Page 44 of Dark Embers

She shook her head. “I don’t have everything.”

I frowned at her. “Whatdon’tyou have—the newest iPhone?”

“I don’t have Kendall.” Letti said it so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it.

“What?” I asked after a moment.

“See, you wouldn’t understand,” she said, pulling herself out of the pool, “because you have Kendall following you around like a little guppy fish, and you don’t even care.”

I watched with a stumped expression as Letti stomped into the locker room. This was the first sign of vulnerability I had ever seen in the conceited mermaid, and for a moment, I could almost believe that Letti actually hadfeelings.

I lifted myself out of the pool, too, and willed my tail to transform back to legs as fast as I could—somehow, that part always came easier than the reverse. Then I rushed into thelocker room after her. I didn’t know why I was bothering, but I couldn’t just let this go.

“Look, I don’t know what you and Kendall had before, but I had nothing to do with it ending,” I said to Letti as she was changing.

“The hell you didn’t!” she snapped, turning on me with her exposed breasts bouncing. “The day you showed up was the day Kendall dumped me.”

My brows shot up, both her declaration and the fact that my enemy was topless in front of me making me pause for a moment.

“That doesn’t mean it had anything to do with me,” I argued when I recovered from the shock of both. “I’m sure it was just a coincidence.”

Letti shook her head after pulling her shirt on. “Let me tell you something. When I first started here two years ago, Kendall was just as into me as he seems to be into you. He was so sweet and charming, and it was clear he was trying really hard to get with me. He told me that he dreamt about me, that we were destined to be together. And because he’s such a gifted seer, I believed him. He told me we were going to change the world.”

She actually looked pretty as she stared off into the distance, reliving her story. Not the plastic pretty she always was, but true pretty, in a girl-next-door kind of way.

But the dream in her eyes faded, and she narrowed them at me. “Then you showed up, and suddenly everything we had together meant nothing. He said he was wrong about me. That I wasn’t the girl he thought I was, and that it was over. I didn’t understand it—not until I saw him swooning over you the next day. You ruined everything!”

Letti stormed out, and I plopped down onto the bench to process what I just heard.

So that was why Letti and her friends hated me so much. It was absurd. Sure, Kendall had been interested in me from day one, but that didn’t mean he would end a two-year relationship because a new girl showed up—one that he didn’t even know. That made no sense.

Even though I knew Letti’s perception of the situation was distorted by pain, something about this left me with a strange sense of unease, like there was something I should be aware of but was just missing. But then again, that was true of just about everything in my life. There were loads of things I should know that I just kept missing.

I knew it was this big joke around campus that Letti and I looked alike, and I’d always dismissed that. But when I really thought about it, we did have similar features. We were about the same height and build. We both had long, wavy black hair. From behind or at a glance, I couldmaybesee how one of us could be mistaken for the other.

She said Kendall had dreamt about her, then dumped her when I showed up. Could Kendall’s dreams have been about me and not her? And if so, what did that mean?

Chapter 16

Tobias

“Heading out?” I asked Brett, barely looking up from my copy ofPheromones and the Imprint Trigger: Your Body and You.

Everyone was leaving for Thanksgiving now that the feast was over. Since my parents were away at some fancy gala and Tamara was celebrating with friends at college, I opted to stay at the school. I looked forward to the next four days without distraction. It would give me time to research and figure out my next experiment to rid myself of this fucking imprint since the last one was a spectacular failure.

Dinner with everyone tonight had been brutally uncomfortable. Arya hadn’t spared me a single glance, and our friend group was clearly struggling under the thick tension between us. Especially when fucking Kendall had decided to join our table. The jealousy that simmered at watching them openly flirt right in front of me threatened to burn a hole through my chest!

The sooner I could break this bond, the better things would be for everyone. Arya could go off with fish boy and live happily ever after for all I fucking cared, and I could continue a solitary bachelor life the way I’d always planned.

“Please tell me you’re not gonna do homework all weekend?” Brett said, then slung his bag over his shoulder.

I laughed. He was half right.

“Seriously.” Brett plopped next to me on the couch in the Avian common room. Most of the students had left already, but a few still trickled out. “Find something fun or time-wasting to do. Play video games or watch porn like a normal dude.”

I put my book down to look at my friend and smiled. “Porn aside, you’re actually encouraging me to beat your high score on Zombie Raid?”

“If it’ll get you out of your shell, you’re welcome to try,” he said, slapping my shoulder with the back of his hand.

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