THE BOY I SWORE TO HATE

They called his name right after mine. Marcus Reid. The two words landed in that assembly hall like something thrown, and I felt them hit me square in the chest. The room went quiet the way rooms go quiet when people are waiting to see blood. I kept my face still. I'm good at that. Two years of watching my mother pretend she wasn't in pain taught me how to make your face say nothing while everything inside you is burning down. My name is Elena Torres. I have a 4.1 GPA, a partial scholarship that expires if I don't maintain top placement, a mother who works double shifts at a laundry service because her hospital bills don't care about her knees, and a little sister who still thinks we're fine. We are not fine. The National Academic Championship is the only thing standing between me and losing every dollar that keeps us not-fine from becoming something worse. First place partnership wins a full scholarship extension. Guaranteed funding, two years. I have been preparing for this competition since September. I have a strategy, a study schedule, and exactly zero patience for whatever this is. Whatever this is, is Marcus Reid. Principal Okafor was still talking, reading off the rest of the pairings, but the words had gone underwater. Because across the assembly hall, Marcus Reid was already looking at me. Not surprised. Not sorry. Like he'd expected to hear our names together and had already decided what he thought about it. He stood the way boys like him always stand. Like the floor was put there specifically for him. Dark blazer, Legacy pin on the lapel, the little gold thing scholarship students weren't issued. He had the kind of face that got described as intense in college recommendation letters and called something different by everyone else. Sharp jaw. Darker eyes. The kind of boy whose name you learned before you were ready to. I learned his name eleven months ago. When the scholarship board announced their decision and my name wasn't on it. His was. I didn't cry. I went home and made dinner and helped Lily with her homework and waited until everyone was asleep before I let myself sit in the kitchen and understand what had just happened to us. That scholarship was mine. My scores were better, my application was stronger, even our homeroom teacher had told me, quietly, not to worry. And then it went to Marcus Reid, whose family had donated to Hawthorne's endowment three separate times, and I was told the decision was final and there was no appeal process. I saw him in the hallway the next week. He looked at me and I looked at him and neither of us said anything. But he smiled. Just slightly. Like he'd won something and we both knew it. I've hated him since that smile. The assembly hall started to loosen, students shifting, talking, chairs scraping. Maya grabbed my arm before I could move. "Elena." Her voice was low and thrilled in a way I didn't have the energy for. "Elena, that's Marcus Reid. They paired you with Marcus Reid." "I noticed." "Do you know what his test scores are? Do you know what his debate record is? You two are going to destroy everyone at Nationals." "Maya." "What?" "He took my scholarship." She went quiet for half a second. "I know. I know he did. But this is, this is different. This is a competition. You can use this." I wasn't interested in using anything. I was interested in getting through the next three minutes without saying something I couldn't take back. I didn't get those three minutes. The crowd parted the way it always does for Legacy students, not because anyone was told to, just because people move out of the way of things that look certain. Marcus Reid walked through them like he didn't notice, straight toward me, and I made myself stay still because I was not going to be the girl who backed up. He stopped close enough that I had to tilt my chin up slightly to hold his gaze. This close, the smile from eleven months ago was nowhere on his face. He just looked at me, reading something, deciding something. "Try not to slow me down," he said. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. "You ruined my life once already. Don't get comfortable." The air between us went still. A few people nearby had heard, I could feel them holding their breath, waiting. Marcus Reid didn't move. He didn't flinch. His expression did something strange, not guilt, not surprise. Something I couldn't locate. Like my words had landed somewhere he'd already prepared for them. Like he'd expected this, specifically. "Elena." Maya's hand closed around my wrist. "Come on." I let her pull me away. Marcus didn't follow. When I glanced back, once, just once, he was still standing in the same spot, watching me go. His face said nothing. "You just declared war on Marcus Reid," Maya said, steering me toward the door. She was still whispering but her voice had gone delighted, the way it does when drama is happening to someone she loves. "Full, open war. In front of everyone." I thought about that. "I'm not sure that's what I did," I said. I didn't know what I'd done. It hadn't felt like a declaration. It had felt like a reflex. Like my body protecting itself before my brain caught up. We were almost at the door when I heard my name. Not called, said. Quietly, from behind me, in a voice that expected to be obeyed. I stopped. Maya looked at me. I shook my head slightly and turned around. Marcus Reid was standing in the emptying assembly hall, a few feet away, students streaming past him like he was a fixed point. He wasn't looking at Maya. He was looking at me with an expression I still couldn't read, and his voice, when he spoke, was even. "What exactly do you think I did?" Not aggressive. Not defensive. A question he already knew was complicated. My hands were steady when I met his eyes. My voice was steady too. That's the thing about learning to perform calm, eventually you can't always tell when it's performance. "I don't think," I said. "I know." He didn't answer. He just looked at me the same way he had when I walked away. Like he was waiting for something. Like whatever game this was, he'd already played it further ahead than I had. I turned and walked out. The sunlight hit my face and I kept moving and I didn't let myself think about what it meant that Marcus Reid hadn't looked guilty for a single second.