I MARRIED MY ENEMY FOR REVENGE

The Old Wound

I barely slept after Shadric left my room.

Every time I closed my eyes, his words came back.

When Ryan answers your questions, listen to what he doesn't answer, too.

None of it made sense.

By morning, I barely felt awake.

Then my phone buzzed against the nightstand.

Ryan.

I stared at his name longer than I should have.

Finally, I answered.

"Avalan?"

His voice came quickly, almost breathless, as though he had been waiting all morning for me to pick up.

"You hung up on me last night."

I slowly sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed while rubbing my forehead.

"I know. I'm sorry. Things got... chaotic."

"You didn't sound okay," he said in a softer voice.

I listened differently this time.

"I'm fine," I said quietly, staring down at my bare feet.

Ryan let out a slow breath.

"You don't sound fine, Avalan."

He paused.

When he spoke again, his voice had dropped almost to a whisper.

"Was he in the room with you?"

My silence lasted barely a second, but it was enough to give him a response.

"That guy seriously has no boundaries," Ryan said, irritation breaking through his usual calm.

The irritation caught me off guard.

I frowned.

"He only came upstairs to talk about the wedding," I said. "It wasn't a big deal."

"To manipulate you," Ryan corrected immediately.

The response came too quickly, as if he had already decided what had happened before I'd finished explaining.

"Ryan..."

"No, listen to me."

His voice became firm.

"You're letting him get inside your head. You're forgetting what he did to you. You're forgetting how he ruined everything."

His words pulled me straight back to Ashford.

I remembered the courtyard. The phones pointed at me. My letter in somebody else's hand. Shadric standing in the middle of it all.

I had liked Shadric long before I admitted it to anyone. We talked sometimes, argued more often, and I had spent far too much time wondering whether the way he looked at me meant anything.

Until the afternoon Ryan found out.

"You should just tell him."

I remembered looking up from my lunch, nearly choking.

We were sitting behind the old gym, sharing a bag of chips while pretending to work on a history assignment neither of us intended to finish.

"Absolutely not," I had whispered, my face burning.

"Are you insane? I would literally rather die."

Ryan laughed and bumped my shoulder.

"Avalan, come on."

"You look at that guy like he personally invented the sun."

"I do not."

"You literally forget how to breathe every time he walks past."

"You're annoying."

Back then, Ryan had been my safe place.

When home became unbearable, or school overwhelmed me, I texted Ryan. Around him, life felt lighter.

Later that same afternoon, Ryan stared across the courtyard toward Shadric.

"You know..."

"I think he notices you too."

"I've caught him looking over here."

I laughed immediately.

"Shadric doesn't even know I exist."

"He does."

"Trust me."

Something about the certainty in Ryan's voice planted a tiny, dangerous seed of hope inside me.

By then, every accidental glance from Shadric already felt meaningful. Every argument, every conversation, every time I caught him looking in my direction had become something I replayed later.

Not long after, Ryan finally convinced me to write Shadric a letter.

"It isn't a big deal," he had insisted.

"Girls do it all the time."

"He'll think it's sweet."

It was just an honest note telling him I liked him and asking if he'd like to get coffee sometime.

I could still remember sitting in the cafeteria, folding and unfolding that blue sheet of paper until the edges became worn.

Ryan watched with an amused smile.

"You've rewritten it twenty times. Just give it to him."

"It sounds stupid."

"No. It sounds sincere."

"That's worse. Sincere means vulnerable."

Ryan laughed quietly and draped an arm over my shoulder.

"Trust me."

"He's going to love it."

I hadn't questioned him. Why would I have? I trusted him completely.

By the time I was supposed to give Shadric the letter, panic had taken over.

"I can't do this," I had whispered, shoving the letter back toward my backpack.

"I'm throwing it away."

Ryan reached over and snatched it before I could.

"You're overthinking again."

"Ryan."

"Give it back."

"I mean it."

"I'll give it to him."

"It'll save you the panic attack."

My stomach tightened in fear.

"No."

"Ryan, stop."

But he had already stood.

"A little confidence wouldn't kill you."

"Relax."

"I've got your back."

Then he walked away with my letter while I stayed where I was, caught between hope and panic.

I remembered waiting for Ryan by the lockers after class.

He was supposed to meet me there, but he never came.

Then the whispers started.

Students began turning to look at me. Some pointed. Others whispered behind their hands while a few laughed at something on their phones.

I stood as more eyes settled on me.

Then I heard it.

"That's her."

A girl standing a few feet away said loudly enough for everyone around her to hear.

"That's the girl."

Another burst of laughter exploded beside me.

"Oh my God... she actually thought a guy like Shadric would ever look at someone like her? The delusion is insane."

I pushed through the crowd, my legs trembling beneath me as I followed the noise toward the courtyard.

A huge crowd had gathered on the stairs. And standing right in the middle of it was Shadric.

He looked completely caught off guard.

Ryan stood only a few feet away from him, half-hidden among the students.

And for the first time, I remembered something else.

Ryan didn't look shocked. He looked nervous.

His eyes kept darting around the crowd.

He wouldn't look at me.

"What's happening?" I had asked, my voice so small it barely sounded like mine.

The moment I reached the front, the crowd parted.

Someone lifted my blue letter into the air.

It was unfolded, crushed between the fingers of one of Shadric's friends.

The laughter became deafening.

"She wrote him an entire love letter!"

"Read the poem again!"

"She actually thinks they have a connection!"

Phones pointed towards me while laughter rose around the courtyard.

I looked straight at Shadric.

I expected smugness, cruel satisfaction, a bully enjoying the moment.

But I didn't find any of it.

He looked genuinely confused.

He kept looking from the letter to me as though he was trying to understand what was happening.

"Avalan!"

Ryan's voice broke through the noise.

He sounded panicked. He even reached toward me.

But I couldn't take his hand.

I couldn't hear anything over the roaring inside my head because all I could see was Shadric standing there.

He hadn't stepped forward or stopped them. He had simply stood there.

Silence meant agreement. Silence meant he thought I deserved it. Silence meant he was laughing with everyone else, even if he never actually smiled.

I turned and ran.

I ran through the school gates with the laughter following me, and I didn't stop until I reached home.

An hour later, someone uploaded a video of me crying.

I quit the track team. I stopped attending school events. I withdrew from everyone.

Everyone except Ryan.

Ryan came to see me every day, reminding me that Shadric had been cruel and heartless.

"...Avalan?"

Ryan's voice suddenly pulled me back to the present.

"Are you still there?"

I blinked hard.

The quiet morning outside my bedroom window slowly came back into focus.

I hadn't even realised my fingers were gripping the windowsill so tightly they had gone numb.

"Yeah," I whispered.

"I'm here."

"You went quiet again," Ryan said, his voice returning to that familiar, comforting calm.

"I know this wedding is putting you under a lot of pressure. But don't forget who has always been in your corner, okay?"

He paused.

"I'm the only person who never lied to you."

A chill ran through me.

Nothing I remembered proved Shadric innocent.

But it didn't prove what I had always believed either.

If Shadric really hadn't known about the letter, how had it ended up in his friend's hands?

And why had Ryan looked nervous before anyone even turned on me?