I should have known.

I should have known that this would happen. I should have known what kind of a man James Bennet was. The universe all but handed the truth to me on a sparkling silver platter.

Ruby and Pearl had unknowingly warned me when I overheard them gossiping. A gorgeous blond from my dorm who had a reputation for breaking girls' hearts, they said. They couldn't have made it any clearer. Girls see what they want to see. Pearl was right. I overlooked every red flag.

Noah warned me, too, though his warning came in disguise. A flag signaling commitment issues and a string of casual relationships.

And Joanna. Her warning was the clearest of them all.  Men are like dogs. You're just his toy.

Red flag after red flag after red flag. Apparently, I was color blind.

Then there were the resolutions I made. Resolutions that the logical, rational side of my brain had carved out. I'd totally ignored those, too. And for what? Empty words and butterflies in my stomach? A false sense of security and desire?

Despite my best efforts not to, I'd given my heart away. I'd given it to someone who managed to crush it more than it already was. Perhaps that was my cycle, my loop. I was drawn to the promise of love, but doomed to the inevitability of heartbreak. 

I wandered aimlessly about campus all day after leaving the library, even stepping out altogether and down the street. I'd left my phone in my dorm, so there was literally nothing for me to do but walk and think. The cold breeze from the morning had transformed into an overcast afternoon, light rain pattering down on my cheeks and tangling my blonde curls. It was perfectly poetic given my mood, but I couldn't find it in me to see the beauty in the synchronicity.

The sky rumbled overhead. I tossed my untouched bagel in the trash and pulled the sleeves of my sweater tight around my hands, shielding them from the numbing air as I finally made the trek back to my dorm. I almost broke my hand over one asshole, I wasn't catching a cold over another. 

I was sure that I could slip past James and Dex's room undetected. Or maybe they wouldn't even care if they did see me. James was done with me, apparently. He'd gotten what he wanted; I'd thrown myself at him, just like every other girl did. Finally, he could rest with the knowledge that he was as irresistible as everyone told him he was. That there wasn't a woman alive who was immune to his charms. Not even me.

Especially not me.

The corridor along my floor was more crowded than it had been that morning, most of its inhabitants long awake by the time that I made it back. I kept my head down, shielding my pain from their happiness, hiding my darkness from their light.

But I wasn't as invisible as I hoped I'd be.

"Hey! Jaffy!"

My eyes may or may not have actually rolled into the back of my skull. I didn't even try to hide my irritation as I turned, my expression devoid of anything but impatience as Ivy crossed the hall from her friend's room.

"I've been messaging you," she said, though it sounded more like a reprimand.

I blinked back. "Okay."

She didn't take much note of my tone. I was starting to think she didn't take note of anything but the sound of her own voice.

"I've been thinking..." She grabbed my arm, pulling me away from a group of first years as they slipped by. "Do you think it's too late to change our assignment? Maybe switch out our lab rats?

I blinked at her again. I was blinking a lot, I realized—it was about the only thing I had the energy to do.

"Yes, Ivy. I think it's too late to change our assignment. Again."

"I just—" She closed her mouth abruptly, cocking her head to the side as she took in the cool edge to my voice. To my face. "I beg your pardon?"

Perhaps she did listen, after all.

I shook my head, reclaiming my arm from her python grip. "You know what? I don't want to do this right now."

"Don't want to do this? Darling, our assignment is five seconds away from being past due."

A surge of adrenaline rippled through my chest, a bitter laugh spilling past my clamped lips. "How nice of you to finally take an interest."

"Excuse me?"

"No," I snapped, holding up a hand. Gone was the fear I usually felt in her presence, the sense of being second best or playing second string.

She wasn't Madison 2.0 at all, I realized. She was merely a lazy, conniving senior taking advantage of my hard work. Taking my kindness for weakness.

Just like everyone did.

"Excuse me." Despite my words being laced with a helping of arsenic, my tone was as tired and emotionless as I felt. "I'm going to go and try to make some sort of sense of the notes that I took on my project. I don't know what you're going to do, Ivy, because, until last night, you were completely MIA."

