Sasha Laurens

Katherine freaking Finn.

At my school.

In my house.

In my room.

The prospect of living with Evangeline had been about as attractive as cohabitating with a scorpion wearing a human skin suit, but this was, impossibly, so much worse.

It wasn’t that I’d never imagined Kat could show up at Harcote. I’d imagined that exact scenario approximately one zillion times, and I admit that on more than one occasion—okay, many times more than one—I’d been too weak to resist scrolling her socials. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know that she still wore her silky auburn hair long, and that in the right light it shone red, or that she had the same round cheeks that made the corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiled. But that had done nothing to prepare me for actually seeing Kat again, for how it felt when her hazel eyes, the irises threaded with green, blazed in absolute fury when she recognized me.

I’d seen her standing there and all of a sudden, I could feel the actual contours of my heart. It trembled in my chest like a frightened rabbit waiting to be killed. This must be how humans feel, was what I’d thought, right before they’re glamoured.

Approximately thirty-three months of total noncommunication had done nothing to change the fact that Kat held the dubious honor of Taylor Sanger’s First Crush. Seeing her again—standing in the middle of the room that we would be sharing for months—drove that home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

I let myself smile, just a little, thinking of her asking my pronouns. I had never heard a vampire ask that, although I knew that humans sometimes did.

Why shouldn’t I have a little fun? Yes, they were using me, but it felt good to see them recognize that I had something they wanted. Plus, it was hot to see the perfect little Harcoties scared that they were doing something they weren’t supposed to—even though it was fucked up that they believed kissing girls fell into that category.

There was just something graceful and specific and arresting about each of them, as if each girl was the fullest version of herself.

In short, she was the gothest bitch I had ever seen.

The truth was, no one else could be trusted to love you, even to like you. Certainly not to understand you, and only in a few cases to respect you. If I forgot that and let myself get hurt, it would be my own damn fault.

it felt so infuriatingly, stupidly good that it was almost cruel, and I wanted to disappear into that horrible feeling forever.

She looked, all at once, like the girl I used to know, who’d felt like I’d found a missing piece of myself.

My heartbeat quickened.