Then
She intended to go after him to give him a piece of her mind. She wasn’t a freshman anymore, just finding her feet and full of uncertainty about her place at Nordbrook. She was a strong and confident woman, who had gotten an A in the very class he spent all his time rolling his eyes at her in.
Plus she had friends.
An almost boyfriend.
He didn’t have anything at all. Just his favorite seat in the cafeteria, far away from everyone else.
His crappy austere meals, his cross looks, his constant complaining about her stories and her cute comments and her cackling laugh.
So maybe now she could actually just tell him, No, I’m not putting up with this anymore.
But when she got to the stairwell he’d disappeared into, just past their usual battleground of Professor Dunderson’s classroom, she had to stop at the bottom step.
Frozen, in that dim, cloistered little space, one hand on the banister, still ready to go up.
Because she could hear him talking. That was his voice, from somewhere up there, beyond the twist the stairs took.
She’d heard it snapping at her often enough to know it.
Though it did seem different now. Less sardonic, softer—and definitely more halting than he usually was with her.
You said you would tell me if she was doing okay, she heard him say, and almost just ran right back out of that little space.
You weren’t supposed to find out that your mortal enemy had problems. Or felt sad about those problems. Or cared about someone enough to need that sort of information.
They were meant to stay two-dimensional.
A villain in your story.
Only now she couldn’t help thinking about who this she was.
A woman he had loved, maybe? It sounded like it.
But she knew there were other possibilities, many possibilities, and she couldn’t help straining, for a second, to unearth what they were.
His mom, a secret daughter, a mysterious fourth thing she couldn’t even imagine.
And all of them slotting neatly into why he had taken so long to try for a degree in creative writing.
Why, when he was so good at it—god, even she could admit he was good at it.
His work was often dry, true. All the messy edges sanded down.
But there was something about it, something she could almost hear in his voice right now.
I know she’s not upset with me exactly, but— he started to say, then seemed to cut himself off.
As if, for a moment, actual emotion had overwhelmed him.
But then just as suddenly it switched.
Aw, go to hell, he said, as the beep of a call being ended rang out.
I don’t give a shit. And now there was the sound of his heavy boots rattling back down the stairs and fuck fuck fuck, she should never have eavesdropped, should never have stayed.
She ran through the double doors down the hall, heart hammering at the thought of him discovering her.
And by the time she got to the cafeteria, where her sort-of friend group was waiting, where her almost boyfriend was waiting, she had convinced her heart. He hadn’t meant that sadness and emotion at all. He was Miller, just Miller—her mortal enemy, and not a single thing more.