Chapter 84 JUNIPER

Chapter 84 JUNIPER
I ran my hands under the tap, watching the water swirl, and tried not to think about the way Knox's mouth had felt against mine before class that morning.

Tried, and failed spectacularly, because apparently my brain had decided that was the only thing worth replaying on a loop today.

The door swung open behind me. I clocked them in the mirror before I turned around — Tracy, flanked by Jade and Sandra, who trailed her everywhere like a matched set of designer accessories.

"Well." Tracy's voice hit that particular pitch — sweet on the surface, poison underneath. "If it isn't campus's newest leading lady."

I let out a long, put-upon sigh without bothering to turn around. 

"The evil stepsisters, and the evil stepmother, live and in person. All I'm missing is a pumpkin and a fairy godmother with significantly better taste in company."

Tracy stepped into view in the mirror, studying me with a frown — salon-blonde hair, flawless nails, the whole polished package, like she'd been priced out of a catalog. Her personality had the warmth of an empty parking garage.

"Stepmother? Me?" She gave me a slow once-over, her smile dripping with fake sweetness. 

"Oh, please. You think you're Cinderella?" Her gaze lingered deliberately on my dress, drifting down and back up like she was pricing it, before she let out a little laugh. 

"I don't know how to tell you this, but Cinderella didn't look quite so... trashy."

I grinned, turning to face her properly. Jade hovered at Tracy's left, arms crossed, expression somewhere between bored and mildly disgusted. On the right stood Sandra, who I was fairly sure had been photocopied directly off Jade and given a slightly different haircut.

"Thanks," I said pleasantly.

"It wasn't a compliment."

"Then why did I take it as one? Must be a gift — finding silver linings in whatever you throw at me. You should try it sometime, might improve your outlook. Or at least your face when you're saying things like that. Right now you look like someone canceled your appointment at the personality store."

Tracy's smile thinned. "You think you're funny."

"I think I'm hilarious, actually, but I'm flattered you're taking notes." I slung my bag over my shoulder. 

"Although if we're doing the Cinderella thing, you're skipping the best part of the story."

"And what's that?"

"Prince Charming." I raised an eyebrow, all faux sweetness. "You know — the part where he picks the girl in the ridiculous dress, and everyone else just has to live with it."

Something flickered across Tracy's face, fast and ugly, gone almost before I caught it. "Knox didn't pick anything. You stole him."

I actually laughed — a real one, surprised out of me. "Stole him. Right. Like he was sitting in your handbag and I reached in and grabbed him while you weren't looking." I shook my head. 

"Tracy, I hate to break this to you in a bathroom of all places, but Knox isn't a possession. He's not a bracelet you misplaced. If he's not where you left him, that's not a theft. That's just an update."

Jade made a small, strangled sound that might have been a laugh she swallowed at the last second.

Tracy's jaw tightened, the crack in her composure widening a little more than she probably meant to let show. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Probably not," I said breezily.

“I saw the whole thing,” she pressed on. “Very cute. The hand-holding, the little walk, the—” her mouth twisted, “—kiss.”

“Yeah, Tracy, I think everyone saw it. We did it in the middle of a public hallway, not inside a top-secret government bunker. He's very talented." I kept my tone unbothered, casual, then let a beat settle before adding, 

"Especially with that mouth of his," watching her face for the reaction while my own pulse did something traitorous at the memory.

"Anyway. Was there a point to this ambush, or did you just want front-row seats to me drying my hands?"

"The point," Tracy said, dropping the sweetness a few more degrees, "is that I've known Knox a lot longer than you have. And I know exactly what this is."

"Enlighten me. I love a good lecture from someone who clearly has nothing better to do."

Her jaw ticked before she smoothed it back into something composed. 

"You're a phase. That's all this is. Knox does this — picks up something new, something different," she said the word like it tasted bad, 

"plays with it a while, gets bored, moves on. He's done it before. He'll do it again. You're not special. You're just the current one."

I dried my hands slowly, taking my time, letting the silence stretch just long enough to be uncomfortable for her instead of me.

"A phase," I repeated, trying the word on for size. "Hm. I don't think so, actually."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't think so." I set the towel down and leaned against the counter, like I had all the time in the world and she was the one intruding on it. 

