Tangled Hearts.

~Chapter 10~

~Raelyn~
 
~Friday, September 12th~

The alarm clock screamed like it had been possessed by Satan himself. I slapped at it blindly, half-hoping I'd just break the damn thing and be forced to sleep forever. Unfortunately, I'm too responsible for that. And also, Blake would probably eat sugar straight out of the bag if I didn't supervise breakfast.

I groaned and peeled myself off the mattress like day-old pizza cheese. This was my glamorous new life in Los Angeles—complete with overpriced rent, suspicious plumbing noises, and neighbors who probably sacrificed goats under a full moon.

My feet hit the floor like they weighed a thousand pounds. Great. I was already tired and I hadn't even stood up yet.

After a quick, lukewarm shower that I'm 97% sure gave me emotional damage, I pulled my hair into a messy bun that screamed "don't talk to me," threw on a pink sweat set that made me look like a strawberry marshmallow, and jammed silver hoops into my ears with the kind of energy usually reserved for battle prep.

I glanced at the clock. 9:00 AM. Crap.

"Blake!" I shouted, bolting down the stairs like a sitcom mom about to lose it. "We're gonna be late!"

He was at the kitchen table, watching cartoons and eating dry cereal straight out of the box like a tiny gremlin. His legs were swinging under the chair and he had zero intention of moving.

"Buddy. School. Remember that thing we do so you don't become a YouTube prankster for a living?"

He blinked up at me. "But I was just about to see if the dog turns into a robot!"

"Tell the robot dog I said he's ruining my morning," I muttered, pouring milk into a bowl and shoving it in front of him. "Eat. Shoes. Backpack. Let's move like we have a future."

By some miracle—or divine intervention—we made it to school drop-off. I gave Blake a kiss on the head and watched him run toward the building like the floor was lava. I sat in the car for a second, mentally preparing myself to enter the academic equivalent of purgatory: West Creek University.

It was my third day of classes, and I still hadn't figured out if this place was full of actual students or just background actors pretending to learn. Either way, I parked, slung my backpack over one shoulder like I was trying to look like I had my life together (I didn't), and headed toward the main building.

And that's when I saw her.

Malia. And her posse. Strutting down the hall like they were in a perfume commercial no one asked for. You could smell them before you saw them—like a confusing blend of synthetic flowers, Axe body spray, and emotional instability.

I rolled my eyes so hard I saw the back of my skull. "Perfect," I muttered. "Just what I needed—an olfactory assault and psychological warfare."

Malia gave me her usual once-over, like she was mentally Photoshopping me into someone more acceptable. Her lip curled. "Aw, if it isn't our little half-dead."

I didn't even flinch. "Malia, do the world a favor and go find a mirror to argue with."

Her brows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I said, flipping her off without missing a step. "Go practice being relevant somewhere else."

Her friends gasped like I'd just slapped her with a Bible. I walked away with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had just disarmed a bomb with sarcasm.

Of course, she wasn't done.

"Honestly," she called after me, "you should be grateful anyone even notices you exist."