The Bittersweet Revenge

The Show Is Not Over

Zara didn't sleep that night. She laid in her twin bed staring at the ceiling, unable to stop thinking about the kiss and the way her skin still felt warm where Damon had pressed his hand against her back. She told herself it didn't mean anything, but her brain wouldn't listen. She was too angry at herself for kissing him back.

Zara had spent four years building walls, telling herself she didn't need anybody—especially not some rich boy. But then Damon climbed through her window and kissed her, and for a few seconds she forgot all of that. "No," she whispered. "I'm not doing this." She looked at the gold key card on her desk. The clock said 5:47 AM.

Zara showed up at 6:15 on purpose. She walked to The Blackwood, a luxury apartment building ten minutes from campus. She had never been inside before, but she swiped the gold key card at the private entrance and walked in.

The elevator had mirrors and soft music. Zara looked at her reflection—dark circles, messy ponytail, no makeup. "I look like I'm going to a funeral," she said.

The elevator opened onto the top floor. Only one door. She knocked. No answer. She knocked again harder. Still nothing. "He said 6 AM," she muttered, then tried the handle. It turned. Unlocked. Of course.

Zara pushed the door open. The apartment was huge—floor-to-ceiling windows, marble kitchen, a refrigerator bigger than her closet, a large leather couch. A door on the far side was open a crack. She called out "Damon?" No answer. She walked closer.

The bedroom was even bigger, with a king-sized bed and a walk-in closet. Damon lay on the bed, shirtless, one arm over his eyes. Zara stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, waiting. One minute passed. Two. On the third, she picked up a pillow from an armchair and threw it at his face.

"WHAT THE—" Damon sat up quickly, confused, his hair messy and his eyes wide. Then he saw Zara and his smirk came back.

"Well, well," he said, leaning back against the headboard of the bed without trying to cover his body with the sheet. "The spy finally shows up. You're late."

"You said 6 AM, and it's 6:17," Zara said.

"I said don't be late, and seventeen minutes is late."

"Seventeen minutes is fashionably late," she said, dropping her bag on his floor. "You wanted me here, so I'm here. What do we do now?"

Damon looked at her for a long time, his eyes moving from her face down to her shoes and then back up again, and he said, "You look terrible."

"I didn't sleep," she said.

"Because of me?" He blinked his eyes at her like he was being cute. "I'm flattered."

"Because I was thinking about how to kill you," Zara said, pulling out his desk chair and sitting down and crossing her legs. "But I couldn't find poison this early in the morning."

"You're funny when you're angry," Damon said.

"I'm not angry, I'm annoyed, and there's a difference."

"Is there?" He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and Zara made sure she didn't look at his boxers. "Because your face is doing that thing where you look like you want to bite me."

"Maybe I do want to bite you," she said.

"Kinky," he said, and Zara put her hands up in the air.

"This is going to be exhausting, isn't it?" she asked.

"Only if you make it exhausting," Damon said, standing up and walking toward his closet without seeming to care that he wasn't wearing much clothing. "Here's how this works. You stay in this apartment when I'm not here, and when I'm here you stay within my sight, so if I go to class you go to class, if I eat lunch you eat lunch, and if I go to the bathroom—"

"I'm not following you to the bathroom," Zara said.

"Your loss," he said from inside the closet, his voice echoing a little. "My bathroom has heated floors."

Zara pressed her fingers against her temples because she had a headache. "I can't believe this is my life now."

"Get comfortable," Damon said, coming out of the closet wearing black jeans and a gray t-shirt. "You're going to be here for a while."

"How long is a while?" Zara asked, and Damon shrugged and picked up his phone from the nightstand.

"Until I trust you," he said.

"And when will that be?" she asked, and he looked at her then, really looked at her face for a long time like he was trying to see what she was thinking.

"Honestly? Probably never, but I'll get bored eventually and let you go."

"You're a nightmare," Zara said.

"I'm a generous nightmare," Damon said. He walked past her toward the door but then stopped and turned around, crossing his arms. "Oh, and one more thing. Don't fall for me."

Zara blinked, then laughed—a short, sharp laugh that didn't have any warmth in it. "Boy, please. You don't have to tell me that. That would never happen. Stop flattering yourself, Damon. I'd rather fall down a flight of stairs than fall for somebody like you."

Damon raised an eyebrow, but his smirk stayed put. "We'll see about that."

"We won't see anything," Zara said, standing up and grabbing her bag. "You're a blackmailer with a god complex and a revolving door for girls in your bedroom. I got better things to do with my time than catch feelings for a walking red flag. So save your little warnings for somebody who actually needs them."

