Playing Perfect

11. Supplier

11. Supplier

To Beg

The messages had stopped.

It had been a week and finally the messages had stopped.

Alice wanted to laugh at how easy it had been. She should have trusted her gut in the first place. She knew what Finn Cauley was like. She'd momentarily forgotten, hypnotised by his dimpled smile and a kiss she wished never happened, but now she was awake.

She'd never felt so stupid, except maybe when she was fourteen and Finn Cauley had betrayed her for the first time.

And now she was almost eighteen, and she was being humiliated all over again.

She used to be good at learning lessons. It felt like she had made more mistakes this past month than she had in her entire life leading up to this moment.

It all made sense as soon as she'd read his name across the screen.

Why he had suddenly appeared—to torment her. How the messages knew her every move—he had been there himself, at every party, every event. Why he had been blaming her friends—the final nail in the coffin, an attempt to isolate her; to manipulate her, just as he had when they were children.

Alice was done playing his game.

Of course, Cauley tried to speak to her.

The same way he had when they were fourteen and she was fooled for the first time. And same as then, she ignored him, too hurt to even allow a word out. She couldn't even bear to scold him for his uniform like she used to, ignoring him in the hallways. Passing him without a word.

She had bigger things to worry about—like her trials, coming up in less than a month, or her chemistry project with Julia.

And so, she found herself in the library, surrounded by a makeshift study group.

Julia sat beside her, highlighting notes in her textbook that they could use in their presentation. Alice's laptop lay open on the table in front of the pair, the beginnings of a presentation awaiting them.

Emily was on her other side, where Alice was currently helping her memorise quotes from 'Pride and Prejudice' before their English paper. English was always the first exam, and Emily was on the verge of a panic attack at the idea of handwriting three essays in two hours.

Opposite the pair, Heather and Theo sat with a few of his friends, making their way through a business studies practice paper together.

Despite the silence, the room was buzzing with anxious energy. Everyone had trials on their mind, and with less than one month left until the first exam, Alice felt like she was running out of time.

One month felt tiny after all that had happened this term.

She didn't want to think about any of it. She wanted to throw herself into her studies and pretend it never happened. Pretend rumours weren't circling the school for the second time, all because of Finn Cauley.

Worse, she had been so distracted this term—thinking about the rubbish in her locker, thinking every notification on her phone would be a new message—she hadn't focused as much on her studies as usual. It certainly didn't help that half of her notes had been destroyed in the process.

That was another reason, she realised. With Alice out of the way, Finn was one step higher to the top rank in their graduating class. He'd planned it all from the very beginning.

Alice's stomach stirred and she swallowed hard. She counted to three in her head, then turned back to Emily with a grin.

"Alright," she said, attempting to sound cheerful. "Let's try some quotes on the theme of marriage, shall we?"