Part 3Hunted by the Heroine

“What are you thinking about? You’re going to space out at a time like this?”

Olivia’s voice, husky and strained, pulled me back to the present. Her breath was hot against my ear.

I reached up and touched her cheek, and then the tears came. Her eyes were so beautiful. But I knew, with a certainty that shattered my heart, that I wasn't the one she truly saw.

Her desire-filled expression melted into confusion.

“Why are you crying?” she whispered. “Don’t you… want me?”

Yes. I wanted her more than anything.

I loved her down to my bones.

But even if I was a bad person, I wasn't evil enough to want everyone to die.

“Olivia, I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I made a mistake. We can’t do this.”

She looked lost, but before she could process it, her rationality was already gone, washed away by the drug.

And that’s when Michael came home.

He wasn’t alone. Olivia’s best friend, Zoe, was with him. They saw us, saw Olivia on top of me, and assumed the worst. They pulled her off me, Michael so enraged he actually grabbed a broom from the kitchen and started swinging it at her.

The scene was pure chaos. And in that moment, I saw just how colossally I had screwed up.

“It wasn't her!” I yelled, scrambling to cover myself. “It was me.”

I confessed everything.

The room went dead silent. Everyone just stared at me with an alien expression, like they’d never really seen me before.

Zoe pointed a trembling finger at my face, her voice tight with rage. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? This is a crime.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I’ll accept whatever happens.”

In the end, it was Olivia who stepped in front of me. “He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. It was a stupid prank, let’s not make it a federal case.”

“A kid?” Zoe shrieked. “He’s twenty-two, Olivia! When are you going to stop protecting him?”

Tears streamed down my face as I looked at her. I wanted to take her to a hospital, to make sure she was okay. But when my hand touched her arm, she flinched away like I had burned her.

Michael let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll take her. You stay here and think about what you did.”

Suddenly, I understood what my brother had meant all those years ago when he said everyone loved me. This—this cold, empty space between us—this is what it felt like to truly not be loved at all.

From that moment on, my life became an act of atonement.