Collapse: Book Two (bxb) ✔️

1. I'd rather chew on glass.

"Roast me. Cook me. Preserve me. I don't care. I'm not rooming with the possessed bird. I'd rather chew on glass."

Mrs. Heartwell blinked as she stared at me. "You're in a lobby full of students, Salem. They can all hear you."

I crossed my arms. "You say that like I care."

"They're set in stone, you're rooming with Raven Fox. Sorry, but you are the only two men on this trip, and I will not put you with any of the girls."

Rolling my eyes, I shifted on my feet. "You can trust that I'm not looking their way. I'd say you should be concerned about me looking at Raven, but I'd rather scoop my eyeballs out with a toothpick. I don't want to room with him. I don't want to be near him."

"Nothing I can do." She moved on while I tried not to panic. "Alicia, you're with Ruby."

And she continued like she didn't just completely obliterate my entire life. I had no idea why that piece of human waste was even in the book club on campus. The asshole didn't even read. I was looking forward to this trip, but of course, he was put in my group for the resort, and I should have seen it coming that he'd be my partner.

My heart still hadn't healed even a fraction from that one dreary summer evening, and while I'd been seeing him around campus here and there, I always made sure to go to book club meetings that I knew he couldn't attend. I thought that maybe he wouldn't sign up for this trip. My parents were less than pleased that I'd be missing out on Christmas this year, but I wanted to do the project attached to the trip.

Mrs. Heartwell was going to assign us a trope to engage with. We had to write a short story with that trope, and now I was expected to work with Raven on this assignment. At least I had two amazing writers in my family. But how was I expected to write a romance short story with someone who didn't know shit about romance? All Raven knew how to do was break my heart. And possibly anyone else's he managed to break along the way.

I felt a presence next to me. An unwelcome fucking presence. I side-stepped to get away from him. God, I didn't want to relive how humiliated I felt. Cyrus was onto something about the humiliation he felt when he found out Sage knew sign language, but at least Sage didn't have any cruel intentions.

Why did I ever think it would work out between us anyway? In the ten years I'd known Raven, I never even felt what his touch was like. Never hugged him. Nothing. He wasn't wrong. He wasn't an affectionate human being. Me, I loved it. What kind of match were we? A perfect match if we subtracted the affection thing.

Raven was eternally loyal.

At least, I thought he was.

I guess I was wrong about that.

Once Mrs. Heartwell was done assigning partners, she jumped right into the discussion about the project we were expected to complete. Lovely. "Okay, I will be assigning you the tropes I want you to write about. You are to take tonight and start coming up with a plan with the activities I've provided you. Your job is to write a short story from the perspective of the two characters. You can choose however you wish when it comes to pairings. Two boys. Two girls. A boy and a girl. Nonbinary. Trans. However you want to create your story, you write it. However, you must work together to come up with the micro-tropes. I know in this class the 'Who did this to you' micro-trope is very popular. It still needs to be Christmas-related. Fantasy is allowed."

I crossed my arms, pouting because I didn't know how the hell I was going to survive this. I was doomed to write a short romance story with the person who blew up the only romance I truly found myself wanting. Such a cruel existence that I must endure. But I haven't even so much as spoken to Raven since that night, so I wasn't sure how this was going to work when I didn't want to speak to him at all.