chapter 8
She stood shivering near the edge of the pool, wearing a bikini that looked like it belonged to someone trying to start a scandal. She’d cornered Roman against the tile wall.
“Please,” she sobbed, voice breaking. “Just look at me. Just one kiss. If you kiss me, I get one thousand points. Please… I don’t want to— I don’t want to be punished.”
Students whispered behind me.
“Is she okay?”
“What is she talking about?”
Roman looked like someone had trapped him in a room with something radioactive. He pressed himself back against the wall, trying to maximize distance, like proximity itself was an assault.
Then the mechanical voice boomed—loud enough that I flinched.
“System override. Forced interaction initiating. Physical contact required.”
Sadie’s pupils unfocused for a second.
Then she lunged.
Not a staged stumble.
A frantic, desperate leap—arms reaching, trying to wrap around him, trying to force closeness that Roman hated more than anything.
The crowd gasped.
Roman didn’t catch her.
He didn’t shove her.
He stepped aside with the smooth precision of someone avoiding contamination.
Sadie’s momentum carried her straight past him and into the pool with a huge splash.
She surfaced coughing, mascara running, hair plastered to her face. She clawed at the edge, reaching for Roman like he was the only thing keeping her afloat.
“Help me!” she cried. “Roman—please—”
Roman looked down at her, expression blank.
Then he glanced at me across the crowd.
His eyes softened instantly, the way they always did when he found me.
He stepped over Sadie’s reaching hand like it wasn’t there and walked toward me. The students parted without realizing they were doing it.
“Ready to go?” he asked, offering me his arm like we were leaving a boring dinner party.
Behind us, Sadie started screaming—not heartbreak, not romance.
Pure panic.
“It hurts—make it stop!”
“Error. Error,” the voice stuttered, glitching like a radio losing signal.
To everyone else, it looked like a breakdown. A panic attack. A girl finally collapsing under the weight of something invisible.
Lifeguards rushed in. Someone yelled to call emergency services.
Sadie was pulled from the water, shaking and sobbing, eyes unfocused as if she were still staring at that invisible screen.
Roman lifted his hand and covered my eyes for a second, pressing his forehead close to mine.
“Don’t look,” he whispered. “It’s messy.”