My little sister Lily wanted everything I had, including my man. But the guy I'd been chasing for three years, the academic star Evan, was a block of ice. He never once looked my way. I figured Lily would fail just like everyone else. Then I walked in on it. Fresh off the football field, Evan had Lily pinned against the locker room wall, kissing her like the world was ending. His arms were wrapped tight around her, her shirt half-open, the two of them completely lost in each other. "Evan, slow down... if you like me, why are you still leading my sister on?" "Didn't you say you loved watching her beg for my attention?" My eyes went red in an instant. Three years of chasing him. And it had all been a performance. A one-woman show staged for their entertainment. This pathetic love of mine. It was time to end it. I finally decided to let go. So why did he come running after me, saying he liked me? Summer's POV Everyone at school noticed something was off with me lately. The old me had zero self-awareness. I spent every single day running after Evan. While other people sat through morning assembly, I was hand-making Evan a heart-shaped sandwich. While they took notes in class, I was folding little paper stars for him. While they did homework, I was writing him love letters. But recently, I hadn't shown up outside the Advanced Honors classroom in days. Instead, I'd been living in the library. First one in every morning, last one out every night. Then, on the day finals ended, I ran straight into Evan. I froze. I turned to walk away. But his tall frame stepped right into my path. "Summer." The evening sun caught the cool lines of his face. "Are you avoiding me?" My arms tightened around the books I was holding. I first met Evan at the start of junior year. Word got around that a new transfer student had arrived. Insanely good-looking, insanely smart. At his old school he'd been famously untouchable. Not even the most popular cheerleader had managed to get close to him. So naturally, I went to find out for myself. I walked into the Advanced Honors hallway, looked up, and saw him standing by the window. I completely lost my train of thought. From that day on, I started chasing Evan. I'd intercept him on his way to school. I'd scream from the sidelines at his football games. I'd stand in the snow in the school parking lot and serenade him. I was loud, shameless, and very, very public about it. Everyone knew. And honestly? Like every crush before this, it was more game than genuine feeling. I just wanted to win. Until that one winter. I was in the parking lot in a short skirt, using my foot to draw a heart in the snow. Evan happened to be walking out with some friends. I ran up, beaming. "Evan! Look! I made you a heart! Do you like it?" But his eyes went to my bare legs, purple from the cold. The next second, he crouched down. He unwound the scarf from his neck and wrapped it around my legs. "Don't wear skirts in weather like this." His voice was calm, flat. "You'll damage your knees and your circulation." The warmth of it reached my frozen skin. Distant, restrained, not quite touching. I stood there, completely still, watching snowflakes settle on his long lashes. And that was when it hit me. I was actually falling for him. I'd already made up my mind to apply to the same college as Evan. Then, the night before finals, I accidentally overheard a Yale admissions officer meeting with him. She told him his math competition scores qualified him for early admission. Evan's response stopped me cold. "You can admit me. But I have one condition. I want you to admit Lily from my class as well." I stood there, frozen, as the Yale officer walked away. A few of Evan's friends clapped him on the shoulder. "Didn't see that coming. So it was Lily the whole time? Summer's been chasing you forever and we actually thought it was her!" "But if you like Lily, why not just be with her? Why keep Summer on the hook?" Evan's expression didn't flicker. "I didn't want to distract Lily before finals." A pause. "As for Summer, she was just a cover. Useful for keeping people from noticing what was going on between me and Lily." Standing in the doorway, I felt the color drain from my face. Everyone said Evan was cold to the whole world, except me. He'd warned me icily to stop following him, then wrapped my frozen legs in his scarf. He'd refused the Valentine's Day chocolates I'd stayed up all night to make, but kept only my card. That's all it took. Those small crumbs of hope. And I'd sunk deeper and deeper. But it was all a setup. A way to keep everyone from noticing him and Lily.
