Page 23 of The Encore’s Crown

“That’s math,” she cuts in.

“It’s not just math.”

“No, it’s bullshit dressed up as math because you’re… scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

The lie is so bad even I don’t believe it.

Her laugh is angry enough I can almost feel it slap me in the face. “Please.”

My jaw works. She looks me up and down like I’ve disappointed her in every possible lifetime. That look gets under my skin faster than any insult.

“You know what, Kiri?” she says.

My expression tightens.

“Fuck. You.”

I take it because there’s nothing else to do. She stares at me, like she’s waiting for me to become someone better. Someone brave enough to say the right thing or who doesn’t take the worst possible route through every feeling he’s too much of a coward to name. I have nothing, or I have too much. Same difference. Her mouth trembles, and that kills me. Then she turns away.

I watch her walk back toward the terrace door, while every instinct in me lunges after her. My feet stay planted. If I follow her now, I don’t know if I’ll apologize or pull her into me, if I’ll fix it or just make it worse. I don’t know if I want to be forgiven as much as I want to hear her say my name like she did before she hated me, all those messages I replayed over and over just to hear her say it.

The door opens, spilling music and warmth around her. She doesn’t look back, then she’s gone. I stand there with the cold pressing into my skin and the soju sour on my tongue, watching the place she disappeared through even when my chest feels like it might break open at the sight.

Good job, Kiri.

Really fucking noble.

Chapter 11

We Both Lost

Natalia

I’m vibrating like someone poured an energy drink straight into my bloodstream when we finally get back to the hotel. I march through the elegant marble lobby like I’m sixteen and grounded. Even in a place with soft ambient lighting that screams luxury I can't seem to force myself to calm down. Kasia keeps glancing at me the way you’d look at a rabid raccoon rummaging through your house: cautious, confused, not quite ready to intervene.

Instead of heading back to her room with Rafe, she lingers in mine to keep me from being in this mood alone. She tries to do normal sisterly things. She puts on a movie and grabs incredibly fancy vending machine snacks, like this is just another night at home even though it’s almost three in the morning. I take a shower to cool off and come out somehow even angrier, my nerves buzzing. She's still there, waiting to see if I'm alright, but I'm not and I can't pretend to be.

I pace. I rearrange my makeup bag, expensive mascaras lined up from brown to black, every shade in between in perfect order. I fan out every face mask I brought, color-coded like a psychopath. I open the minibar, chug a bagged margarita drink, then close it hard enough that the counter shakes.

Kasia keeps watching me over the top of her glasses, like she’s diagnosing me with a retinal disease. After my twentieth angry lap around the room, she pauses the movie neither of us are watching.

“Nat,” her voice is gentle, like she's trying to coax this rabid raccoon into domestication. “What’s going on?”

I freeze with my arms crossed tight, like that might keep everything from spilling out. “Nothing.”

She snorts. “Right. You’re stomping around like a toddler whose favorite cartoon got canceled. Something happened.”

Her gentleness gets under my skin worse than if she’d snapped. I sink onto the edge of the bed and start twisting my hair one way, then back the other, anything to keep my hands busy while my heart keeps punching me like it’s trying to kill me from the inside out. Every time I blink, I see Kiri’s stupid face, hear his annoying voice telling me I’m too young, feel the heat of his mouth right before I yanked mine away in sweet revenge. Hear his dumb, hurtful excuses. How fucking dare he. How dare he act like I'm a groupie! I don't even like his bullshit music!

“It’s stupid,” I mutter.

She puts down her phone giving me her full, terrifyingly perceptive attention. “Tell me.”

I shake my head. No. Absolutely not. I can’t tell her. I won’t sit through another lecture about how he’s not right for me, how he makes bad choices, how I’m joining a long line of idiots who want to be driven insane underneath him. Because somehow, I still want it, my body still wants it, even when his mouth was spewing absolute garbage. I can already hear it. I can already feel the we told you so. I can already taste the judgment simmering behind her concern. So I give her a convenient half lie.

“It’s just… everything. The pressure to succeed. Competing with a million other people trying to do the same thing. Weirdos making comments on my photos. All of it.” I wave my hand vaguely, like that explains the tornado in my chest. “Other things I don’t want to talk about. I keep thinking I’m fine and then I’m not. It’s all just… loud right now.”