COMPLICATIONS
744 Words
Stephen Davies lived in her house.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
She watched him toss his keys onto the hall table with the casual entitlement of someone who'd done it a thousand times. Her mother hovered nearby, smile too careful.
"Stephen! Stella's here. Stella, this is Stephen. Stephen, Stella she's just arrived."
Stephen looked up. His gaze swept across Stella with the efficiency of someone cataloguing a painting they'd already decided wasn't worth their time. Then something flickered recognition, calculation and his expression shifted into something polite and distant.
"Right. The transfer student." He slung his blazer over one shoulder. "Try not to burn the place down. Though given that you threw my record under a bus on your first day, I wouldn't put it past you."
He disappeared up the stairs before she could respond.
Grace's smile dimmed.
"He's just being difficult," she said quietly. "He does that."
Dinner was tense.
Richard Davies was tall with Stephen's bone structure and none of his charm all hard lines and calculated smiles. He kept steering conversations toward neutral things: Stella's journey, the school's reputation, the weather. Like someone trying to defuse a bomb with instructions written in another language.
Stephen barely ate. He sat across from Stella with his phone in his lap, answering his father in monosyllables while pointedly not making eye contact with anyone.
The tension radiated off him in waves. Not petulance. Something older. Something that lived in the set of his shoulders, the way he cut his food into smaller and smaller pieces without actually eating any of it.
"Your teachers said you've been late to class three times this week," Richard said, mild as anything.
The entire table went still.
"They're wrong," Stephen said.
"They're not wrong. I have emails."
"Then your emails are from teachers with poor time management."
Richard set down his fork. It made a deliberate sound against the plate. "I didn't send you to Crestwood to test my patience."
"You sent me to Crestwood because you didn't know what else to do with me." Stephen finally looked up. His eyes were flat. "We both know it's true. So maybe we could skip the performance?"
"Stephen," Grace interjected softly. "Your father's just concerned "
"I didn't ask for your input," Stephen said. Not unkindly. But with the precision of someone who knew exactly where to cut.
Stella watched her mother's face close like a door.
After dinner, Stella found the library — two storeys lined with books, probably arranged by someone Richard hired.
She curled into a window seat and opened her phone. Kelly had already messaged.
KELLY: heard stephen looked at you in the cafeteria today. means he's interested
STELLA: he looked at everyone
KELLY: not like that apparently. not according to bella who is FURIOUS. saw her in the bathroom. real tears. not the graceful kind.
The next message was a photo. Bella Monroe in a stall, blotchy-faced, perfect hair coming loose.
STELLA: why do you have a photo of her crying
KELLY: a girl's gotta document her enemies. stella. if bella thinks stephen is interested in you, she will destroy you. actually destroy you.
STELLA: good thing he's not interested then
KELLY: he literally tried to bribe a teacher. that's not someone who follows rules. that's someone who gets what he wants. this could go really badly for you. or really well. possibly both.
Stella stared at the screen for a long time.
She didn't text back.
Later that night, she heard Stephen's music through the wall. Heavy. Aggressive. The kind designed to keep people out. A message. She understood it perfectly.
She lay in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling of her temporary room.
She thought about the way he'd looked at her in the cafeteria. Not the dismissal the moment before it. The two seconds where he'd actually seen her and hadn't known what to do with what he found.
She thought about the way he'd said your input at the dinner table, cutting Grace out with four syllables and no raised voice. Precise and cold and practised. The weapon of someone who'd learned early that volume was inefficient.
She thought about her mother's face closing like a door.
Stephen Davies hated her.
She'd known him for one day.
She wondered if that was a record.
She also wondered, quietly, in the dark, in a room that didn't belong to her yet, why hating him back felt so much harder than it should.
- Writer