Her jaw fell to the floor then, her toffee-colored lips flailing between rebuke and outrage. The hall still buzzed around us, our peers unaware of the complete role reversal playing out right in front of them. I didn't relinquish my gaze, even when Ivy's seared mine. I'd stood up to her. I'd said everything I'd been so afraid of saying over the past few weeks right to her face. And the world was still turning. She was reduced to silence.

Because she wasn't intimidating. She wasn't powerful, and she wasn't any wiser than I was. We were the same. We always had been. We were just two lost girls hiding behind masks.

"I never should have listened to you," I uttered, more to myself than to her.

But she still heard me nonetheless. Her smoky eyes narrowed, scanning me from head to toe just as they had that day I'd bumped into her in the hall. The day I'd decided she was something worthy of my fear, maybe even my respect. I watched a mirage of emotions flicker in the darkness; shock, anger, disgust.

But then her eyes seemed to spring open, and something even worse emerged from the dark sea. Something sinister. Something that chased away my conviction, that awoke the dread knotting my stomach, merely overshadowed by a false sense of triumph.

She was up to something. I didn't have enough nerve left to find out what.

I turned away before whatever storm was brewing hit me across the face. My rush of adrenaline had fizzled, and without it, I was reminded of how tired I'd become.

If I wasn't rattled after my run-in with Joanna, I certainly was as I raced away from Ivy. All I wanted to do was escape to my room, to throw myself under a blanket of denial and pretend I was someone else. I didn't even care if Kara and her boyfriend were there.

Hell, maybe they'd make for a good distraction.

"Madison!" a voice practically shrieked, indifferent as its pitch stirred the students around us. "There you are. Where the heck have you been?"

Noah was breathless when he reached me, his hand latching onto my arm with surprising force.

I wanted to break away so badly, but I couldn't shake him off without making a scene.

I bristled. "Out."

He nodded, clearly unaware that I was in a mood. Or maybe he was just used to it.

"Well, you're here now. And we need you."

We need you. Everyone needed me. Everyone used me, then tossed me aside like a dirty rag. Eli, Ivy, Dex, Holly. James. I was so sick of it. So sick of opening my heart up to strangers just to have them tear off a fresh piece every time.

"I have things to do ..." My weak voice trickled away into nothing as he dragged me further up the hall. Finally, we arrived at the one door that I didn't want to see.

That conversation with Joanna was ripe in my mind. I could still see her expression as she sneered down her perfect nose at me. Like I was as worthless as the cheap coffee in my hands. The way she tugged at James' shirt hit me like lightning as she not-so-subtly reminded me that he was hers. That he always had been. That I was nothing more than a game to him. A toy.

Noah opened the door, the abrupt movement stealing every one of my thoughts. Stealing the breath from my lungs, too. Because in that room was something that I never thought I'd see.

Dex and James were arguing.

For real.

Although, in all fairness, it was Dex who was doing most of the shouting.

Noah pushed me inside, practically throwing me right into the lion's den.

"This always happens," Dex bellowed. "This always fucking happens!"

My eyes bulged from my skull. Dex never cursed. Freaking, frick, golly, gosh ... those were the words in his modest vernacular. Although he didn't yell either, so perhaps it was a day for firsts.

"I like a girl, she likes me back, and then you walk in the room and, suddenly, I don't exist!"

James stepped closer to him from his side of the room, his expression just as shocked as mine if not slightly more hurt. "Come on, Dex. You know that's not true—"

"Not true? So why did Holly tell me that she likes you? That she wants you?"   

My face paled.

Dex knew.

Which meant that Holly told him.

She told him everything.

"I don't know!" James shot back, throwing his arms in the air. "I'm sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear?"