Damon stared at her for a second longer, then shook his head and opened the door. "Breakfast in twenty minutes. Don't make me come back for you."

The door closed behind him, and Zara sat back down, her heart beating faster than it should have been. She told herself it was just adrenaline from the argument. Nothing else. Definitely nothing else.

***

One hour later, they walked into the dining hall together with Zara carrying a tray and Damon walking next to her, and everyone in the room turned to look at them, but Zara kept her eyes forward and her shoulders back because she didn't want to look embarrassed even though her face felt hot, and she could hear some of the whispers as she walked past: "Is that Damon Blackwood with the scholarship girl?" and "What is she doing with him?" and "Maybe she's his new tutor or something" and "Tutor? Look at how he's walking next to her. That's not a tutor situation."

Zara's cheeks got even hotter and she wanted to disappear, wanted to sink through the floor and never come back up, but Damon walked next to her like he owned the building—and honestly, his family probably did own part of it—so she said through her teeth, "Everyone's staring."

"Let them stare," Damon said.

"Easy for you to say because you're not the one they're calling a charity case," she said, and he looked down at her with an expression she couldn't read.

"Do you care what they think?" he asked.

"I care that my reputation is getting ruined because of you," Zara said.

"Your reputation?" He laughed loud enough that people turned to look at him. "You didn't have any reputation before me, and now at least people know your name."

"I don't want people to know my name," Zara said.

"Too late," Damon said, grabbing a tray and handing one to her. "Now move because I want the good waffles before the freshmen eat all of them."

They walked through the line and put food on their trays—Zara actually put food on her tray because she was hungry, but Damon mostly stood there looking bored—and then a girl from the cheerleading squad walked up to him and touched his arm. "Oh my god, Damon, I haven't seen you in forever," the girl said with a high, sweet voice. "Where have you been?"

"Busy," Damon said without looking at her. "Move."

The girl's face changed from sad to angry, and she walked away quickly, but before she left she looked at Zara with mean eyes, and Zara said, "You're mean."

"I'm efficient," Damon said, picking up a waffle. "There's a difference."

They found a table in the corner, and Damon sat down and then looked at everyone who was sitting near them, and one by one the other students picked up their trays and moved to different tables because they didn't want to be near him. Zara sat across from him and started eating her eggs, stabbing them with her fork because she was still angry, and she said, "So what's the plan? Are you going to follow me to every class and sit in the back and stare at my professors?"

"Something like that," Damon said, biting into his waffle. "I already talked to the school, and you're being moved into all of my classes."

Zara stopped moving her fork. "You what?"

"Moved into my classes," Damon said slowly because he thought she wasn't understanding him. "You're a scholarship student so your schedule can change, and the school didn't ask any questions."

"You can't just change my schedule," Zara said.

"I just did," Damon said, pulling out his phone and showing her the screen where there was a new schedule with all of the same classes as his classes and her name listed next to his name for each one. "See? Easy."

Zara wanted to flip the table over and pour her orange juice on his head and watch it drip down his face, but instead she took a deep breath and said, "You know this is illegal, right?"

"What part? Blackmail or kidnapping?" Damon asked.

"Both!" Zara said, and Damon laughed—a low laugh that made Zara's stomach feel strange, though she told herself that feeling didn't mean anything.

"Relax," he said. "You're getting a better education because my professors are better than yours."

"I don't care about any better professors," Zara said.

"Your loss," Damon said.

Someone behind them made a noise with their throat to get attention, and Zara turned around to see a tall girl with dark skin standing there, her hair in braids that were pulled back into a ponytail, her face having an expression that said she had seen everything and judged most of it, and she was wearing a Westbrook track jacket and carrying a tray with enough food for three people.

The girl wasn't looking at Zara, though. She was looking at Damon with her head tilted and one eyebrow raised, like she was seeing something she couldn't quite believe. "Well, well, well," she said, dragging the words out slowly. "If it isn't my favorite cousin out here acting a fool in public again."

Damon's smirk didn't drop, but something in his eyes shifted—a little less cocky, a little more annoyed. "Maya," he said, like a warning.

Maya ignored him completely and set her tray down on the table, right next to Zara, and slid into the seat like she owned it. "Don't 'Maya' me like that. I have been calling you for two days, and you haven't answered any of my texts. Then I hear from half the school that you're walking around with some new girl on your arm, looking all domestic and everything." She glanced at Zara, then back at Damon. "Another girl, D? Really? It's been like two weeks since you and Tessa broke up. You couldn't even wait a full month before finding somebody else to drag into your mess?"

