SADIE
Even in class, I’m not safe from the terrible luck Ezra brings into my life.
The lecture hall empties around us while my heart does its best to break some kind of speed record. The constant glances from everyone leaving certainly aren’t helping.
Yeah, keep looking. Get a good look at the prized calves trussed up for auction.
I suppose I can’t even blame them. Professor Hart announced that two people submitted identical projects and, in the same breath, asked Ezra and me to stay behind. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out those two things are connected.
What I don’t understand is how anyone could have submitted something identical to mine.
I finished mine early and did every bit of it myself. Unless Ezra hacked into the system, downloaded my work, and slapped his name across the top, there has to be a mistake.
There has to be.
"Give me a minute," Professor Hart says, looking at her laptop. "I’m pulling up the data sheet."
I use the wait to pull my handkerchief from my bag and wipe my clammy palms. Ezra is beside me, but I stare straight ahead like he isn’t. It’s ridiculous that I still have to make an effort not to look at him.
Stupid, traitorous heart.
"Here." Professor Hart turns the laptop toward us. "I’m going to give you both a chance to explain this before I decide how to proceed."
Two sets of results sit side by side on the screen.
"Same dataset. Nearly identical variables. Same final model." She scrolls a little farther down. "And then there’s the name. Ezbridge."
I hoped this wasn’t going to be bad, but EZbridge pretty much kills that hope. I sneak a glare at Ezra. The same model is one thing. The same name?
"I have no idea," I answer quickly. "I submitted mine early, so unless there was some kind of problem with the system—"
"She probably used the model I told her about," Ezra cuts in.
Excuse me?
Now I look at him properly.
The liar won’t even meet my eyes. His attention stays on Professor Hart, not so much as a twitch giving him away, as if he didn’t just pull that sentence out of whatever dark place he stores his lies.
"I have my drafts and the dataset, I can—"
"I mentioned the model to her a while ago," He cuts across me again. "Not in detail. We talked about what I planned to do for the project, the variables I wanted to use and how I was thinking of structuring it. I didn’t think she’d actually use it."
My mouth slacks. "That is not what happened."
He finally meets my eyes, and I’m struck by how cruelty settles into features I used to love. Butcruelty doesn’t settle in overnight, does it? It was there. I just had my head too screwed up by the mate bond to see it.
"Professor Hart, I built my model myself," I say, turning back to her. "From scratch. Ezra never gave me anything."
"Can you defend it?" he asks.
He has some nerve asking me that about a model he stole.
"Yes. Every part of it. I can—"
"Then explain the name."
Every defense lined up in my head crashes.
He gestures toward the laptop. "EZbridge. You came up with the exact model I described to you, and gave it a name derived from mine too?" His brow lifts. "That’s a pretty convenient coincidence, Sadie."
No.
No, no, no.
I know how that looks. If this were a few centuries ago, they’d probably have me halfway to the chopping block for lying by now.
But this is just one of the things past Sadie did that is currently ruining Present Sadie’s life.
I named the model after Ezra.
EZbridge.
It was supposed to compare mate relationships across different social classes and figure out what actually helped them survive the gap between them. I thought that was brilliant. Then again, one month ago, I was still somebody’s mate.
I’d spent an embarrassing amount of time reading every study I could find about couples like us. An omega with no family name, no pack status and bonded to the son of one of the most powerful Alphas around.
There had to be couples who made that work so I wanted to know what separated them from the ones who didn’t. What could bridge the gap.
Hence, the stupid name.
Except it didn’t feel stupid then.
A month ago, Ezra seemed to love me. Maybe not in the loud, obvious way I wished he would, but he let me love him. He came to me when he needed something. Let me take care of him and gave me those tiny pieces of affection I was good at stretching bigger.
Besides, we were bonded. I thought that had to mean something.
My mouth opens to explain all of that or at least the part that won’t make me look even more pathetic but nothing comes out.
"I understand the project was difficult," Ezra says beside me, "but plagiarism shouldn’t be the answer."
My head snaps up, but he’s addressing Professor Hart.
"I don’t want this to become bigger than it needs to be," he continues. "If there’s any way you could reconsider the penalty and give her another chance, I’d appreciate it."
For me. He’s asking her to go easy on me.
I’ve never felt so small.
Professor Hart has known me for years. I’ve never given her a reason not to trust me, and I have drafts, datasets, and timestamps of versions of EZbridge. I should be telling her all of that instead of letting Ezra stand here and speak for me.
