The sound of his name wrapped around me, and for a second all I could think about was how badly I wanted to see him…and how dangerous that was.
You have to stay away. He would think you were disgusting if he knew who you really were…what you’ve been doing.
But he also called you baby, another inside voice said.
It didn’t matter.
I swallowed hard and turned back to Ryan, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. “It’s freezing out here,” I said, my voice barely steady. “Want to sit by the fire?”
He smiled, oblivious. “Yeah, sure.”
We walked across the yard, weaving through groups of people huddled together under string lights. The firepit crackled at the center, orange light flickering across faces and half-empty cans. I sank onto one of the benches, the warmth licking at my knees, the smoke stinging my eyes.
Ryan sat beside me, close but not too close, talking about something—his friends, a class project, maybe a game coming up. I tried to listen. I nodded, laughed at the right times, told myself to focus.
Normal. Just be normal.
But the sounds around us started to change. Conversations cut off mid-sentence. Someone’s laughter trailed into silence.
I felt it before I saw it—the sudden shift in the air, the weight pressing against the back of my neck.
I looked up.
And there he was.
Matty stood at the edge of the firelight, the glow catching on the chiseled line of his jaw.
The flames turned his skin gold, and his dark hair gleamed like it had been spun from the same heat that fed the fire.
He looked unreal…like some kind of god who’d stepped straight out of the flames just to find me.
He wasn’t smiling. He was just staring…straight at me.
The cup in my hand trembled and for one long heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe.
“Ophelia.” Ryan’s fingers brushed my arm. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Matty’s gaze cut to where Ryan touched me. His jaw flexed once before his eyes lifted back to mine.
“Come here,” Matty said, his voice sliding through the air, making every nerve in my body react before my brain could catch up.
Ryan blinked, glancing between us. “Wait—you know him?” He gave a confused laugh. “I thought you didn’t.”
My throat felt tight. “I don’t,” I said quickly, turning back to Ryan like that made it true. “We’ve just…seen each other around campus.”
He didn’t look convinced. His gaze kept flicking toward Matty, uneasy. “He’s staring at you.”
“No, he’s not,” I murmured, forcing a shaky laugh. “Ignore him. Tell me more about that business class you mentioned.”
Ryan tried, talking about the group project again, but the words barely landed. His eyes kept darting toward the fire’s edge—toward Matty, who hadn’t moved, who just stood there watching me like he was waiting for me to admit something.
Then Matty said my name. “Ophelia.”
The way he spoke it was nothing like when Ryan had.
Ryan’s version had been soft, uncertain, testing whether I’d look at him.
Matty’s was a command disguised as my name, rough around the edges, strong enough to crawl under my skin and take root.
Heat shot through me so fast I forgot how to breathe. Every part of me went still, caught between the fire’s warmth and the dizzy rush of hearing him say my name again.
I forced a smile that felt like it might crack my face. “Hey, um,” I said to Ryan, already standing, gripping my cup too tightly. “Do you want to dance?”
He blinked in surprise, but nodded, letting me tug him back through the door and into the noise.
I didn’t look back, but I could feel Matty’s gaze on me, crawling over my skin…impossible to shake.
The living room was packed, lights flashing red and blue from a cheap LED strip across the ceiling. Bodies swayed and collided, laughter spilling into shouts. I pulled Ryan toward the middle of the crowd, letting the crush of people swallow us whole.
He grinned, his hands settling tentatively on my hips like he was waiting for me to flinch. I didn’t. I nodded once, and we started to move.
It should have felt freeing, the bass thudding through the floor and noise drowning out thought. But the harder I tried to lose myself in it, the more I could feel him.
Matty.
Somewhere behind me. Maybe by the wall. Maybe closer. My heartbeat stuttered to match the rhythm of the bass, uneven and frantic.
Ryan leaned close, shouting over the music, “Relax!”
Relax.
As if that were possible.