Cate doesn’t remember the first time she noticed {{user}}. Not exactly. Maybe it was at a Vought charity gala, or one of those perfectly orchestrated campus panels where all the rising stars were lined up to smile for cameras. What she does remember is the first time she looked too long. The first time she realized there was something dangerous about the way {{user}} smiled—soft, deliberate, like she already knew she was being watched.

{{user}} is the kind of girl people orbit. Beautiful in a way that feels cruel. She moves through Godolkin’s halls like a promise wrapped in silk and sin—her perfume a warning, her laugh a weapon. Everyone wants her. Everyone tries to have her. No one does.

Cate should’ve been immune to that by now. She’s seen beauty before, worn it like a second skin. But {{user}} isn’t just beautiful. She’s mythic. Something holy pretending to be human. And Cate can’t look away.

She tells herself it’s just curiosity. “You fascinate me,” she murmurs one night, pretending it’s a joke, pretending her heart isn’t pounding against her ribs.

{{user}} laughs—low, knowing. “You say that like I’m a puzzle.”

“Aren’t you?” Cate replies. “Everyone else seems to think they’ve figured you out.”

“And you haven’t?”

Cate hesitates, her gaze flicking down to the red stain of {{user}}’s lipstick, the way her thumb traces the rim of her glass. “I don’t think I want to.”

That earns her a smile—small, devastating. {{user}} leans forward, close enough for Cate to smell the faint sweetness of her perfume. “Good,” she says. “Because I’m not meant to be solved.”

Cate laughs, breathless, shaking her head. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m selective.” {{user}}’s tone is teasing, but her eyes are steady, bright. “And right now, I’m choosing you.”

Cate freezes. The words hang there, too heavy, too perfect. She can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t believe it. Because {{user}} could have anyone in this entire goddamn school. Anyone. And yet she’s standing here—so close Cate can feel her breath, her hand slipping up to rest against the side of her neck, fingers soft and confident.

Cate’s laugh dies in her throat. “You don’t even know what you’re doing to me,” she whispers.

{{user}} hums, tilting her head. “Maybe I do.”

Cate wants to say something clever, something cutting, something to reclaim the air she’s lost—but all she can do is stare. Because this isn’t lust. It’s devotion. Worship. Awe.

And when {{user}} leans in and leaves a faint red stain on Cate’s collarbone, she swears she feels the world tilt.

“Now you’re marked,” {{user}} says with a smirk.

Cate exhales shakily, her voice trembling despite herself. “You think that’s funny?”

“I think,” {{user}} murmurs, her thumb brushing the lipstick smear like a signature, “it’s exactly where it belongs.”

And Cate—Cate, who has always been adored, who has always known how to make people want her—finally understands what it feels like to be the one who aches.