Living a double life was more exhausting than any advanced calculus seminar I had ever endured. At Eastwood Academy, Carl Sinclair and I were a symphony of sharp tongues and cold glares. We clashed in the oak-paneled hallways, argued over pedantic interpretations in Literature, and maintained a ten-foot radius of perceived hatred at all times. To the student body, the world was back on its axis. The titans were at war again, and the air in the corridors was thick with the electric thrill of our mutual disdain. The school forums were buzzing with every snide remark and every icy shoulder we gave one another.
But beneath the surface of our public theater, there were the glitches.
The first time it happened was three days after the break ended. I had opened my locker to find a scrap of heavy cream paper tucked into the spine of my physics textbook. There was no signature. There was no greeting. There was only a single line of complex architectural theory scribbled in that familiar, jagged script that I had come to recognize as Carl's true voice. To anyone else, it would have looked like a condescending challenge to my intelligence. To me, it was a lifeline.
"Meet me at the Observatory balcony. Five minutes."
The note had been pressed into my palm during the frantic transition between second and third period. The Headmaster had just announced the Reclamation Assessment, a brutal Eastwood tradition where the first week of resumption ended in a surprise exam to "reclaim" the rankings. The stakes had tripled in a single heartbeat.
I slipped away from my friends, claiming I needed to finish a sketch in the art wing. My heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs as I climbed the narrow spiral stairs to the old observatory. It was a part of the school rarely used during the day, a high, stone balcony that overlooked the entire valley. When I stepped out into the crisp air, the wind caught my hair, and I saw Carl already there. He was leaning against the stone balustrade, looking out at the horizon with a look of intense focus.
The Shark was gone. In his place was a boy who looked as restless as I felt.
"You were too hard on me in the cafeteria," he murmured as I approached. He didn't turn around, but I could hear the smirk in his voice. "People are starting to think you actually want to see me expelled, Sadie. You're becoming a little too good at this theater."
"I have to be convincing, Carl," I whispered. I stepped up beside him, the heat of his body a sharp contrast to the biting wind. "My father is watching the school forums like a hawk. He is so proud of the fact that I took the top spot from a Sinclair that he checks the rankings every hour. He thinks I am a hero. He thinks I have finally put our family on a level where people like your father might actually take a meeting with us. If he saw me here, with you, he wouldn't be angry because he hates you. He would be terrified that I am sabotaging the only leverage he has."
"And my father doesn't do leverage," Carl replied. His jaw tightened, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the stone. "He does dominance. He sees the Sterlings as a nuisance beneath his caliber. To him, you are a girl who got lucky, and I am the son who was weak enough to let it happen. He is breathing down my neck every night. If he finds out about us, he won't just pull me out of school. He will make sure I never see Leo again. He will treat it as a contamination of the Sinclair bloodline."
I reached out and touched his arm, my fingers grazing the sleeve of his blazer. "We have to stay perfect, Carl. If they find a single glitch in the system, everything we have built is gone."
Carl finally turned to face me. His eyes were dark, burning with a frustration that made my breath hitch. He stepped closer, crowding me against the stone railing until I could smell the faint scent of cedar and expensive coffee that always clung to him.
"We are only in hiding because you insisted, Sterling," he said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous friction. He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a lingering, heavy touch. "I'm tired of the notes. I'm tired of the empty halls. I'm dying to just hold your hand in front of the whole school and tell them all to go to hell. I want to be the guy who takes you to the gala, not the guy who insults your thesis just so my father doesn't look too closely at my heart."
"You know we can't," I whispered, though every cell in my body wanted to agree with him. "Not yet."
"Let them try to stop us," he muttered, leaning down until our foreheads touched. For a second, he looked like he was going to break his own rule and kiss me right there in the daylight. "I'm a Sinclair. I've spent my life building structures. I can build a world where we don't have to hide. But until then, this is torture."
He didn't kiss me. He just held my gaze for a heartbeat longer before pulling away, the cold mask sliding back into place as the warning bell rang. We exited the observatory separately. By the time I reached the main hall, my face was a frozen mask of indifference.
