Page 124 of Spearcrest Knight

I open my mouth to ask him how he knows it went wrong, but I look into his clever blue eyes—the same colour as mine but with far more intelligence in there—and find my answer there. Of course, things went wrong. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in now.

“We stopped being friends.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

Dad smiles a little. “Hm.”

“Okay, alright. You remember Luca?”

“The Novus kid?”

Novus is the name of Luca’s father’s business, some chem tech company nobody knows about but somehow makes millions. I nod. “Yeah, him.”

Dad raises an eyebrow. “The one you got into that brawl with and I had to have a meeting with your headmaster?”

I groan. “Yeah.”

“I thought you two sorted your issues? Aren’t you friends now?”

“We are—well, we were, but…” I hesitate. “It was a weird friendship, Dad. Do you remember Giselle?”

“The girl you dated for a while last year?”

“Yeah. You know how Luca dated her?”

“I didn’t know that. Is that an issue between you two?”

“No—it’s not that. I don’t think I was a great boyfriend to Giselle and Luca didn’t exactly intend on marrying her, it’s not like I have a problem with that. But with Luca, being friends with Luca… you have to be ready to share. Luca likes what other people have.”

“Hm.” Dad nods slowly, his eyes narrowing. “So, what? You didn’t want him to take the prefect from you, so you torpedoed your friendship with her?”

I stare at him. I didn’t expect him to get it so quickly, and somehow hearing it out of his mouth makes it sound so much worse. It makes it sound stupid, petty, childish. Which, I suppose, is exactly what it is.

“Yeah. And then… Well, I stopped being friends with her, but I was scared Luca would know that I liked her, so I was… uh, pretty horrible to her.”

“For how long?”

“Pretty much the last four years.”

Now Dad’s composure cracks slightly. He sits forward and sighs, rubbing his short beard as he always does when he’s working out a problem or thinking over an issue.

“So you’re telling me that not only did you end a friendship with this girl, but you then went on to bully her for several years?”

“It’s not bullying. More, like… being really mean.”

Dad raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. “Yes, son, a very mild explanation of what bullying is.”

I drop my head into my hands. “Ugh, I’ve been a total arsehole, Dad.”

Dad pats my shoulder, a reassuring gesture which he follows up with, “It does sound like it, Ev, I won’t lie.”

I peer at him through my fingers and add, my words half-muffled by my palms. “And also she got a job because she’s worried about money because she wants to study in the US, and then I told the school about it because I was jealous she liked some other guy instead of me, and then I called her poor in front of everyone.”

Even though I’ve left out some of the worst stuff, it’s still enough to get me a shocked, “Jesus, Ev!” from Dad.

Now he’s outright glaring at me.

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