Page 16 of Ciao Bella


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My ears were tired—I was tired. Try sleeping in the same room as Ivan the Terrible and then get back to me. He didn’t snore, he was too pretty for words, too stupid to live (in my opinion), and just the worst hummer in the history of humming.

People would literally give him a trophy to stop making noise.

Hi, I’m people.

“Ivan…” I ground out his name, I sounded half dead, my teeth clenched while my jaw popped. “If you keep humming ‘This is the Song that Never Ends,’ my fist is going to end up down your throat, I will find something to grab, might be a lung, might be your liver, hell, I might go deeper and grab you by the dick and make it an innie, thus making it impossible to bone anyone but yourself—point is, stop. I know you’re doing it on purpose. We both know you can’t sing, so I don’t know why you think you can hum. I’ll admit you’re a great shot, even better with a knife. Music, however, is not your calling.”

He stopped humming and grinned at me. “I know.”

I exhaled. “Thank—”

The humming continued as we walked toward orientation, just like the clenching in my jaw continued while we walked side by side. Why did he have to be the hardest person to get along with in the history of all histories?

His humming stopped when we saw what was on our schedule for day two of orientation, basically day two was just a ton of partying and clubs showing off what they had to offer. But to look involved, we had to go and support our fellow students and not look scary. Oh no, we weren’t allowed to look too scary, not that it mattered, they knew exactly who we were. What our Families did. Who owned this prestigious university they attended.

So, whenever we were around the other students, they stared—some were brave enough to talk with us like it didn’t matter we had blood on our hands.

I’d started freshman year as the girl to conquer so that felt fun and extremely shameful, but it made it impossible for me to date because I never knew if they wanted me because they genuinely liked me or because of my last name, which in turn made me shy away from any guy.

I’d take it to my grave.

But because of my parents, because of my life—I’d only ever kissed one guy since the bathtub incident, and it was horrible.

I was a virgin.

A miserable virgin who got made fun of by the miserable manwhore next to me for being that way, and every time he commented on it, I felt more and more insecure, which just fed the anger even more.

I dressed like I knew exactly what I was doing on the outside.

On the inside, I could at least admit during weak moments, I was a bit broken on most days, on rare ones, a bit shattered.

I had every reason in the world to be confident, but sadly, money and beauty don’t buy you those things. They can’t, and if they do, you best believe they’re very fleeting and leave you emptier than before.

Ivan could sleep with half the girls on campus, and they’d high five him. He could do a lot as a man, and I wish he understood how unfair the balance was between us. He came from a Family of betrayers and murderers and would get high fives for conquering.

While I was the conquered.

A guy I didn’t recognize smiled at me, he had sandy blond hair, was pretty buff, to the point that I would have done a double take if I was even remotely interested, he also looked like he surfed too much or had a tanning package that he needed to definitely tone down on, and was wearing head-to-toe Supreme.

Sigh.

He slowly made his way over to us. “Hey,”

He ignored Ivan.

Ivan hated being ignored.

Like, hated it.

I nodded. “What?”

“Just saying hi.” He moved closer.

To my right, Ivan tensed. I didn’t have to look to know he was clenching both fists along with his jaw.

“You busy later? Heard a rumor that nobody’s been able to conquer the University’s queen. Care if I toss my hat into the pot and show you my magic?”

Ew. Did that work on people? Furthermore, baby bird wouldn’t be so confident if he knew that I had a knife strapped to my thigh.

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