Summer's POV I cried the entire night. When morning came, I told myself: I am done with Evan. So I stopped chasing him. What I didn't expect was that the boy who had once coldly warned me to leave him alone was now the one blocking my path. My fingers curled inward. I looked down and spoke quietly. "No. I was just studying for finals." Evan watched my eyes slide away from his. A short, cold laugh. "Studying? With your grades, what difference does it make?" I went still. I looked up. He was already gone. I slowly unclenched my hand. There it was. My score report. SAT, perfect 1600. All A's across every subject. By any standard, an exceptional result. The entire school thought I was an airhead. A pretty face with nothing going on upstairs. Nobody knew I'd been faking it. Every test, I'd calculated exactly how many points to miss. I kept my scores hovering just above passing. Until today, when I finally stopped pretending. Sure enough, a month later, when results dropped, I got a call from Yale's admissions office first thing in the morning. They wanted me. I turned them down gently. "I'm sorry. I've already committed to Harvard. As long as my scores place in the top ten statewide, they've offered me a full scholarship." The Yale officer was disappointed, but gracious. Shortly after, Harvard's email arrived as well. True to their word, they'd already purchased my flight, leaving in three days, so I could settle in early. I'd just replied to confirm when a teacher pulled me out of class and sent me to the guidance counselor's office. Apparently word had gotten out about my scores. The faculty was stunned. Some of them suspected I'd cheated. So I sat down and completed a harder exam right in front of them. Then I looked up. "Have any of you ever tasted a rusty needle?" My voice was steady. "I have." "My mother died when I was in second grade. My father came home with Lily. That's when I found out I had a half-sister the exact same age as me." "Lily's mother moved in with us. The next month, I scored fifty points higher than Lily on my end-of-term exam. So she put fifty needles in my food." I raised my head. My voice wavered slightly. "The needles tore through my esophagus. It took a full night of surgery to remove them all. After that, I made myself a promise. I would only let my real scores show once. On the SAT." From that day forward, I sandbagged every test. I started wearing makeup. I dressed loud, acted boy-crazy, played the role of the girl who never thought about anything except her latest crush. Because that was the only way to eat a warm meal. The only way to hear my stepmother coo, "She didn't mean it," when my father turned his rage on me. The teachers sat in stunned silence. The guidance counselor put a hand on my shoulder. "You're going to be okay once you're out of here." My lashes trembled. Yeah. I was leaving. College was right around the corner. Everything was about to change. I walked back to my classroom. The moment I stepped through the door, every face turned toward me with the same strange expression. Evan was there too, standing in my classroom for no apparent reason. He walked straight up to me. "Summer." His voice was ice. "Did you get a call from Yale's admissions office?"
Summer's POV I blinked. Turned. Spotted my phone on the desk behind me. Screen open, the lock screen bypassed. It clicked. Evan. I remembered: on Evan's birthday last year, I'd shown up with eighteen gifts, one for every year I hadn't been in his life, and held up my phone like a trophy. "Evan, these eighteen gifts are for all the birthdays I missed before I met you. I changed my lock screen password to your birthday, so from now on, every year on that day, I'll be right there with you." I'd never imagined he'd actually go through my phone. I felt a quick flash of irritation at the invasion. But before I could say anything, Lily pushed through the crowd, her eyes already red. "Summer." Her voice cracked. "I know you hate me. But going behind my back to call Yale and get me blacklisted? That's too far." "What are you talking about?" I stared at her. "They called me because-" "Stop pretending." The voices came from every direction. "We all know. You found out Yale's admissions rep had already promised to admit both Evan and Lily together, so you wrote in to report her. You were jealous." "It doesn't even matter. Princeton reached out to Evan too, and he and Lily are going together now!" "They're perfect for each other. You never stood a chance anyway." It all fell into place. Yale must have reconsidered. They couldn't justify the special admission for Lily just to keep Evan. Someone had spread a rumor that I was the one who'd interfered. So Evan had gone through my phone looking for proof. One call from an admissions office. That was their "evidence." I opened my mouth to explain. Evan cut me off. "Summer." His tone could have frozen over a lake. "I'd better not find out you've contacted Princeton. If you go anywhere near this, don't expect me to go easy on you." One sentence. It sealed everything I was about to say back inside my throat. My eyes flickered. A long pause. Then I quietly looked down. "Okay." Explanations are for people who matter. He didn't. Not anymore. My response seemed to catch Evan off guard. He must have expected me to deny it. Argue. Make a scene. Instead, I said nothing. The teacher walked in and called everyone outside for the graduation photo. After the photo, Evan was surrounded immediately. Dozens of girls, all hoping he'd give them the small custom pin he wore on the left side of his chest, right over his heart. A family heirloom tradition. The pin was meant to be given to the one person you carried closest. Everyone expected me, the girl who had chased Evan the longest and the loudest, to be at the front of that crowd. Instead, I stood apart. My palm was open. In it lay a thin, delicate bracelet. The only thing my mother had ever left me. "Mom." I whispered it into the air. "Can you see? I'm going to your school." My mother had graduated from Harvard. She'd given up everything for love, her career, her future, and had been repaid with betrayal and an early death. I wasn't going to follow her path. I was standing there, quietly making that promise to myself, when a hand appeared in front of me. Cool fingers. And in my open palm, something small and silver dropped. A custom pin. I looked up, startled. Evan. "Here." His voice was low. "This is for you."
