Chapter 173 | Temperature Regulation
Chapter 173: 173 | Temperature Regulation
Alexis Van Der Berg did not cry.
She wanted that to be clear. To herself. To the universe. To whatever cosmic entity was currently observing her press her forehead against the bathroom tile like a complete lunatic. Crying was for girls who had not been trained from birth to project invincibility. Crying was for girls who did not have forty-three thousand Instagram followers watching their every move. Crying was for girls who could afford to be weak.
The tile was cool against her skin. That was the only reason she was doing this. Temperature regulation. Perfectly normal behavior for a Tuesday morning.
Her phone buzzed in her bag. Harrison again, probably. The fourth message in two hours. She did not need to read it to know it would contain the words "synergy" or "connect" or "my family’s yacht." Harrison Van Allen the Third communicated exclusively in LinkedIn posts that somehow escaped into his personal texts. His family owned half of Laguna Beach. His jaw could cut glass. His trust fund could buy a small island.
She felt nothing when she thought about him.
Not a single spark. Not even a flicker. Just a vast, empty neutrality that stretched on forever like the Pacific Ocean visible from her bedroom window at home.
"Stupid," she whispered to the tile.
The word was not directed at Harrison.
Princess.
Jordan McKnight had called her princess. In public. In front of Kumiko. In front of the thirty-seven students who had not yet left the lecture hall. He had said it casually, like it was nothing, like nicknames were free and he could just hand them out to anyone he pleased.
The audacity.
The absolute, unforgivable, brain-melting audacity.
Alexis lifted her head from the tile and examined herself in the mirror above the sink. Her reflection looked exactly like she always looked. Flawless. Composed.
The kind of beautiful that people paid surgeons thousands of dollars to approximate through precise application of scalpel and filler. Her honey-blonde hair fell in perfect waves over her shoulders, each strand where it was supposed to be.
Her makeup remained immaculate despite the fact that she had just been lying on a public bathroom floor like some kind of unhinged Victorian heroine. Her blue eyes showed no evidence of tears because, again, she did not cry.
Crying was for people who lacked emotional discipline. Crying was for people who had not been raised by Catherine Van Der Berg.
The only problem was the color in her cheeks. A lingering pink that refused to fade no matter how many times she pressed her cold fingers against her face. She tried again. Pressed harder. Willed the blood vessels to constrict through sheer force of aristocratic breeding.
The pink remained.
"Get it together," she told her reflection. Her voice was steady. Controlled. "He’s nobody. He was Ricky the Recluse three weeks ago. He ate gas station burritos for dinner. He cried over a girl who never even kissed him. He’s a reformed loser with good hair."
Her reflection did not look convinced.
Her reflection looked like a girl whose body had developed opinions independent of her brain, which was unacceptable on multiple levels.
The bathroom door swung open and a freshman with a messy ponytail walked in. She wore the kind of outfit that suggested she had gotten dressed in the dark while simultaneously falling down a flight of stairs.
The girl froze when she saw Alexis standing at the sink, her eyes going wide with the particular terror that underclassmen reserved for social predators who could destroy their GPA with a single well-placed rumor.
"Sorry! I can come back! I didn’t know anyone was—"
"Leave."
The word came out flat. Final. The verbal equivalent of a door slamming shut.
The girl left.
Alexis turned on the faucet and let cold water run over her wrists. The sensation helped. Marginally. She counted to thirty, turned off the water, and dried her hands on a paper towel with more force than strictly necessary.
Her bag sat on the counter. Jordan’s henley was inside it.
She had worn it to sleep last night. And the night before. And the night before that. The fabric smelled like cedar and something warm and masculine that she could not identify but had become embarrassingly dependent on for achieving REM sleep. She had tried sleeping without it on Sunday. She had stared at her ceiling for four hours and finally retrieved it from the chair where she had thrown it in a fit of determination to break whatever pathetic attachment she had developed.
Alexis grabbed her bag and walked out of the bathroom.
The student union was crowded with the usual Tuesday morning traffic. Students hunched over laptops. Study groups monopolizing tables. The barista at the Starbucks counter looked like she had not slept since the Clinton administration. Alexis cut through the crowd with the particular walk she had perfected at age fourteen, the one that communicated "I am more important than you" without requiring any words.
People moved out of her way. They always did.
Her phone buzzed again.
HARRISON: Thinking about you. We should do La Valencia this weekend. My treat obviously.
La Valencia was a five-star resort in La Jolla. Harrison’s family had a standing reservation. He had taken her there once, in November, when she was still entertaining the idea of him as a viable option. The room had cost more than most people’s monthly rent. The champagne had been Dom Perignon. Harrison had tried to kiss her by the infinity pool and she had let him because that was what she was supposed to do.
She felt nothing then either.
Alexis typed a response.
ALEXIS: Can’t this weekend. Family thing.
The lie came easily. Lies always came easily. Her mother had taught her that honesty was a luxury reserved for people without reputations to protect.
She walked toward the east exit, heading for her next class. Philosophy of Ethics, which was exactly as tedious as it sounded but fulfilled a general education requirement and featured a professor who did not take attendance. Alexis planned to sit in the back and scroll through Instagram for fifty minutes while pretending to take notes.
Her path took her past the large windows overlooking the main quad.
She glanced out, idly scanning the campus landscape, and froze.
Jordan McKnight was walking toward the math building. Kumiko Yamanaka was beside him, her hand wrapped around his wrist, her twin tails bouncing with every step. They were talking. Laughing. Kumiko said something that made Jordan smile, and the expression transformed his entire face from "unfairly handsome" to "devastatingly attractive in a way that should be illegal."
Then Jordan reached over and put his hand on Kumiko’s head.