Zoe's POV
I don't know when the ache in my chest started being part of my breathing. When thoughts of him started bleeding into everything like ink soaking through paper. Maybe it began the moment I stepped foot in this house pretending to be someone else. Or maybe the moment he looked at me in that stupid classroom with bruised knuckles and wiped my scraped palm with those surprisingly gentle fingers.
Either way, here I was again—pathetic, restless, and annoyingly hopeful even when hope felt like a joke the universe was playing on me.
I lay sprawled on my bed, a copy of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing heavy in my hands. Irony at its finest. A play about hidden feelings, mistaken identities, and messy love. Clearly, fate had a sense of humor and it wasn't subtle.
My eyes skimmed the words, but I wasn't reading. Not really. I was thinking. Drifting. Remembering.
Brandon.
And I hated it.
