Chapter 34: Rivals

Flashback

Someone had brought strawberry candies for the children, and Sienna immediately shook her head when one was offered to her.

Callahan, who was standing close by, noticed and smirked at her.

A few minutes later, they were called onto the stage.

The play went surprisingly well until the final scene, when the prince was supposed to rescue the princess and kiss her cheek.

Sienna had rehearsed it so many times that she barely thought about it anymore.

Callahan walked toward her, wearing the most irritatingly serious expression she had ever seen.

Then he leaned down and kissed her cheek.

The audience clapped and Sienna smiled.

It was only after the curtain fell that her cheek began to itch.

Within minutes, red patches had spread across her skin.

Her teacher rushed over, alarmed, while Sienna rubbed at her burning cheek and started crying.

And across the chaos, she saw Callahan standing perfectly still.

Her eyes narrowed through her tears. He knew that she was allergic to strawberries.

"You did that on purpose," she clutched her burning cheek as tears spilled down her face.

Whatever strange bond of friendship they shared had ended that day in snow but now, Sienna felt a new bond taking its place, one that made her blood boil just at the sight of him.

By the time Sienna was eight, she had already learned an important truth about Callahan.

If he was anywhere nearby, something was bound to go wrong.

It happened at her eighth birthday party.

Her mother had gone to ridiculous lengths that year. The garden had been decorated with white ribbons and pale blue balloons, a little dessert table had been arranged beneath the gazebo, and all her classmates were invited.

Sienna had spent the better part of an hour arranging the cupcakes herself because she wanted them to look perfect.

There were little sugar flowers on each one. Tiny pearls around the edges. She had even sorted them by color.

She was standing back admiring her work when someone bumped into her shoulder.

Her hand jerked and the tray tipped.

For one horrifying second, Sienna watched her carefully arranged cupcakes slide toward the edge. Then they went over.

Cream smashed against the tablecloth. Frosting landed on the grass. One cupcake rolled directly beneath someone’s shoe.

Sienna turned around, her eyes wide.

Callahan stood behind her, hands in his pockets, looking entirely too calm for someone who had just destroyed half her birthday.

"You did that on purpose!" she pointed at him.

"I didn’t," he looked unfazed.

"You did!"

"I barely touched you."

"You pushed me!"

"I didn’t,’’ He said it so matter-of-factly that it only made her angrier.

Sienna’s eyes filled with tears.

Callahan glanced at the ruined cupcakes, then at her, and for some inexplicable reason picked up his own untouched slice of cake from a nearby table.

He held it out, "Take mine."

She slapped it out of his hand. The cake landed frosting-first on his expensive little suit.

Silence descended over the children nearby.

Callahan slowly looked down at the mess on his jacket. Then he looked at Sienna.

She lifted her chin.

He narrowed his eyes.

And that was how their mothers found them ten minutes later, standing several feet apart and glaring at each other like two tiny generals who had just declared war.

The adults laughed and called it cute. They said the two of them would grow out of it.

They were wrong. If anything, that was just the beginning.

By nine, Sienna had discovered that Callahan was the only person in her class who could consistently beat her on examinations.

That alone was enough to make him unbearable in her eyes.

The first time their names appeared beside each other on the ranking board, Sienna stood in front of it for a full minute.

First: Callahan Hawke

Second: Sienna Qing

She turned around and he was already looking at her. Neither of them smiled or acknowledged each other.

But the next examination ended differently.

First: Sienna Qing

Second: Callahan Hawke

They exchanged a look and something about the faint curve of his mouth told her he was enjoying this and he was going to take it as a personal challenge.

From then on, it became a war neither of them had to declare.

If Callahan scored ninety-eight, Sienna somehow scored ninety-nine.

If she finished a competition first, he found a way to finish faster.

If he won a prize, she spent the next week training for the next one.

Sienna hated that boy. She hated his perfect scores. She hated the way he always looked so annoyingly composed... and cute.

Most of all, she hated the fact that whenever she decided she was finally going to beat him, he seemed to know.

At twelve, their teacher made the mistake of putting them on the same science fair project.

Sienna objected immediately.

Callahan looked equally unimpressed.

"You two are our best students," their teacher said, "You should learn to work together."

They both said no at exactly the same time. Alas, they were ignored.

For three weeks, they built a miniature automated greenhouse together.

It was, Sienna had to admit reluctantly, brilliant.

Callahan was infuriating, arrogant, and impossible to work with, but he understood machines almost instinctively. Sienna handled the research and design while he built the mechanisms.

They argued over nearly everything; the height of the model, the wiring, the color of the display board, who had forgotten the batteries, who had moved whose notes etc.

Yet somehow, by the morning of the competition, their project was the best one in the room.

Until it wasn’t. The greenhouse refused to turn on.

Sienna stared at the dead lights. Then at Callahan, "What did you do?"

His expression hardened, "What do you mean?"

She knew that look so well by now, "You were working on the wiring yesterday."

"And?"

"And now it doesn’t work."

"I didn’t break it."

"You always do this!" she glared at him.

His eyes sharpened, "Do what?"

Sienna pointed at the greenhouse, "Ruin things and then pretend you didn’t."

For a moment, neither of them spoke.