Chapter 5: Fake Love, Real Consequences
I played dumb, gladly accepting every calculated approach Savannah made after that.
In the crowded cafeteria, in the empty gym after everyone else had left—Savannah always managed to ‘run into’ me.
She started spending more and more time with me, her gaze getting more intense, until one day she pushed through the crowd and walked right up to me.
“Alex Monroe, I like you. Will you go out with me?”
My heart nearly stopped. I had to work not to let it show. When I pulled her into my arms, I pretended not to see the disdain she tried to hide behind her long lashes.
I just closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of vanilla and laundry detergent clinging to her. For a second, everything else faded.
There’s an old line people love: study hard and you’ll get the house and the girl.
Guess the old folks weren’t lying.
But I also knew this dream girl would only be mine for a little while.
Maybe she’d end this revenge game soon, dump me in public to get back at her old boyfriend.
Or maybe she’d drag it out, let me fall deeper, then call it off whenever she felt like it.
But what I didn’t see coming was that Savannah came into my life not to play with me, but to blow up my shot at a future.
The first time I realized this was in a gaming lounge downtown.
I was quietly working through practice problems beside her when she suddenly yanked off her headset in frustration, tossing it onto the table and interrupting her game.
I looked up, surprised. “What’s wrong?”
She stared at me for a long moment, then said coldly, “I hate when you do homework around me.”
I was a sucker for her, so I shoved my papers aside. “Then I won’t do them.”
She kept staring, her expression only getting colder. “I think there’s too big a gap between us.”
“I don’t like it.”
Something clicked, my heart pounding.
“So… what would you like?”
Suddenly, she leaned in so close our foreheads nearly touched, her voice almost a whine: “Can’t you just be a slacker like me?”
The blue glow of the screen shimmered in her glassy eyes. She looked like she was inviting me to jump off a cliff with her. “Alex Monroe, come into my world, and let’s be together forever.”
In that moment, I was almost delirious with joy.
So that’s what she wanted.
So that’s what Carter wanted.
I could practically hear the gears turning in their heads, but honestly, I didn’t care. I was in too deep.
*
I slid my hand behind her neck, tracing the lips I’d been dreaming about. “Kiss me.”
I knew Savannah didn’t like me, didn’t like my touch.
I’d always been careful not to cross the line, afraid she’d push back and end the game at any time.
But now, she wanted something from me. An exchange was only fair, right?
When her soft, cool lips finally pressed against mine, I silently thanked my past self for those twelve years of hard studying.
Alex Monroe, fate really hasn’t let you down.