"No, what I want to hear is why you did it. Why you went for her when you knew that I liked her—"

"Oh, come on. You know that I didn't go for her. She was never even on my radar—"

"Oh, please, James. Not on your radar," Dex mimicked, turning on his heel and stifling a dry laugh. "The girl's gorgeous, and she was practically throwing herself at you last night. She told me as much—"

"Enough!"

I hadn't realized that I was frozen in place, that my boots had become bolted to the floor. Not until Noah's booming order sent chills shooting up my spine.

I turned to look at him at the same time that James and Dex did, the three of us stunned into silence after his outburst.

I suppose that's when the two of them realized that they were no longer alone.

"Madison," James breathed. His frown straightened out the slightest bit, the shadow over his eyes lifting. It was the kind of expression that should have roused butterflies in my stomach or sent a tingling sensation over my skin.

Instead, the chains around my heart constricted. With one look at his face, I wanted to cry.

Dex, on the other hand, didn't extend a warm greeting like he usually did. The anger in his eyes was firmly intact, his scowl deepening when he caught sight of me.

"There she is," he drawled dryly. His voice was lower than it had been when he'd addressed James, but it was laced with just as much venom. "The woman of the hour."

I scrunched my nose, my hurt pooling with confusion. "Excuse me?"

"I'd tell you what we're talking about here," he growled stiffly, "but rumor has it you already know."

Tight pressure was overwhelming my chest, like someone was sitting on top of me and forcing out the air. Because Holly hadn't just told Dex that she liked James. She'd also told him that I knew she did.

"Dex, listen—"

"Don't," he cut me off, raising a hand as a shield. "Don't bother. You've done more than enough."

"You're out of line, man," James warned, his voice only just loud enough for me to be able to hear it. "Don't make this her problem."

"She's involved."

"Don't take that tone when you talk about her."

Dex ignored him. So did I.

"Dex, you need to listen to me." My words came out more confident than I felt, my weeks of wearing a mask and feigning emotion coming in handy. "Holly only told me last night, okay? I had no idea. I'm just as shocked as you are—"

"But you didn't tell me," he accused, stepping forward. Something other than anger was lurking beneath his doe eyes. Something akin to hurt. "You still tried to convince me to make things work. Don't you remember? You're too nice, Dex. Girls like a bit of back and forth—"

"I knew that you liked that," I heard James mumble, a dash of humor sprinkled into his tone.

It pierced me like a knife to the chest.

"I didn't say that," I reminded Dex weakly. "Ivy did."

"But you let her," he maintained dryly. God, his voice was like acid, and it was burning the walls of my heart raw. "You could have contradicted her. You could have come clean then. You didn't."

I swallowed. Hard. He was right. He was so right, and I was so, so wrong.

"So, I tried it out," he continued. "I tried to be more like James. Witty, charming, disagreeable James. I gave it right back to her, just like you two made me believe she wanted."

"You went too far, Dex," Noah told him.

I didn't know what exactly Dex said to Holly, what his definition of giving it right back was, but by the look on both Noah and James' faces, it was bad.

"Because of advice that she gave her stamp of approval," Dex replied dryly. "Approval based on the fact that Holly told her that she liked James. When you could have just told me the truth, Madison. The truth, then and there."

My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I didn't even know what to say. Because he was right. I should have told him the truth as soon as I was told it myself. I'd wanted to wait until the night was over, wait for the right time, the right moment.

But I'd waited too long, and now it hurt more.

"But what I can't figure out," Dex continued, "what none of us have ever been able to figure out is why. Why you care. Why you've been helping me in the first place."

My breath hitched in my throat, the truth on the tip of my tongue.

"Holly thinks it's weird, too," he revealed. "Odd, that you would go to so much trouble to help a stranger. We all think it's a little weird, actually—"

Noah scowled. "That's not true."

"You're being a jerk," James added.

But I couldn't hear them. My head was underwater, my insides twisting with every word Dex spoke.

Dex van der Yates was the sweetest person I'd ever met. He was a cherub that belonged on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was so innocent, so pure. But, suddenly, his eyes were scorching with the fires of Hell, his mouth shooting flaming daggers into my chest with every bitter word.

