"You are completely ignoring me."

I startled. Aaron was glaring at me over my textbooks. I was not entirely awake, having reached my physical and mental limit for a Friday. He had taken it upon himself to turn our usual hangouts into study session; claiming I would get humiliated on Tuesday by my Tranquillity tutor if I didn't have a handle on basic essay structure. He didn't even take Mod, but he was determined to see me graduate.

"Hmm?" I murmured. My hangover had subsided, but my focus was waning.

"I've been talking absolute nonsense for three minutes to see if you were listening," Aaron frowned. "I asked for your opinion on the government conspiracy to harvest the moon and you said it made sense from an economic standpoint."

I was surprised I had the brainpower to articulate words like economic and standpoint. "I was joking."

"You look like shit," Aaron advised me.

"I'm not sleeping well," I scrubbed my face with both hands. I'd woken up to Reece rifling around in my room, claiming to be collecting my washing. The man had never done my washing in his life; I had been hesitant to leave him alone with access to my room, but I trusted the security of my walk-in. He hadn't found it for two years, after all.

Caleb hadn't texted me back, but he'd seen the photo. I'd glimpsed him for a second in the hallway, uniform visibly unironed. I considered sending another text and calling him out on it, but I didn't want to push my luck. He'd surprised me the night before, both by caring enough to drive me home and trusting me enough to open up when I pried. He might have done it under the assumption I would be too drunk to remember, but I recalled every word. Especially the notion that he had slept in his car to save me a beating from Aidan.

He'll take out his frustrations on Aaron or Max or you.

"Right, well, we're clearly getting nowhere," Aaron closed his textbook with a snap. "Max doesn't finish training until four-thirty. Do you want to go get loaded fries?"

I could have kissed him. We drove to the local diner and ate way too many chilli slathered chips, for which my hangover thanked me for immensely, before Aaron's phone buzzed and we were on our way back to school.

Max was waiting by the soccer field with his duffle bag at his feet and a brunette girl on his arm. He was stroking her hair off her face, making her laugh with a likely unfunny joke. Aaron and I wore identical expressions of distaste, as Max picked up his bag and left the girl hanging with his fingers lingering on her waist.

He slid into the backseat, wearing a dopey grin.

"I was going to ask how you were coping with being benched this weekend, but it looks like you'll have a buddy to keep you company," Aaron told him dryly.

"Don't be like that," Max kicked the back of his seat. "Her name is Georgia and she's adorable."

"Georgia... oh shit," Aaron's eyes went wide. "Georgianna McCaffrey, as in Aidan's sister?"

Max cracked his knuckles, one by one. "I warned you."

"I thought you were kidding!"

"Chill. I'm not going to have sex with her. Just take her out for a nice dinner after the game, hit Isadora's eighteenth together and let McCaffrey's imagination do the rest," Max smirked. "That's what he gets for having Trout bench me half the season."

"And you think seducing his sister is going to get you back on the pitch?" I asked him wryly.

"What's he going to do, fight me?" Max challenged. "He's on probation."

"He's also Mr. Troutman's golden boy," I reminded him. "And he's broken probation for less, I can say from experience."

"Can we also keep in mind that there's another person in this school who looks identical to you?" Aaron cried. "And if Aidan decides you're worth the risk, has a fifty-fifty percent chance of bumping into him first and taking his wrath?"

"I'll wear the M sweater on Monday," Max said cheerfully.

The M sweater was a hideous creation from their aunt Maya. Max wore it exclusively to be ironic. Aaron had 'misplaced' his A equivalent years ago. Its ashes were scattered in my backyard.

Reece was sitting at the television when I got home, half-watching an overzealous shootout between two men in spurs and wide-brimmed hats. He hadn't changed clothes from the morning, and I predicted that he smelt something wicked.

He muted the screen before I could fly up the stairs. "Miles?"

I inhaled slowly, calming myself before responding. "Who else?"

"Come over here."

I dropped into the armchair as willingly as an inmate into an electric chair. Reece itched his unshaven neck and looked faintly uncomfortable.

"How was school?" he asked gruffly.

"I was there," I replied in earnest.

"Mmm. How are your grades coming along?"

I shrugged distractedly. Reece interlaced his fingers on his knee and leaned forward, eyes downcast.

"Miles," he began, and then hesitated. He was visibly flustered all of a sudden. "If you're... if you're going to have girls come over, I'd like to know about it."

My eyebrows hit their peak. "Pardon?"

"I'm not dumb," Reece raised his voice slightly, and I bit back a comment which would have landed my in hotter water. "I vacuumed your room today. I found blonde hair on your carpet. And a shirt with lipstick on the collar."

If my heart hadn't immediately climbed into my throat, I might have been inclined to remind him that I was blonde. But I knew instantly what he meant. There was a reason I didn't take my drag out of my closet unless it was stuffed in a backpack. But maybe I hadn't been so careful packing it away the night before, thanks to my drunkenness. Reece had keen eyes when he was looking for a reason to lecture me. "You vacuumed?"

"It's my house too, Miles," Reece steamrolled my snarky attempt at changing the subject. "And if you weren't obviously slacking off in school because of it, I wouldn't need to ask questions. Then again, I thought it didn't need to be said that I'm not okay with you sneaking girls up to your room behind my back."

I pursed my lips. Despite the direness of the situation, I could feel a smile coming on.

"How long have you been seeing her?" he asked. I bit my tongue to dissuade the laughter bubbling in the back of my throat. "Or is it more than one?"

