Page 90 of Spearcrest Knight

“You never treatgirlslike shit, but you treatSophielike shit. Like she’s special, so instead of getting the best of you, she gets the worst of you. Hard to see how you justify that one in your head.”

“What else was I supposed to do though?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Evan, perhaps treat her like an actual human being and show her a modicum of decency?”

“If I was nice to her,” I mumble, feeling heat rush to my cheeks, “then someone else might have become interested in her.”

“Oh, charming. You’re like a kid that’s not allowed to play with a toy and scribbles all over it so nobody else wants it.”

“Well, I don’t fucking know what I’m doing, do I? I was always too busy worrying about Luca taking her away from me—I just panicked.”

“You panicked for several years in a row? And then you made her lose her job and insulted her in front of everyone out of panic, too?”

I look at Zachary. “If you think I’m an arsehole, just say that.”

“Oh, shall I?” He gives me a smile full of fake courtesy. “You’re an arsehole. You’re not stupid either—you know what you’ve been doing. Treating Sophie the way you treated her all these years wasn’t an accident. You dug your own grave, and now there’s nothing left for you to do but to try and crawl your way out.”

I stare at him. “How?”

“How should I know? I’m not the architect of this whole mess, you are.” Zachary is quiet for a second. “I mean, you could always start with an apology.”

“Out of the question.”

“Right.”

By then, we’ve been standing in front of the Science building for a while, snow collecting on our heads and shoulders. We’re probably hopelessly late, and Mr Ahmed is definitely going to have my balls, but this conversation, as unpleasant as it is, is helping somehow. Even though Zachary is being more unforgiving than the world’s strictest judge.

I exhale, shoulders slumping helplessly. “If I apologise, she’ll know I did something wrong.”

“Oh, I can assure you she already knows that.”

I glare at Zachary. He stares back, impassive.

“I’m not apologising.”

“Right,” he says again.

There is a moment of silence. Awkwardly, I gesture towards the doorway. “Are you not late for your class?”

He shrugs. “I don’t have class. I just walked with you because you looked stressed and I wanted to cheer you up.”

“Oh, wow, that was you cheering me up?”

“You’re welcome, Ev.”

And with that, he turns and walks away, back the way we came from. I shout after him. “I don’t care, I’m not apologising!”

He waves without turning around and disappears in a white flurry of spinning snowflakes.

28

Apology

Sophie

Thestudyhall,normallyso large and cold, feels small and stifling today. Not because it’s busier than usual. If anything, there are barely any students. But Evan is sitting next to me, and his presence is a vortex, sucking the air from the room.

I sit as far from him as I can, my eyes stubbornly fixed on the desk in front of us. I’ve not made eye contact with him since he arrived for our session.

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