Chapter 11

Rowan Hale had kissed boys before.

That was the thing that made this worse.

She’d done it because it was expected, because it was easy, because it required nothing she wasn’t already good at giving—charm, distance, control. Boys were uncomplicated. They laughed when they were supposed to. They didn’t look at her like they were waiting for her to flinch.

They didn’t see her.

Friday night, Rowan stood in front of her closet longer than necessary, staring at clothes she’d worn a hundred times. She chose something safe. Something neutral. Something that didn’t invite questions.

Something that said normal.

The party was already loud when she arrived. Familiar faces. Familiar music. Familiar rhythm. Rowan moved through it like she always did—confident, contained, untouchable.

A guy she vaguely knew from math class slid up beside her within minutes.

“Hey, Hale,” he said easily. “Didn’t think you’d show.”

Rowan smiled on instinct. “Here I am.”

He handed her a drink. She took it. Their fingers brushed, and she felt nothing. Not nerves. Not heat. Just absence.

They talked. He laughed. He leaned in closer.

Rowan let him.

She told herself this was what she was supposed to want. This was how it worked. You showed up, you flirted, you played the part everyone already had written for you.

It felt like wearing someone else’s jacket—fine from the outside, suffocating underneath.

“You okay?” he asked after a moment.

Rowan nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

He smiled. “You’re kind of intense, you know that?”

She laughed softly. “I get that a lot.”

What she didn’t say was that she was only intense when she was forcing herself to be somewhere she didn’t belong.

Her gaze drifted across the room without permission.

Lila stood near the stairs, laughing with her friends, hair loose, posture relaxed in a way Rowan had never been able to master. She looked beautiful without trying.

Rowan’s chest tightened.

She looked away immediately, like she’d been caught doing something wrong.

The guy followed her line of sight. “Cheer captain, right?”

Rowan stiffened. “Yeah.”

He smirked. “Heard you two hate each other.”

Rowan took a sip of her drink. “You heard wrong.”

Or maybe you heard exactly right, she thought. Just not in the way you think.

The guy leaned closer. “You wanna get out of here? It’s loud.”

Rowan hesitated.

This was the moment. The easy one. The familiar one. She could say yes, follow him somewhere quieter, let things happen the way they always had.

She could prove—to him, to herself, to everyone—that nothing was wrong.

She nodded. “Sure.”

They stepped outside onto the back porch, the night cool against her skin. He stood close. Too close. His hand brushed her arm, lingered.

Rowan’s body didn’t respond.

Not the way it was supposed to.

Her mind betrayed her instead—Lila’s voice, Lila’s eyes, the way she’d said I don’t hate you like it mattered.

Rowan stepped back abruptly.

“Sorry,” she said. “I—”

He frowned slightly. “Did I do something?”

“No,” Rowan said quickly. “It’s me.”

She hated how true that sounded.

He studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. No pressure.”

He left without making it weird, without making it dramatic.

That somehow made it worse.

Rowan leaned against the railing, heart pounding, stomach twisting with something that felt a lot like panic. She stared out into the dark, breathing slowly until the noise in her head quieted enough to think.

She didn’t want this.

She didn’t want them.

She wanted—

Rowan closed her eyes.

She wanted Lila.

The admission felt dangerous even in the privacy of her own mind. She’d been circling it for weeks, pretending it wasn’t there, pretending this was confusion or stress or stubbornness.

But standing there, alone and unsatisfied and painfully aware of exactly who she’d been looking for all night, she couldn’t lie to herself anymore.

She went back inside, weaving through the crowd, searching without meaning to.

She found Lila near the kitchen this time, listening to someone talk, expression polite but distant. Rowan watched her for a second too long.

Lila looked up.

Their eyes met.

Something unspoken passed between them—hurt, recognition, tension so thick it felt physical. Lila’s gaze flicked past Rowan, then back, sharper now.

Rowan swallowed.

She wanted to cross the room. Wanted to say something, anything that didn’t sound like an excuse or a retreat.

She didn’t.

Instead, she turned away.

She left the party ten minutes later without saying goodbye to anyone.

In her car, Rowan gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles went white.

She felt angry. At herself. At expectations she hadn’t questioned soon enough. At how easy it would have been to keep pretending.

She thought about all the times she’d forced herself to feel something she didn’t, just because it was simpler than admitting the truth.

Liking boys wasn’t hard.

Wanting them was.

Lila, on the other hand, made wanting feel unavoidable. Uncomfortable. Honest in a way Rowan had never practiced being.

Rowan drove home with the windows down, the cold air biting at her skin, grounding her. By the time she pulled into her driveway, her chest hurt with the weight of what she finally understood.

This wasn’t a phase.

This wasn’t rivalry.

This wasn’t confusion.

It was desire sharpened by denial, made painful by fear.

And the worst part, the part Rowan couldn’t escape no matter how fast she drove, she knew that Lila had probably figured it out long before she had. 

Rowan sat in her car long after the engine went quiet, staring at nothing, finally admitting the truth she’d been running from:

She didn’t hate trying to like guys because it was awkward or boring.

She hated it because every time she tried, she was choosing safety over the one person who made her feel real.

And she was running out of ways to pretend that choice didn’t matter.