Page 3 of Ruthless Edge

I tried not to react. "Is he okay? Did something happen?"

"He's—" She stopped. Like it cost her. "Emma, he's fine."

"Then where is he?"

"He just—" She exhaled. Looked down at the table. "He said he was busy."

"He said he was busy with what?"

She looked back up at me. Her eyes were doing the soft, sorry thing, and she shook her head a little, and I could see this performance from the outside but I was also sitting alone at a table in a dress I spent three hours deciding on, so I was not in the best position to evaluate it clearly.

"Knox knew you won the bid," she said. "He just—" Another pause. The long one. The one designed to make you ask.

I asked. "He just what, Laura?"

She met my eyes. "He didn't want to spend the evening pretending he was here by choice." Her voice was quiet. Careful. "He said he didn't want to be seen on a date with—" She stopped again. She'd really committed to this, and we both knew she was enjoying watching me crumble inside.

"Finish it," I said.

She looked like it hurt her. "The fat girl." A beat. "His words. Not mine."

The phrase settles on the table between us like something dropped.

I picked up my water glass. Set it back down. Across the room someone's food arrived and a server asked if everything looked good. One of the centerpieces caught the light. The couple at the next table were leaning together, heads close, laughing about something.

Everything's fine, I thought. I'm fine.

Three girls from other tables wandered toward us after a minute. I'd seen them before in the way you see people on a campus this size, they’re part of the hockey orbit, the easy-pretty-popular category that makes you feel the comparison in your chest without understanding exactly where the category that I was never going to measure up to comes from. One of them had a drink in her hand and she was scanning the room when she asked me, casually, where Knox was.

I couldn't make my mouth form an answer I trusted.

Someone else laughed. "I knew he wasn't going to show," she said, like she’d been holding this piece of information since the auction and was only now getting to use it. Like it was obvious. Like I was the only one in the room who hadn't known that a man being two hours late meant he wasn’t coming.

Another girl said something I didn't fully catch. Just the end of it, not really his type. Then more laughter, the group kind that doesn't require everyone to understand the joke to participate.

Laura watched nearby.

She had her sad face on. She didn't say a word. She just stood there with that expression, looking sorry for me, while the laughter went on, and I understood that she was never going to do anything. She didn't come over to help me. She came to watch.

Standing up, I collected my bag. I put my coat on without saying a word.

I walked the full length of the room. Out the door. Down the corridor. Out the building. I didn't run. I was not going to run.

I cried three blocks away, when I was mostly sure nobody could see me. Cried in a way I’d only cried a few times in my life, like that full blown, hysterical kind of crying that shakes your entire body. And after I pulled myself together, I swore that Knox Carter would never exist to me again.

"Emma?"

Dr. Neely is looking at me. The room is looking at me. Knox is looking at me with an expression I can't immediately categorize, and Laura, across the table, has her chin resting on one hand.

"Sorry." I sit up straighter. I pull every part of my attention back into this conference room, these fluorescent lights, the whiteboard someone left dirty from the last meeting. "Could you repeat the question?"

"Your thoughts on the kickoff timeline?" Dr. Neely says. "Given your experience with the SAB calendar."

I give her a coherent answer. I know it's coherent because it's March of my senior year, so I've been doing this long enough that parts of my brain can handle logistics even when the rest of me is three years away and still wearing a gala dress.

Then I set my pen down.

"Dr. Neely." My voice is level. Professional. I've had years of practice at level and professional. "I want to point out that there may be better options for the co-chair structure before anything's finalized. James Whitfield ran last year's spring gala excellently, and Priya Rao has been looking for a larger project. Either of them would bring strong experience to this specific kind of⁠—"