Ididn’t cry. Of course I didn’t cry.

I doesn't cry over boys.

But when I walked out of the café after Scott brushed me off—with that same sterile, mechanical charm he gives every girl—it felt like I’d been slapped with a diamond I couldn’t afford to wear.

I had done everything right. Laughed at his dull jokes. Wore the perfect outfit. Let him think he was smarter than me, stronger. Men like that need to feel like they’re in control.

And still, he looked at me like I was glass. Pretty. Hollow. Breakable.

I needed air. He and that slut Jean deserve each other.

Look at me and how vulgar he made me...

By the time I reached the economics building, my heels clicked slower than usual. My mask was slipping. My mouth didn’t want to curl into that sharp little smirk. And somehow, like instinct, my feet led me straight to the back courtyard—our spot.

He was already there. Sitting cross-legged on the bench, reading a battered textbook with three different color tabs poking out of it. Elbows on his knees. His glasses slightly crooked. Oblivious to everything else. Including me.

God, he was so… normal.

And the moment he looked up and smiled that quiet, lopsided smile—that same one he always gave me without expectations—I felt my shoulders drop. Like I could finally breathe again.

I sat beside him without asking.

He closed the book.

“Did you fired your PR team again?” he said gently.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And I hated how good that laugh felt.

“I got rejected,” I muttered, brushing imaginary lint from my white leather pants.

His eyebrows lifted. “By Scott?”

I didn’t answer.

He didn’t gloat, although I knew he wanted to. Didn’t say 'I told you so.' Just offered me the silence I didn’t know I needed.

“You know what’s stupid?” I finally whispered.

“I bent myself into something I’m not… for someone who never once saw me. And all this time, the only person who actually did see me—who treated me like a human being, not a fantasy—was sitting right next to me.”

He blinked startled. I wasn’t even sure he realized what I meant.

“Emma Frost,” I sighed, shaking my head. “You really are a blonde idiot."