Page 49 of Science Project

“Cool.”

“Yeah, cool,” I repeated because what else could I say?

A while later, after an unbelievable amount of small talk that led nowhere, Jace gathered all his things from the coffee table and headed to the front door. “It’s getting late. I should get going.”

“Jacey,” I whined, desperately clutching his arm, “why don’t you stay the night?”

As soon as Jace stepped out of the house, Dad would see the security cameras and would race back over here to see what I had gotten out of him. But I didn’t know what Dad wanted me to get out of him.

And if I didn’t have anything, he’d punish me because I was useless to him.

Like Hannah.

Jace curled his finger around a lock of my hair and tugged. “You know I don’t stay over.”

I frowned. “We didn’t even do anything fun.”

Which I am so grateful for because it wouldn’t have been fun for me.

“You caked me in makeup, Nicole.” He took a deep breath, as if he was pushing his frustration away, then presented me with a smile that I knew was fake. “Isn’t that what you wanted? You never get to do that.”

Game recognized game.

Liars recognized liars.

Actors recognized actors.

And I recognized that Jace Harbor didn’t want this either, so I wasn’t going to push it.

I’d already semi-ruined his relationship with Allie, and I wished to take it all back. I wished to explain everything to him, to her. I just wanted a friend that I could tell everything to. A friend who’d hold me, like Imani had held Allie the other night. A friend who would tell me that every story had a happy ending.

But life didn’t have happy endings for everyone.

Sometimes, life gave those with the brightest smiles the most horrific endings. Sometimes, a soft giggle that calmed every one of my nerves turned into a washed-up body at the Overlook. Throat slit and eyes gouged.

And I’d be a fool to hope that my life would be any different.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

AKIO

Monday morning, I stood by my locker and watched the front doors. I had gone over to Jace Harbor’s house twice this weekend to talk to him, but every time I showed up, the maid had answered the door.

I rearranged the books in my locker, desperate to appear busy. All I wanted was to talk to him to see what Nicole had wanted, to ask why he had shown up at her house … but I already knew the reason—he’d wanted to get his dick sucked.

Teeth gritted so hard that I nearly chipped them, I slammed a book deep into my locker and hit the metal backboard.

What the hell was wrong with me?! I shouldn’t like Nicole. I shouldn’t care about Nicole. She was using me.

Yet it’d felt so real with her.

But maybe that was because she was my first everything.

I wasn’t her first anything and definitely wouldn’t be her last.

After grumbling to myself, I caught Jace walking through the door. I slammed my locker closed and followed him down a few hallways to his locker. He opened it up and stuffed some books into it.

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