But I feel tiny beside him. Like an ant under one of his expensive shoes. And because crushing me would be too easy, he’s doing it slowly enough for Professor Hart to watch him ease off and think he’s showing me mercy.
The handkerchief is a wrinkled mess in my hands now.
His model couldn’t be this close to mine unless he’d seen my work. So he knows what EZbridge meant.
What did he do with that? Laugh? Roll his eyes at how pathetic I was? Was Paige in the picture already?
How much do you have to hate someone to find something they made because they loved you and decide to use it against them?
Goddess, that hurts.
"Sadie?"
Professor Hart’s voice pulls me back.
"You’ve always been an excellent student. That’s part of what makes this so disappointing." Her expression softens. "I’m willing to take your academic record into consideration and give you another chance. You’ll have one week to submit a new project. I know that isn’t much time, but it’s the most I can offer without reporting this."
She turns to Ezra. "Since this involves your work, do you have any objection to me handling it this way?"
"No. I think that’s fair."
Down I go, sinking deeper into the bottomless pit of hurt he dug for me.
A week sounds impossible, but so does standing here another minute. I nod. "Thank you. I’ll send something in."
"Good." She closes her laptop. "And Sadie, plagiarism is serious. Whether you copy someone’s work directly or take their methodology and make changes around it, it’s still academic misconduct. I don’t want to have this conversation with you again."
My cheeks burn. "You won’t."
"I hope not."
She gathers the papers beside her laptop, tucks them into her bag and leaves with one look in my direction.
The door closes behind her, and all I can think about is that last look.
A few minutes ago, I was one of her best students. Now she thinks I’m a plagiarist she was kind enough not to report.
If humiliation had a smell, I’m pretty sure it would be coming off me by now.
I wipe beneath my eyes and stare at the handkerchief.
Strangely, beneath all this fresh hurt, an older one has gone quiet.
For days, some stupid part of me has been mourning Ezra. Missing him even after everything he did. Remembering all the tiny pieces of him I loved and wondering how I was supposed to wake up one morning and suddenly stop.
Is this it, then? My wake-up call?
Pretty sad that it took this much cruelty for his name to start burning itself out of my heart.
Ezra is already heading for the door when I go after him.
"That’s it? You’re just going to walk away?"
He stops.
"How did you get my project?"
He only turns halfway toward me, like I’m not worth the full effort. "What are you talking about?"
I close the distance between us. "How long have you been planning this? Actually, no. What do you stand to gain from any of this? What did I do to you, Ezra? What did I possibly do that makes you think I deserve this?"
He shoves both hands into his pockets. "Do you have to do something?"
"What?"
"It’s fun, Sadie. That’s why."
My head goes quiet.
Really quiet.
I’ve felt this before. That horrible second when you see something go wrong and your body hasn’t decided whether to scream or run or stand there staring.
So I stare. At Ezra. At the person I spent three years loving.
Fun.That’s what he called it.
"Besides, don’t you think I deserve something for putting up with you for three fucking years?" He rubs the side of his mouth. "You think it was fair to me? Out of everyone the Goddess could’ve given me, I got you."
His eyes travel over me slowly enough to make my skin crawl. "My father looked at me like I was filth every time he remembered who I was bonded to. Do you know what that’s like? You should be grateful all I took from you was a project. You were helpful for once."
My bottom lip trembles, but hell no. I am not crying in front of him. He’s already taken enough from me, and a cruel piece of shit like him doesn’t get to enjoy my tears.
"Being bonded to me never made you less," I force a smile. "Your father didn’t look at you like you were filth because of me, Ezra. That was you." My voice shakes. "Whatever he saw when he looked at you, whatever made him think you weren’t good enough, that was already there."
"You fucking—"
"Sadie."
A voice cuts across the lecture hall.
I follow the voice toward the door and find Trey standing there.
He’s here to pick me up. I remember that only after seeing him, but he doesn’t look like someone who came here for a tutoring session.
His eyes land on me, and I wish they wouldn’t. Not when I’m sure my face is wearing every miserable second of the last twenty minutes.
His expression hardens anyway.
Then he looks at his brother.
Ezra turns toward him, and the tick in his jaw doesn’t escape me.
"Let’s go," Trey orders.
I swallow.
There are probably a hundred more things I could say to Ezra. He just isn’t worth any of them anymore.
I adjust my bag and walk toward the door.
Past him. Straight to his brother.