Zara's eyebrows shot up. "Tessa?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

Maya waved a hand. "Don't worry about Tessa. Tessa is old news. Tessa cried for three days and then got a new boyfriend who actually texts her back." She pointed a finger at Damon. "But you? You're insane I swear, you go through girls like I go through hot chips."

Damon leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "First of all, she's not my girl. Second of all, mind your business."

"My business is your business because your mother will call my mother, and then my mother will call me, and then I gotta hear about how you're 'straying from the family values' for an hour." Maya rolled her eyes. "So yeah, it's my business."

She turned to Zara then, and her whole face changed from annoyed to friendly, like a switch had been flipped. "Anyway, enough about him. What's your name, pretty girl? And how did my dumb cousin trick you into sitting with him?"

Zara blinked, still processing that Maya was Damon's cousin. "I'm Zara," she said. "And he didn't trick me. He... blackmailed me."

Maya's eyes went wide, and then she burst out laughing—loud and real, the kind of laugh that made people at nearby tables turn and look. "Blackmailed you?!" she said between laughs. "Oh, that is so on brand for him. What did he do? Take a picture of you doing something embarrassing?"

Zara opened her mouth to answer, but Damon cut her off. "Maya, drop it."

"No, no, I want to hear this," Maya said, leaning her elbows on the table. "Zara, tell me everything. I got time."

Zara glanced at Damon, who was giving her a look that said don't you dare, but Maya was smiling at her like they were already best friends, and honestly, Zara was so tired of being scared of Damon that she just went for it. She looked down at her hands for a second, then back at Maya, and said, "He sneaked into my room last night. And now he's got a picture of me. He said if I don't live with him and do what he says, he'll send it to everyone."

Maya stopped laughing. She turned to Damon very slowly, her smile gone. "You sneaked into her room? At midnight? Damon, what the hell is wrong with you?" Her voice was low and sharp, not loud, but it cut through the noise of the dining hall.

Damon opened his mouth to say something, but Maya held up her hand and looked back at Zara. "What kind of picture are you talking about, Zara? Because the way you said that, it sounds like it's not just a regular picture."

Zara's face got hot. She could feel Damon's eyes on her, but she didn't look at him because she knew if she looked at him, she wouldn't be able to get the words out. She pressed her lips together and said, "It's not... it's not like that."

Maya leaned closer, her voice dropping. "Not like what? Girl, you gotta tell me. Is it a nude? Did he take a picture of you without your clothes on? Because if he did, I swear to god I will—"

"No," Zara said quickly, shaking her head. "It's not that. It's not... it's not a nude. I was wearing a towel, but that's not the point. The point is he just... he just took it. Without asking."

Maya's eyes narrowed. "A towel? So you were almost naked. And he just took a picture? How did he even get close enough to—" She stopped mid-sentence, and her face changed because she figured it out. "Wait. Zara. What was happening when he took the picture?"

Zara couldn't answer. Her throat felt tight and she stared at the table because she didn't want to see Maya's face when she said it. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and the silence stretched between them for too long.

Damon leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "She's not gonna tell you, Maya. So let me save you the trouble." His voice was calm, almost bored. "I kissed her. She kissed me back. I took a picture. End of story."

Maya's head snapped toward him. "You kissed her? And then you blackmailed her with a picture of the kiss?"

"I prefer to call it motivation," Damon said, and he almost smiled.

Maya ignored him and turned back to Zara, her voice softer now. "Zara. Look at me."

Zara looked up.

"Why didn't you tell me it was a kiss picture?" Maya asked. "Why were you so scared to say it?"

Zara swallowed hard and looked down at her hands again. "Because it's embarrassing," she said quietly.

Maya stared at her for a second, then burst out laughing. "Embarrassing? Girl, it's just a kiss. That's it? I was sitting here thinking you were about to tell me he had a whole nude of you or something. I was ready to go to war." She wiped her eyes and shook her head, still laughing. "All that drama over a kiss? You had me scared for nothing."

Zara blinked. "You're not... weirded out?"

Maya waved a hand. "Please. Half the school has kissed Damon at some point. It's not that deep." She glanced at Damon, who was watching her with a flat expression. "No offense."

"None taken," Damon said dryly.

Maya turned back to Zara. "So yeah. Stop being so hard on yourself. A kiss doesn't mean you're weak. It just means you got bad taste in men." She grinned. "But we can work on that."

Then Maya looked back at Damon, her smile fading. "Okay, but back to the blackmail thing. You're really holding a picture over her head? That's low, even for you."

Damon shrugged. "She was spying on me for my mother. We're even."

Maya's eyes went wide. She turned to Zara. "Spying? For his mother? Girl, what?"

