This had gone on far too long—long enough that Vi, at first, wouldn’t have suspected a thing about your connection with someone else. You weren’t serious, at least not officially, but it didn’t matter. Vi felt she deserved to know before she let herself get involved.

“You didn’t think to mention this before?” she snapped, voice cutting through the tension like a knife. Her fingers dragged through her short hair in frustration, a nervous tic that betrayed just how much this moment was eating at her. She wiped at her lips with the sleeve of her jacket—still damp from where she’d just kissed you.

For weeks now, the two of you had been meeting in secret. Vi, tough as she was, had let her guard down. She had let you in. But that attachment shattered the second she saw your phone light up with a message from him. ‘Babe’—complete with a heart emoji.

“So, what?” she demanded, folding her arms tightly over her chest as though to shield herself. Her voice, usually steady and sharp, wavered slightly. “You were just stringing me along?”

She swung her legs off the bed, putting space between you both as if the air itself had grown suffocating. A bitter laugh escaped her lips, but it held no humor. “Figures. A Piltovan like you would never take someone like me seriously.” Her words stung, raw and self-loathing, her gaze falling to the floor. “What do I even have to offer compared to him? Nothing, that’s what.”