"See, phases don't usually kiss you in front of an entire hallway like they've been thinking about it all morning. Phases don't put a hand on your waist like they're claiming something. I don't know — maybe your exes were less committed to the bit. Mine seems to be putting in real effort."

"I'm serious," Tracy snapped, some of the polish finally slipping.

"I can tell. You've got your serious face on. Very similar to your regular face, for what it's worth, but I appreciate the effort."

"You think this is funny?"

"A little, yeah." I crossed my arms, meeting her glare with one of my own. 

"You corner me in a bathroom to inform me I'm a phase like it's some kind of exclusive intel drop. Like I hadn't already considered the possibility on my own, being, you know, a person with a functioning brain and general access to the concept of relationships."

"Then you already know I'm right."

"I know you want to be right. There's a difference." 

"You're delusional if you think this is real," she snapped, the last of her composure finally giving out. 

"He doesn't do real. Ask anyone. Ask Hunter. Ask literally anyone who's known him longer than a few weeks."

"Funny," I said, "because he didn't seem like he was performing for an audience when he kissed me. Kind of hard to fake the way someone holds you like he'd forgotten there were other people in the hallway." I examined my nails like this was the most boring conversation I'd had all week. Honestly, it was.

"He told me he loved me last night. Twice, when he dropped me off — said it right before he kissed me goodnight, like he'd been building up to it all evening. And again this morning, when he picked me up. Could barely keep his hands off me the whole drive over. Very needy, your ex. It's almost sweet, watching a guy who supposedly 'doesn't do real' fall over himself trying to prove otherwise."

None of it was strictly, technically, one-hundred-percent true in the way she thought it was. But watching her face do something complicated and furious was worth every inch of the exaggeration.

"He didn't—" Tracy started, then stopped herself, jaw working like she was chewing on the rest of the sentence and couldn't get it down.

"He did." I twirled a strand of hair around one finger, thoroughly enjoying myself now. 

"But sure, keep telling yourself he doesn't do real. Must be nice, living in that specific brand of denial. I hear it's very cozy this time of year."

"You have no idea what you're talking about." Her voice had lost most of its bite now, gone thin and brittle, scrambling for footing it clearly didn't have anymore.

"Probably not." I checked the time on my phone, unbothered by the wait. "But here's what I do know — I've got a class to get to, and you've apparently got nothing better to do than ambush strangers over sink real estate. So let's call it here."

I stepped past her, close enough that she had to shift to let me through, and paused at the door.

"Oh, and Tracy?" I looked back, letting just enough sweetness creep into my voice to match the venom she'd started with. 

"If I am a phase — and that's a big if — I promise I'll still have had more fun in it than you've had in your entire relationship history. So really, you should be thanking me for the show. Free entertainment. You're welcome."

She opened her mouth — one more attempt, I could see it building — but nothing came out. Jade wouldn't meet her eyes anymore. Sandra had gone very interested in the tile floor.

"Also," I added, because apparently I wasn't quite finished either, 

"cornering someone in a bathroom, three-on-one, hoping they'll crumble and run off crying? That's a very specific kind of desperate, even for you. Did you rehearse this on the way over, or was 'ambush by the sinks' improvised? Because if it's the latter, genuinely impressive. If it's the former, I'd ask for a refund on whoever wrote your material."

I didn't wait for a reply. I pushed through the door and let it swing shut behind me, and it wasn't until I was halfway down the hallway, heart still hammering, hands still faintly trembling, that I let myself process what she'd actually said.

You're a phase. He's done it before. He'll do it again.

I knew that, technically. It wasn't exactly a secret — Knox went through girls about as often as he went through socks, and everyone on this campus had a story to prove it. I'd walked into this arrangement with my eyes wide open, no illusions, no expectations past the terms we'd agreed on.

So why did it feel like something had cracked, just slightly, underneath my ribs?

I told myself it didn't. Repeated that the whole walk to class, like a fact I could will into being true if I said it with enough conviction.

But some small, traitorous part of me — the same part that had gone soft and stupid the second Knox's mouth had touched mine that morning — filed her words away anyway, tucked them somewhere I couldn't quite reach to throw out.

Because fake or not, temporary or not, there was exactly one thing Tracy had said that I couldn't fully argue with — not without lying to myself first.

I really, really hoped I wasn't just a phase.

Which was a stupid thing to hope for, considering none of this was even real to begin with.