"Just one," I managed.

"Don't get me wrong, it's... natural," Reece shifted in his sofa, fingers curling in the way they did whenever he needed a smoke. "And I'm... it's good. I was beginning to think you'd been born without a dick."

I laughed humourlessly. Reece joined me, eyes flicking on and off my face. His teeth were dull yellow, like a rat's. "What's her name?"

"Steph," I said quickly.

"Does she go to your school?"

I wondered to myself how far Reece would go to catch me in a lie. Surely, he was too lazy to check school manuscripts. But the risk wasn't worth it. "She goes to Her Lady of Tranquility, actually."

"Ahh," Reece chortled. "Look out for private school girls. They've got teeth."

I stilled. "Mum went to Tranquility."

"I know. A joke," Reece's tone switched to dull monotony. "It was a joke."

I didn't grace him with a laugh, even an obviously false one. Sensing that my time had been served, I pushed out of the chair and walked silently to the stairs.

"What're you doing Tuesday, Miles?" he asked my back. I went numb all over. Tuesday was the anniversary. I had been doing well not to remember it. Having Reece pull me out of that blissful ignorance made my blood boil and my intestines twist.

"I have a tutoring session."

"I was thinking..." Reece searching for that non-existent cigarette had turned desperate, fingers clenching in and out of a fist. "We could go to Judice Beach, grab some dinner. She loved it there. Weather'll be nice, too. What do you think?"

My grief was an arrow in my sternum, pointed at Reece more than it wasn't. When it wasn't, it fell back against my lungs and made it difficult to breathe. I kept the fire of my rage well-stoked.

"Don't take this the wrong way," I lied to his face. "But the last place I want to be on Tuesday is with you."

Reece's expression was unreadable. Screaming and shouting would have been easier to digest. A fist raised, a lingering bruise. What I hated about Reece the most was he hide behind the mask of a reasonable person. It made me feel crazy for loathing him.

"Alright, Miles," he picked up his carton of cigarettes from the coffee table. "Keep doing whatever you want. It not like I ever stopped you before."

"Stop going in my room," I called behind him. "It's creepy."

The front door slammed. I climbed the stairs feeling self-satisfied. I censored myself more than I liked to admit in front of Reece. The anniversary provided a perfect excuse for me to speak my mind. I couldn't complain about Reece because he hid behind selflessness. He couldn't complain about me for one week on the year when I could hide behind my mother's death.

Safe in my bedroom, I began to laugh. I bent over and cackled.

Reece thought I had a girlfriend. Reece thought I had a girlfriend and that was the reason I was slacking off at school.

I staggered to my bed, picked up a pillow as my belly ached from laughing. I stuffed my face into and screamed, unconstrained until my throat began to sting, and I remember that I was singing on Sunday. So, I returned to laughing.

I never thought to use the girlfriend excuse for anything. It was a step up in the playing-it-straight game, a game I had never been very invested in. But it was a pretty good excuse when I thought about it. Scratches in the floorboards, from high heels? Girlfriend. Makeup on clothes? Girlfriend. Out every night? Clingy girlfriend, what can you do?

The idea kind of disgusted me. I didn't like the idea of Sephora being reduced to a high school fling. But if it kept Reece off my back, I would have happily called myself whipped.

I kind of wanted to text Caleb. But I was sober, with no ounce of Sephora's confidence. I was a slightly hungover teenager holed up in his room, dreaming of the day his crush would notice him.

Caleb's clothes, from that first dreamscape of a night, were draped across my desk like condemning evidence. I was thankful Reece didn't pay enough attention to me to realise that his clothes were far from my size. I rolled off my bed and approached them, picking them up tentatively. The collar was dusted with highlighter and smeared with lipstick. It was the kind of stain that couldn't have been achieved without someone rubbing their face feverously on the inside of the material. I was lucky Reece had very rudimentary investigation skills.

Weirdly enough, I was regretting returning Caleb's hat. Wearing it had been a non-creepy alternative to smelling the t-shirt he'd lent me. Although it would have been odd to insist on keeping it to his face.

I flopped across my bed and checked Sephora's Instagram. My follower requests had grown by another hundred, requests which I accepted blindly. Zsa Zsa had tagged me in a photo of us both from the night before, prompting the rush of follows.

I snuck a glimpse of Caleb's Instagram. My heart hitched when I clicked into the account and saw thin white text informing me This account is private. Follow this account to see their photos and videos.

There I had been, thinking we were getting somewhere. Remembering the photo, I'd sent him the night before, my cheeks burned with humiliating. He had likely deleted it without a second thought. I had overstepped his very clear boundaries, and he was punishing me for it.

I still had the screenshot in my photo gallery. Feeling even more like a creep, I opened it up just to stare. Caleb Proust was stunning. A once in a lifetime beauty. He would live a long, happy, attractive life with someone equally as attractive. Someone who didn't threaten his social standing and lecture him while completely hammered after he'd been nice enough to offer them a lift home.

Staring at his image was like drooling over a celebrity. I never stood a chance. I deleted the photo before I could think myself out of it.

His life, my life, and all that. I rolled over and clenched my pillow against my face. It muffled my frustration as well as anything.

Crushes faded. Whatever fluttered in my heart whenever I thought about Caleb's eyes, his mouth, his hesitant way of speaking whenever he revealed something personal – I sensed that would take longer to quash.

a/n: the end. 

i'm kidding, i'm kidding. ~