Zara felt her face burn again. She wanted to disappear, but she couldn't run. So she took a breath and said, "Yes. It's true. His mother hired me. I shouldn't have done it. I was wrong." She stopped there, because she couldn't tell them the real reasons—that Mrs. Blackwood would cancel her scholarship, that the woman had photos of Zara's sister that she'd use as leverage. So she just looked down at the table and said, "Okay? I admit it. I was wrong. Can we talk about something else now?"

Maya stared at her for a long second, then let out a low whistle. "Wow. Okay. That's... a lot." She looked at Damon. "And you found out?"

"I found out," Damon said. "And now she's living with me until I decide I can trust her again."

Maya shook her head slowly, then picked up her apple and took a bite. "Y'all are both a mess. A whole mess." She chewed for a second, then pointed the apple at Zara. "But you know what? I still like you. You made a mistake, but at least you own up to it. That's more than most people do." Then she pointed the apple at Damon. "And you? You're still a menace. But I already knew that."

Maya shrugged. "Girl, I've known Damon's mother for my whole life. That woman is scary. I don't blame you for doing what you had to do." She grinned. "Besides, anybody who can make Damon this annoyed is automatically my friend."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Can we talk about something else now?"

"Fine," Maya said. "But I'm not done with you later." She turned back to Zara. "So. Tell me about yourself. What's your major? What do you do for fun? And how did you end up at this fancy school on scholarship?"

Zara let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. For the first time all day, she felt like maybe she wasn't completely alone.

***

The rest of the day was hard because every time Zara walked past a group of students they stopped talking and then started talking again louder so she could hear what they were saying: "I heard she's living with him now" and "Living with him? Like actually living with him?" and "My cousin's friend saw them leaving his building this morning" and "She must be desperate, or maybe she's just another one of his girls."

Zara's stomach felt sick when she heard that—another one of his girls, like she was just a number to him—but she wasn't and she would never be, but she couldn't tell that to a whole campus full of people who had already decided what they thought about her. By third period she was very tired, by lunch she was angry enough to hurt someone, and by seventh period something strange happened.

They were sitting in Calculus, a class Zara usually did very well in, but she was distracted and Damon kept tapping his pencil against his desk—tap, tap, tap—and the sound was annoying so she whispered, "Can you stop?"

"Can you solve the problem faster?" he asked.

"I'm trying," she said.

"You're thinking too hard," he said, leaning over so his shoulder touched hers and pointing at her paper. "It's substitution, not integration, so you're making it more complicated than it is."

Zara looked at his finger and then at the problem and then back at him. "How do you know that?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'm not stupid," he said.

"I never said you were stupid," Zara said.

"You thought it," he said, going back to tapping his pencil. "Everyone thinks it—the rich boy with the bad reputation must be dumb, right? That's why my mother hired you, to make sure I wasn't failing my classes."

Zara's throat felt tight. "I didn't—"

"It's fine," he said without looking at her. "I don't care what people think."

But something in his voice made Zara think that he did care, at least a little, and she finished the problem in thirty seconds because it was substitution just like he said, and she didn't say thank you to him but she also didn't forget that he helped her.

***

That night, Zara stood outside his apartment door with her duffel bag and a pillow from her own bed because she brought her own pillow so she wouldn't have to use his. "You brought your own pillow?" Damon asked, holding the door open for her.

"I don't know where your mouth has been," she said.

"Fair," he said, stepping aside so she could walk in. "The couch folds out into a bed, there are blankets in the closet, the bathroom is through that door, and don't use my toothbrush."

"Trust me, I won't touch anything of yours," Zara said.

"Good," he said, walking into his bedroom and closing the door.

Zara stood in the living room by herself, surrounded by expensive things that didn't belong to her, and she thought that this was her life now—living with someone she didn't like, sleeping on his couch, pretending that the kiss never happened. She unfolded the couch to make a bed and put her pillow down and laid on her back staring at the ceiling, and in the other room she heard Damon moving around and water running and a drawer opening and closing, and then everything was quiet, too quiet.

"Hey," she called out, and when no one answered she called again, "Damon."

The bedroom door opened and he was standing there in sweatpants and no shirt with his hair wet from the shower, looking annoyed. "What?" he asked.

"Why are you doing this?" Zara asked.

He leaned against the doorframe. "I already told you—I don't trust you."

"No, I mean," she said, sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest, "why didn't you just tell your mother that you knew about me? Why go through all of this—the blackmail and the picture and this?" She waved her hand around the apartment.

Damon was quiet for a long time, and then he said, "Because my mother doesn't stop. If I tell her I know, she'll just find someone else to spy on me—someone I don't know about, someone who's actually good at hiding." He looked at her and for a second his face changed and the smirk went away. "At least with you, I know where the knife is coming from."

