Chapter 175 | A Glitch in the Matrix
Chapter 175: 175 | A Glitch in the Matrix
He knew that her "ideal man" specification matched him almost exactly. He knew and he had smiled that insufferable smile and called her princess and Alexis had spent every moment since then trying to pretend the entire evening had not happened.
The pretending was not going well.
She found herself checking Jordan’s Instagram at two in the morning. Rereading old text messages. Analyzing every interaction they had shared for subtext that probably did not exist. She was behaving like Kumiko, which was the most horrifying realization of all.
Alexis Van Der Berg did not pine. She was pursued. She was desired. She was the destination, not the traveler.
Yet here she sat in a philosophy lecture hall, wearing designer clothes that cost more than a used car, thinking about a boy who lived next door and apparently collected girlfriends like Pokemon cards.
Her phone buzzed again.
HARRISON: La Valencia has a new chef. Supposed to be incredible. Think about it?
She did not want to think about it. She did not want to consider Harrison’s sculpted features or his bottomless bank account or his strategic family connections that would look flawless in wedding announcements. She wanted to dwell on someone completely different. Someone with changeable hazel eyes that caught lamplight and turned molten amber. Someone whose voice had qualities she refused to name because naming them would make this real.
Alexis pressed her eyelids together hard enough that colors sparked behind them.
Jordan’s henley sat folded in her Goyard tote. The cotton had absorbed her expensive body lotion over the past week. The fabric still carried traces of his detergent mixed with something else. Something distinctly him. She could sense its presence against her ribs through the bag’s canvas exterior. It existed as evidence. As admission. As a fragment of Jordan McKnight that she had appropriated and hidden and demonstrated zero ability to surrender.
Returning it would be the rational choice. The correct choice. The choice that maintained the social order she had spent eighteen years perfecting.
She should walk up to him after class, hand him the shirt, and say something cutting about his laundry habits. She should establish boundaries. She should remind him that she was Alexis Van Der Berg and he was Jordan McKnight and whatever was happening between them was a glitch in the matrix that needed to be corrected immediately.
She should do a lot of things.
Instead, she opened a new text conversation.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
What would she even say? Hey, I have your shirt and I’ve been sleeping in it for a week? Want it back or should I continue my descent into madness?
She typed three different messages. Deleted all of them. Typed a fourth.
ALEXIS: Jordan.
She stared at the single word for thirty seconds. Then she erased it.
Professor Hammond continued his lecture. Something about duty and moral law. Alexis took zero notes. Her Word document remained blank. Her Instagram tab remained open. Her life remained a carefully constructed facade that was developing cracks she did not know how to repair.
The class ended at eleven fifteen. Alexis packed her laptop, shouldered her bag, and walked toward the exit with the rest of the students. The henley shifted against her hip with every step, a constant reminder of her complete psychological deterioration.
She made it halfway across the quad before she saw him again.
Jordan was sitting on a bench near the fountain. Alone this time. Kumiko must have gone to her next class. He had his phone out, scrolling through something, and the afternoon sun hit his face at an angle that highlighted his cheekbones and the sharp line of his jaw.
Alexis stopped walking.
She could approach him. Right now. Return the henley. Say something dismissive. Reestablish the proper power dynamic between them.
Jordan looked up.
Their eyes met across twenty feet of carefully landscaped campus greenery.
Alexis’s heart did something embarrassing in her chest. A skip. A flutter. The kind of physiological response that she associated with amateur hour rather than the controlled emotional regulation she had spent eighteen years perfecting.
Jordan smiled.
Not a smirk. Not the challenging expression he wore when he called her princess. Just a smile. Warm. Open. The kind of smile that suggested he was genuinely pleased to see her.
Alexis turned and walked in the opposite direction.
She did not run. Running would have been undignified. But her pace increased significantly as she put distance between herself and the boy on the bench who had somehow become the center of gravity for every thought in her head.
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She could not even look at him without her face betraying her. She could not stand in his presence without remembering the way his voice had sounded during their duet. She could not return a simple piece of clothing because doing so would require acknowledging that she had stolen it in the first place.
Alexis Van Der Berg was not supposed to feel like this.
She was supposed to be untouchable. Above it all. The queen who watched from her throne while peasants scrambled for her attention.
Instead, she was a girl who slept in a stolen henley and hid in bathrooms and walked away from simple social interactions because her heart could not be trusted.
Her phone buzzed.
JORDAN: You looked like you wanted to say something.
She stopped walking.
He had seen her. He had watched her turn and leave. And now he was texting her about it.
ALEXIS: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
JORDAN: My bad then. Have a good day, princess.
Princess.
He had done it again. Through text this time. The word glowed on her screen like a provocation, and Alexis felt her face heat up even though nobody was watching.
She typed a response without thinking.
ALEXIS: Stop calling me that.
JORDAN: Why?
ALEXIS: Because I told you to.
JORDAN: That’s not a real reason.
ALEXIS: It’s the only reason you’re getting.
The henley in her bag was warm against her hip.
She was so completely screwed.