His Bet, Her Ruin, Their Reckoning

silent gymnasium that served as our exam hall and found my assigned sea

d read

ull. Every strategy I could devise, he would know it. E

ack in his chair, looking bored, but his eyes were fixed on me. He

ules I already knew by heart. Fill in the bubble

per. The irony was

n my desk, face down. The tim

y mind, usually a sharp and orderly library of facts and figures, was blank. Not because I didn't know the an

use my success to save Liam. That plan was now a suicide mission. If I won, I

le pressure from across the room. I imagined him sifting throug

o

a silent scre

t have it. You

trategy, but from pure, unadulterated defiance. It was a

s per

am' s face, his weak but hopeful smile. This wasn' t

y pencil. And

ge resting in my brain, ready to be used. I thought about the letter B. I pictured it. I let the

swer was D. I thought it, loud and c

tally selected the correct answer and then physically marked the wrong one. It was

d craft an argument so compelling it would guarantee a perfect score. I imagined the words, the

pencil and set it down. I left the

exam. Blank pages. Wrong answ

to the proctor' s desk at the front of the room. The invigilator, a st

s raised. He glanced at my blank essay pages. A flicker

said, my voice stead

his rage. It was a palpable wave of heat rolling across the gymnasium

lief, stretching and chattering as they ga

fore I even cle

d, grabbing my arm and spinning me aroun

said calmly, meeting hi

were closing in, forming a wall around us. "You left the essays bl

e first time I had ever seen him lose control. The f

this nightmare began, I

my lips. "Then you should know exactly what I did. I wonder wh

fident in his ability to copy me that he hadn't bothered to learn a single thing him

with a rage so profound it was almost silent.

said, pulling my arm free from his grasp. His sh

ed to w

d after me. "This doesn' t change the b

he had been the monster in my nightmares. But by destroying my own future,

ght about that. But I had just