Zara didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing, and Damon nodded once like she had passed a test and then went back into his room and closed the door. Zara laid back down and wondered how she had ended up in a situation that she didn't want to be in.

***

She was almost asleep when she heard the front door open and laughter—a girl's voice, high and giggly—and then Damon's voice, low and smooth, saying "Shh, you have to be quiet because my roommate is asleep." Zara opened her eyes and sat up just as the lights in the living room turned on, and Damon was standing there with a girl wrapped around him, the girl having blonde hair and wearing a short dress and kissing Damon's neck.

"Um," Zara said. "What is happening?"

Damon looked up like he had forgotten Zara was there. "Oh, you're still awake."

"It's midnight," Zara said. "Where else would I be?"

The blonde girl pulled back from Damon and looked at Zara with a confused face. "Who is that?" she asked.

"Nobody," Damon said. "Ignore her."

"Nobody?" Zara stood up and wrapped her blanket around her body. "I'm literally sleeping on your couch."

"Exactly," Damon said. "You're on the couch, not in the bedroom." He turned back to the blonde girl and put his hands on her sides. "Where were we?"

The girl giggled and pressed her body against Damon's body. "I think right here," she said, and then they started kissing again—not a soft kiss but kissing with their tongues and their hands moving on each other's bodies, the girl making a noise with her mouth as Damon pushed her against the wall.

Zara rolled her eyes so hard she almost gave herself a headache. "For real? You're doing this right now? In front of me?"

Damon pulled his mouth away from the girl's neck just long enough to say, "You got a problem?"

"Yeah, I got a problem," Zara said, crossing her arms. "I'm trying to sleep, and you're out here putting on a whole free show like I asked for tickets."

"Then close your eyes," Damon said, going back to kissing the girl's shoulder.

"You close your eyes," Zara shot back. "Better yet, close your legs. That might solve half your problems."

The blonde girl looked between them, clearly lost. "Should I leave?" she asked.

"No," Damon said.

"Yes," Zara said at the same time. "Please do. Save yourself. He doesn't even remember your name, I promise you."

Damon smirked. "Her name is Cassie."

Zara blinked. "Oh, wow. You remembered one. Congratulations. You want a gold star or something?"

Cassie giggled nervously. "This is weird. I'm gonna go."

"No, you're not," Damon said, grabbing her hand. "She's just bitter because she can't get any."

Zara laughed—a loud, sarcastic laugh. "Bitter? Baby, I'm relieved. Every time you take somebody to your room, that's one less night I gotta worry about you breathing down my neck. So thank you, Cassie. Thank you for your service." She gave a little salute. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go back to sleep."

She turned and walked toward the couch, but Damon called after her, "Don't wait up."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Zara said without looking back. "Literally. I don't dream about you. Ever."

She heard the bedroom door close, and then the sounds started—fake moans, Damon's muffled laugh, more moaning. Zara grabbed her phone and texted Maya.

Zara: He brought another girl home. Cassie, I think he said.

Maya: Another one?? It's only been a few days. He's ridiculous.

Zara: Tell me about it. They're in there making noises like they're filming a movie.

Maya: Gross. You want me to come over and cause a scene?

Zara: Nah. I got something better.

Maya: What?

Zara didn't answer. Instead, she pulled up a random playlist on her phone, found the most annoying song she could think of—some high-pitched children's nursery rhyme—and pressed play at full volume. Then she placed the phone right outside Damon's bedroom door and went back to the couch.

The bedroom door flew open a few seconds later. Damon stood there, shirtless, looking furious. "What the hell is that?"

"Music," Zara said sweetly. "I'm trying to set a mood. For sleeping."

"Turn it off."

"Make me."

He stared at her for a long second, then snatched up her phone and turned it off himself. "You're lucky I don't kick you out."

"You can't," Zara said, smiling. "Then you wouldn't know where the knife is coming from, remember?"

Damon's jaw tightened. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed—a short, real laugh. "You're something else."

"I know," Zara said. "Goodnight, Damon."

He shook his head and went back into the bedroom, closing the door. This time, she heard the lock click.

Zara laid back down, smiling in the dark. Her phone buzzed with a text from Maya: "You alive?"

Zara typed back: "Barely. But I won."

Maya: "That's my girl."

Zara put her phone down and closed her eyes. Just as she was drifting off, her phone buzzed one more time. She picked it up.

Unknown: Hope you're comfortable on that couch. The show's not over yet. 😉

Zara's blood went cold. He was texting her from inside his bedroom. While with Cassie.

She didn't reply. But she also didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

And somewhere in the dark, she heard him laugh.