Summer's POV I stared at the empty space on his chest where the pin had been. I didn't understand. "For me?" Evan looked away. The tips of his ears went slightly pink. "Don't make it weird. I promised you, remember?" And then it came back to me. Two months before finals. My mother's death anniversary. I couldn't leave campus to visit her grave, so I sat alone on the track field and cried. Evan had been walking back from practice. He saw me. He noticed my red eyes and came over, crouching down in front of me. "Summer. What's wrong?" That one quiet question made it worse. I sobbed harder. He panicked a little. He reached to wipe my face, then remembered he was drenched in sweat and pulled back, helpless. "Okay. Stop crying. I'll give you whatever you want." I looked up through blurry eyes. "Anything?" He looked pained. "Anything. Just please stop crying." I went from sobbing to grinning in about two seconds. "Then I want the custom pin you wear for graduation photos. The one you pin over your heart!" He'd actually remembered. I stared at the pin in my hand, completely lost in thought. I didn't notice Lily watching from a few feet away, her expression darkening. Not until she started crying. "Summer." Her voice wobbled with manufactured hurt. "Fine. You win. I'll go run twenty laps." She turned to leave, but Evan grabbed her arm. "What are you doing?" Lily bit her lip. "Last night, Summer bet me that you'd give the pin to her. Whoever lost had to run twenty laps." I looked at her. "What bet? I never made any bet with you." Lily cried harder. "You did. You suggested it. And when I said I didn't want to, you threatened to cut my hair if I refused. I was scared, so I agreed. But it's just twenty laps. I'll run it." She tried to pull away again. Evan held on. Then he looked at me. His voice was subzero. "Summer. Was this your plan?" I understood immediately what he thought. That I'd known in advance Evan would give me the pin, so I'd set up the bet just to humiliate Lily. "No." The word came out, and then I stopped. Because what was the point? Evan would never doubt Lily to believe me. So I just opened my palm and said, calmly, "If you don't believe me, take it back." Evan went very still. Like he hadn't heard correctly. "What did you say?" He probably still remembered the moment on the track field when he'd first agreed. I jumped around him, laughing through my tears: "Evan! I'm finally winning your heart!" And now I was handing it back. Just like that. He was still processing it when I frowned slightly. "Is that not enough? Do you want me to run laps too?" Before he could answer, Lily gave a quick sideways glance to one of her friends. The girl surged forward, yanked the pin out of my hand, and yelled, "You touched it, now it's ruined. Who'd want it now!" Then she hurled it into the school's decorative pond. "No!" That was when my expression finally changed. Not for the pin. The girl's arm had swung too wide. My mother's bracelet had flown out of my palm with it.
