Sarah Bailey

I will bring them the heads of the men known as the Four Horsemen.

Or die trying.

I’d noticed the way he’d looked at her our whole lives. As if she was the sun and he was basking in her fucking glory. Well, now West could bask in her all over again, but this time, the rest of us would too.

She’s ours. She belongs to us. She always has.

The moment she looked up and our eyes met, it was as if all the air had been stolen from my lungs. And for a second, there was recognition in those hazel-green depths. Recognition of who I was to her and who she was to me.

Fuck. I want you. I fucking want you. I can’t stand it.

I’m not sure they realised what I was reading and how I’d become fascinated with the dark and morbid.

“Please… please fuck me, West,”

Act like you didn’t give a shit about her after you’d rocked her world.

At the end, the promise of freedom awaited. And the heavy price I had to pay was a burden I had to live with.

Most of our other classmates will procrastinate until Sunday night to get it done, opting to spend their Valentine’s Day in more enticing ways, but I knew Maya
would come down to the North Library to study tonight, and it’s no surprise I ended up doing the same.

If I were going to ask anyone out on the most romantic of holidays, it’d be her.

She’d say no, though. So instead, I spend my evening actually getting ahead of my coursework for once while stealing glances at her from the table across the room, searching for the courage I know I won’t find to speak to her.

I mean, I do speak to Maya often. We take many of the same courses, and that’s not because I’m stalking her. We’re both pre-law. Last term, we formed a study group with a few other students and we often meet up, though everyone else had plans tonight.

I met Maya last fall in an Introduction to Law and Literature course. She caught my eye the first day when she was the only student in the room with the gall to ask our professor for clarification on the syllabus, establishing herself as the most ambitious, outspoken, and driven woman I’ve ever met. And that’s generous, considering my sister, Penelope, just got admitted to fucking Oxford.

I’ve lusted after her ever since, and sometimes, I swear I can see a matching passion in Maya’s eyes, but whatever may be brewing beneath the surface, she sure as hell won’t act upon it.