Ivy told him he was too nice, and I'd let her, so he'd opened Pandora's box. He'd become a monster, and he couldn't seem to switch it off. What was worse was that he wouldn't let me talk. He wouldn't let me try to explain things, to reassure him that I was going to tell him. That I never intended to hurt him the way I did, that I felt just as betrayed and confused and upset as he did, too.

He was hurt, and he was trying to hurt me when I already had nothing left to lose. That was always going to be a recipe for disaster. 

"You want to know why?" I questioned. My voice was a strained whisper, acid latching itself onto my words. "Why I helped you?"

"Because she's a good person, you jerk," James told Dex.

"Because I was conducting an experiment."

The room fell quiet. James' face was blurry in my peripheral, but I didn't miss the crease of his brow as silence lulled over us, a high summer tide.

"I had a theory," I continued, my voice arid and hoarse. "And a professor who asked me to test it. So, I did. I tested it on you."

Dex blinked. My breathing was heavy, my pulse thundering but the rest of me was numb. Like the flames raging through my veins had frozen into ice. The anger was still there, but it sat lower, lurked deeper. It pulled the blades from my heart and threw them right back at anyone within range.

Dex frowned, his anger banking as the cogs in his mind turned. "What was the theory?"

I relaxed my jaw. "Heartbreak is inevitable."

Those three little words ricocheted around the room, slamming down on each of us like a gavel. The veil had been lifted, my motives had been revealed. I wasn't a good person, after all. I'd always had something to gain. Even if, at the end, I didn't want it anymore.

I told Dex the truth because he deserved to know it. But I told him it the way I did because he'd hurt me. Because I wanted to hurt him, too.

I could tell by his silence that I had. 

"You knew all along that Holly and I would never work," he realized slowly. He raised his chin a fraction, staring down at me in an attempt to hide his pain. "You were sabotaging us."

"No," I shot back instantly. "I didn't need to. That's the entire point." My skin tingled with a chill before it fell numb again, my very own theory twisting the dagger in my heart. As if it wasn't him that I was directing my words to at all. "You two were always doomed. Because nothing good ever lasts, Dex. Everything always falls apart, and someone always ends up getting hurt."

"You can't seriously believe that."

My gaze fell on James.

"You don't believe that, do you?" he asked again, his brow as furrowed as before. But the light from his eyes, the warmth he'd met me with, had dissolved into the thick air.

Maybe it was never Dex who I wanted to hurt. Maybe it was just him.

With my last pint of strength, I feigned indifference. "I do."

I lingered for only a moment longer—only a moment to see his face collapse with hurt—before I swiveled on my boots and opened the door.

I cut through the cascade of bodies blocking the path to my room, hoping and praying that Kara was out with her boyfriend somewhere. Hoping that I could be alone, that I could curl up on my bed and just cry for once. I wanted to wallow in the emotions that I always tried to push away, to try unblock the faucet of tears that shredded my throat raw.

Tears were brimming in my eyes—angry ones, sad ones, ones repressed and laced with every bit of pain lurking in the depths of my mind. A tear for Eli, for his betrayal. For Lola, for hers. For dad and for his. And ten times that for James. Ten times that for the latest betrayal; my own. I'd never get Dex's face out of my head. I tried to blink my tears away, but that only created more.

A hand reached out to me just as my door came into view. A hand both gentle but firm, pleading with me to turn around at the same time as it demanded it.

I couldn't resist. I was only so strong, and I'd used most of that strength up facing James head-on.

When I turned to see that it was him who had stopped me, the earth once again shook beneath my feet. I couldn't do it. Couldn't face him again. I was too weak, too angry. Too heartbroken and empty.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Everything paused. The world stopped spinning, my heart stopped thumping. My breathing steadied as I waited for him to go on, to explain away all the rumors I'd heard about him. To explain why Joanna had been in his room, wearing his shirt. To explain why he said what he said to me the night before if all of it was a lie.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry that he snapped at you like that."