The friction, however, was not just coming from our fathers. My circle of friends was becoming increasingly suspicious. Sarah, Tessa and Jessica had spent years watching me, and they knew my rhythms.
"You are acting strange, Sadie," Sarah said one afternoon in the lounge. "You don't even look at Carl anymore. Usually, you are looking for an opening to take him down. Now, you just ignore him. It is like the fire went out overnight."
I felt a cold sweat prickle the back of my neck. "I am just focused on the Reclamation, Sarah. Carl Sinclair is a spent force. He isn't worth the emotional energy."
"Or," Tessa added, leaning in with a grin, "maybe something happened over the break that you aren't telling us. You were at that hospital a lot, weren't you?"
I forced a dry, mocking laugh. "Nothing happened except for a lot of studying and somber hospital visits. Carl Sinclair is still the same arrogant, insufferable jerk he has always been. If you want to waste your time theorizing, go ahead, but I have a ranking to maintain."
Across the room, I caught Carl's eye for a fraction of a second. He was watching me over the top of his digital tablet. For a heartbeat, the mask slipped just enough for me to see the boy from the balcony. Then, he turned to the person sitting next to him and made a cutting, derogatory remark about the quality of the lounge coffee. He was back. The Shark was circling.
The week of the Reclamation was a battlefield. The air in the school was charged with a frantic, desperate energy. Everyone knew the rankings were about to be refreshed, and in a place like Eastwood, those numbers were the only currency that mattered. My father had called me every night, his voice a mix of pride and unrelenting pressure. He told me I was the pride of the Sterling name. He told me that keeping the top spot was the only way to ensure our future.
On the final night before the exam, I found a final note in my bag.
"Library. Midnight. Bring the blueprint."
It was a massive risk. But as I crept through the darkened halls of the academy, my flashlight cutting through the heavy gloom, I realized I didn't care. I needed the glitch. I needed to see the person who made the weight of my name feel like something I could actually carry.
I reached the heavy oak doors of the library and pushed them open. I slipped inside and made my way to the back, to the hidden alcove where our rivalry had first ignited. Carl was already there. He had a large blueprint spread out across the mahogany surface, the design for the new wing of the hospital he wanted to build for Leo.
"You are late, Sterling," he drawled, though he didn't look up from the page.
"And you are still a nerd, Sinclair," I countered, sliding into the seat across from him.
We spent the next three hours working in a heavy, comfortable silence. Our hands occasionally brushed over the paper as we pointed out structural flaws. In the dark of the library, we weren't rivals. We were partners. But as the first hints of dawn began to peek over the stone horizon, Carl looked up. His eyes were dark with a sudden, sharp realization.
"Sadie," he said, his voice tight. "The Reclamation rankings come out tomorrow at noon."
"I know," I whispered. I felt a knot of dread tighten in my stomach.
"If I win, your father will see it as a loss of status. He will push you harder until you break." He paused, his gaze moving to the blueprints. "And if you win, my father will see it as a sign that I am distracted. He will look for the source of that distraction. He will look for you."
I reached across the table, my fingers brushing the edge of the blueprint he had spent years perfecting for his brother. I looked him dead in the eye, letting the mask of the Sterling heiress drop completely.
"Don't hold back for me, Carl. If you don't take the top spot, your father will take it out on Leo. I can handle being second. I can't handle you losing your brother."
The silence that followed was heavy, filled with the unspoken cost of our survival. Carl didn't argue. He couldn't. We both knew the price of failure was a currency we couldn't afford to spend.
The reality of our situation crashed down on us. We weren't just two teenagers in love. We were the front lines of a war that had been raging since before we were born. By tomorrow, the results would be posted. Someone was going to have to bleed to keep the secret safe.
"What do we do?" I asked, my voice barely a breath.
Carl reached out and slowly began to fold the blueprint, his movements precise and cold. When he finished, he looked at me with an expression that made my blood run cold.
"We do what we were born to do, Sadie," he said. "We play the game until there is nothing left to lose."
I stood up and walked out of the library without looking back. As I moved toward my dorm, the sun began to rise over Eastwood, casting long, bloody streaks of light across the stone. The Reclamation was here. And for the first time in my life, I found myself praying that I wouldn't be the one standing at the top.