Chapter 9
Nine
Blair
The door clicks shut behind me, and I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath since sunrise.
Maybe I have. The note this morning—folded, anonymous, tucked into my psych textbook—still sits like a weight in my bag.
I haven’t opened it again. I don’t need to.
I remember every word. Every curve of the handwriting. Every implication.
Kinsley’s still in class. I have the room to myself. I should feel safe. I should feel calm. I should feel clean.
But I don’t.
I drop my bag by the desk, fingers already twitching toward my planner. I need to check the time. I need to see the blocks of color, the order, the control. But when I flip it open, my heart stutters.
There’s a mark on Saturday.
Red ink.
Not mine.
Not Kinsley’s.
7:30 PM – Game.
I stare at it like it might explain itself. I haven’t written anything in red since middle school. It bleeds across the page like a warning. Like a claim. Like someone reached into my system and left a fingerprint.
I close the planner too fast. My hands are shaking. I tell myself it’s nothing. A prank. A mistake. Kinsley being careless. But she doesn’t touch my side of the desk. She knows better.
I move to the bed. I need to sit. I need to breathe. But the second I lower myself onto the mattress, I freeze.
The pillow smells different.
Not detergent.
Not vanilla.
Cologne.
Masculine. Clean. Sharp.
Familiar.
But not mine.
I jerk back like I’ve been burned, eyes scanning the room. Nothing’s out of place. Not really. But everything feels wrong. The sheets are rumpled. The air feels heavier. The silence feels watched.
My phone sits on the desk, screen dark, silent. I keep glancing at it, half-hoping it will light up and tell me I’m imagining things. That this is just anxiety. That I’m spiraling over nothing. But then it buzzes—soft, deliberate, like a whisper in the dark.
I freeze.
The screen lights up, and one name appears: Kane.
Not Fischer. Just Kane. The way everyone says it. The way it echoes in locker rooms and stadiums in whispered rumors. But this isn’t a rumor. This is real. This is him. On my phone. In my space.
My breath catches. My fingers tremble as I reach for the device, thumb hovering over the message like it might burn me. I don’t want to open it. I already feel it under my skin. But I do.
Kane:
You found me.
Right where I wanted to be.
The words are simple. But they land like a match dropped in gasoline.
He knows. He wants me to know. This isn’t a coincidence.
This isn’t a mistake. This is Kane Fischer—quarterback, golden boy, Kinsley’s brother—watching me.
Inserting himself into my life like he belongs there. Like he’s always belonged there.
I stare at the message, heart thudding against my ribs. I should delete it. I should block him. I should scream. But I don’t. I just sit there, phone clutched in my hand, remembering.
That night at his house.
The hallway.
The collision.
He’d been shirtless, chest broad and cut like something sculpted from heat and tension. I’d slammed into him, breathless, stammering, and he hadn’t moved. Just stood there. Just looked at me. And in that moment, something inside me had shifted. Something deep. Something primal.
I’d left early. Told myself it was nothing. But it wasn’t. It was him. It was me. It was the beginning.
And now he’s in my phone.
In my planner.
In my room.
I don’t know what he wants.
I don’t know why he’s doing this.
But I know one thing—Kane Fischer is no longer ignoring me. And I don’t think he ever will again.
He’s introduced chaos into the perfection I’ve so carefully constructed. Will the world around me crumble without my routines, or will I?
The thought slams into me harder than I expect.
It’s not the world I’m afraid of losing.
It’s me. The version of myself I’ve built brick by brick, breath by breath, through color-coded calendars and folded sweaters and silent rituals no one else sees.
That version keeps me safe. Predictable. Contained.
But Kane doesn’t follow rules.
He doesn’t knock.
He doesn’t ask.
He enters quietly, deliberately, and leaves fingerprints on everything I thought was mine. My pillow. My planner. My phone. He’s not just watching me. He’s rewriting me. And the worst part?
Some part of me wants him to.
Because when he touches my world, it doesn’t just shake.
It shifts.
And I don’t know if I want to put it back the way it was.
The door swings open just after four, and Kinsley breezes in with her usual energy, bag slung over one shoulder, iced coffee in hand, earbuds still in.
She doesn’t notice the tension in the room right away.
She never does. She lives loudly. I live tight.
But today, I need her noise. I need her presence.
I need something that feels like before.
“Hey,” I begin, voice thinner than I want it to be. “Can we do a movie night tonight?”
She pauses mid-sip, blinking at me. “You? Voluntarily watching something that isn’t a documentary about cults or serial killers?”
I try to smile. It doesn’t quite land. “I just… need something familiar.”
Kinsley softens immediately. She kicks off her shoes, tosses her bag onto her bed, and flops down beside me like she’s been waiting for this invitation all week. “Popcorn or chocolate?”
“Both,” I say. “And something stupid. Like, aggressively stupid.”
She grins. “Done.”
We settle into the rhythm easily with blankets, snacks, and the glow of the laptop screen.
But my mind won’t stop buzzing. The planner.
The pillow. The text. Kane. His name still sits in my phone like a secret I didn’t choose.
And now that I’m sitting beside the one person who might actually know something, I can’t stop myself.
“Hey,” I trail off, keeping my voice casual, eyes on the screen. “Can I ask you something?”
Kinsley hums. “Shoot.”
“Kane’s been… weird lately, right?”
She snorts. “Define weird. He’s always been a little emotionally constipated.”
“No, I mean…” I hesitate. “Has he said anything about me?”
That gets her attention. She turns, one eyebrow raised. “About you?”
I nod, trying not to fidget. “I just… I don’t know. He’s been around more. And he texted me today.”
Kinsley blinks. “Wait, he texted you?”
“Yeah. His number’s in my phone now. I didn’t put it there.”
Her expression shifts, confused, then thoughtful, then something I can’t quite read. “I mean… I gave him the emergency key card a while ago. Just in case. I thought maybe if something happened and I wasn’t here—“
“I know,” I reply quickly. “It’s okay. I’m not mad. I just… I don’t get it. He never looked at me before. And now it’s like he’s everywhere.”
Kinsley is quiet for a beat. “He’s protective. In his own… intense way. But he’s not dangerous, Blair. He wouldn’t hurt you.”
I nod, but the words don’t settle. Because I’m not sure I want protection. I’m not sure if I’m afraid of being hurt. I’m afraid of what it means that I don’t want to pull away.
“Also, he’s a playboy, Blair. Every girl on this campus wants to be with him. The whole star quarterback has the school in a frenzy,” she mentions, then turns her attention back to the screen.
I swallow hard, eyes drifting back to the screen. Her words settle like static in my head, but they don’t match what I’ve felt. Kane hasn’t flirted. He hasn’t smiled. He hasn’t charmed. He’s watched. He’s entered. He’s changed things.
And it doesn’t feel like a game.
It feels like obsession.
Like possession.
Like something he’s never done before.
Kinsley doesn’t know.
She sees the version of him everyone else sees.
But I’ve seen something else.
Something darker.
I’m starting to feel safer in the chaos he brings than in the silence I built for myself.