The Ruined Bride of Velvet Nights by Brick Moving Ant

Chapter 49

  • Chapter 16

  • The crushing workload of senior year AP classes hit like a freight train.

  • Sid and I both attacked it with a kind of obsessive focus. We discovered we were intellectual kindred spirits—both genuinely energized by learning rather than exhausted by it.

  • We devoured new concepts, already thinking ahead to college coursework.

  • We fell into an easy rhythm of swapping notes, talking through difficult concepts, and challenging each other with extra problems neither teacher had assigned.

  • Days blurred together in a productive bubble that felt safely distant from my old life.

  • After midterms, during evening study hall, I heard the chair beside me scrape against the floor.

  • Without looking up from my calculus proofs, I slid over a container of sliced apples and

  • strawberries.

  • “My mom’s on a health kick again. She sent enough for both of us, Sid.”

  • “How much longer are you planning to keep up this bullshit, Phoebe?” My head snapped up.

  • Zephyr was lounging in Sid’s seat.

  • He had positioned himself to block me into the corner, one arm stretched across the back of my

  • chair.

  • “So you ghosted me, switched to AP without saying a word, and now you’re playing house with this preppy little bitch to make me jealous? Who the fuck said you could do that?”

  • at the same college,

  • went

  • developed an intense interest in their textbooks while obviously straining to hear

  • Chapter 16

  • a laugh that contained zero humor, meeting his eyes

  • That’s Sid’s seat.”

  • eyes narrowed

  • I decide where I

  • tried pushing him away, but he grabbed my wrist, yanking me toward him with

  • roughness.

  • bruising, his physical advantage obvious.

  • powerlessness I’d felt in

  • same mix of humiliation and

  • “Excuse me.”

  • taps on

  • in my assigned seat.”

  • posture, head slightly tilted as he regarded Zephyr with what appeared to be genuine confusion.

  • you from our AP Physics section.

  • Physics” with just enough emphasis to make his

  • grab Sid’s collar. “Say that

  • to the clock

  • He’s very strict about non–enrolled students disrupting his

  • he spat out a string of

  • Sid reclaimed his seat, he turned

  • 42

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