Summer's POV Evan and everyone else left quickly. I waded into the pond. For safety reasons, the water was only knee-deep, but the bottom was thick with mud. Trying to find a thin bracelet in it was like searching for a needle in quicksand. I looked until dark. Nothing. I was covered in mud, my shins sliced up from the rocks at the bottom, but I barely registered any of it. I just kept bending over, inch by inch, scanning the murk. "Look at this. Evan, she said she didn't want your pin and now she's been searching for hours. Total act." I looked up. Evan and Lily were there. So were half their class. The path lamp cast just enough light to show the outline of Evan's face, but not his expression. I went back to searching. Then the same girl from before called out, laughing. "Summer, you can stop looking. I've had it the whole time." I snapped upright. She pulled something from her pocket and opened her hand. Both the pin and the bracelet. She looked at the bracelet like it was a piece of trash she'd found. "What's this doing in here?" She dropped both onto the ground. My expression shifted. I moved fast, too fast, almost stumbling, and dropped to my knees to check the bracelet. Laughter came from the group. "Look how much she loves that pin!" "Too bad having the pin doesn't mean you have his heart!" They walked away, still laughing. I closed my hand around the bracelet and held it tight. The clasp bit into my palm. My head cleared. The girl had never thrown the pin in the pond at all. Evan had known. And he'd watched me wade through that freezing water for hours anyway. At least the bracelet was okay. At least I was already past caring. I didn't go home that night. I sat alone in my dorm room until morning. First thing when I woke up, my phone was blowing up from the class group chat. Somehow, word had spread to other classes that Lily was getting early admission to Princeton. Rumors started. People were saying she'd been leading on multiple guys in the Honors program, stringing them along to help her applications. It got uglier by the hour. Then a message appeared from Evan. He never posted in the group chat. "If I hear this kind of garbage again, I'll have my attorneys handle it." The chat went dead. Everyone knew Evan wasn't just smart and good-looking. His family ran a billion-dollar firm out of New York. The legal team wasn't a bluff. I put my phone down. No reaction. I got dressed and headed to my tutoring job. My stepmother controlled my finances so tightly I had almost nothing to live on. To cover basic expenses, I'd been tutoring a grade school kid on weekends for the past year. The family had been nothing but kind to me. Now that I was leaving for college, I needed to say goodbye. The father was warm. He insisted on driving me back to school himself. I stepped out of his black Bentley. "Summer?" I turned. Lily. Evan. Their usual group. Lily's eyes went wide at the car and the man stepping out of the driver's seat. She pressed a hand over her mouth in exaggerated shock. "Summer." Her voice dripped with theatrical concern. "I can't believe you'd sell your self-respect for money." One sentence. The whole group's eyes shifted to me with that look. I knew exactly what game she was playing. But the truth speaks for itself, and I had no interest in arguing. I turned to leave. Evan grabbed my wrist. I looked up. His face was cold stone. "Summer." The words came out sharp as broken glass. "Are you really that careless with yourself? Any man will do?"
Summer's POV I went rigid. For over a year, my whole world had been this boy. I'd shown up every day with everything I had. If that devotion couldn't melt the ice, I at least thought it meant he knew where I stood. But here it was. More than a year of chasing him, and his first instinct was: you'll go with anyone? I thought about the group chat that morning. He didn't hesitate to defend Lily. Not a single question asked. But when someone cast doubt on me, he turned around and asked if I was easy. I felt something quietly split open in my chest. A small crack. That was all. Just a small one. I got myself under control. I looked at the boy I had once loved so completely, and I said evenly, "If that's what you think, then sure." Evan's grip on my wrist tightened. "Summer." The words came through clenched teeth. "Nothing you want to say?" I looked at him. "If I explained, would you believe me?" He paused. The car door opened. The father from earlier jogged over, completely oblivious to the tension, holding a small insulated bag. "Miss Summer, my daughter told me you love my wife's cupcakes, so she made some extra. I almost forgot to give them to you." Silence. "Miss Summer?" The father looked around, slightly confused. "Right. Summer's my daughter's tutor. My wife hired her. Is something wrong?" The group went quiet. Evan released my wrist. Lily's expression flickered. A flash of embarrassment, quickly smoothed over. Once the father had driven off, she spoke in a light, delicate voice. "Summer, with your grades, should you really be tutoring anyone? I'd worry about the kid... " The others were quick to pile on. "Seriously. You barely scraped into this school, and now you're out there teaching kids under the school's name?" "The family doesn't even know she's at the bottom of the class? Don't let her ruin someone else's education!" I didn't dignify any of it. I turned and walked away. Then the sound hit. A heavy engine, fast, from somewhere up the road. "Watch out!" In a split second, I heard Evan shout my name. Before I could react, his arms closed around me and we hit the ground hard, rolling together. The world spun. The last thing I registered was Evan's face, close, pale, frightened, and then everything went black. When I came to, I was in a hospital emergency room. The curtain around my bed was drawn. But I could still hear Lily crying somewhere close by. "Evan, you almost died out there! You threw yourself in front of that truck just to save her. Do you know that?" More voices. His friends. "Seriously, Evan. Don't tell me you actually have feelings for Summer? Because that's the only reason that makes sense." A short silence. Then Evan's flat, unbothered voice came through the curtain. "You're reading too much into it. I saved her because of what happened. The pin thing, the misunderstanding. I didn't want her holding a grudge and doing something to mess up Lily's Princeton admission." A long silence. Then Lily's quiet voice. "That's really all it was?" "What else would it be?" Evan sounded impatient now. "You think I'd fall for someone like Summer? She's all flash, no substance. No drive, no discipline." So that was how he saw me.
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