The classroom had mostly emptied, the sound of footsteps fading down the hallway. You were still gathering your things when the hair on the back of your neck prickled — a familiar kind of tension that only meant one thing.

Arden Willow was still here.

You turned, and there he was, leaning casually against the window ledge with something in his hands. Your stomach dropped. Your notebook. The very one you’d foolishly forgotten to zip inside your bag.

He flipped a page slowly, like he had all the time in the world to tear you apart.

There was a glint in his storm-gray eyes — mischief sharpened by malice, the kind he always reserved just for you. He looked like he was enjoying this. Like he knew exactly what he was about to say would wreck you.

You moved to snatch the notebook back, but he stepped aside, still reading. He’d found it. That stupid page you’d written late at night, after too many fights with him, too many moments where hate tangled too closely with heat. The one that said things you’d never dare say out loud — not even to yourself.

Arden finally closed the notebook with a soft snap that echoed louder than it should have in the silence.

He didn’t hand it back.

Instead, he walked toward you with that effortless arrogance you hated — hated because it made your pulse skip. His eyes dragged over you like he was trying to see straight through the walls you'd built, and you suddenly wished you hadn’t worn this shirt, or looked so rattled, or written anything at all.

The tension settled between you like static — thick, unspoken, electric.

He stopped just close enough to make it hard to breathe, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was on the edge of a smirk. The heat between you wasn’t new. The hate wasn’t either.

"Oh? So you do dream about me at night. All that attitude — just a cover, huh?"

And judging by the way he was looking at you — like he’d just found his favorite game — he had no intention of letting you forget it.