IT SHOULDN’T HAVE mattered all that much. It was only clothes. But I think it was more that I felt betrayed. Why hadn’t he told me? Was it because he felt sorry for me? The Archer I’d met in that shop was far from the sympathising kind. Surely he hadn’t planned all this from the start. Surely.

“Jolie, are you alright?” Autumn was saying, squeezing my arm. “You look a little faint.”

I looked at her. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just a bit light-headed.”

She brought me toward the nearest table. “Here, look, have a seat. Take the weight off for a bit, alright?”

She was right, but Archer had finished his mini row with his mother and was headed this way. I just couldn’t see him. Not yet.

It’s only clothes, I told myself over and over. But it wasn’t about just clothes.

I picked myself up from the chair and slipped past Autumn. I used other people as a shield so that I wouldn’t be spotted by Archer. He’d find me eventually, but I needed to scrape together some composure before I saw him.

I could hardly breathe. It felt like everything around me was coming crashing down, and sucking all the oxygen away with it. He’d been right with what he’d said before: I did need his money. And he knew it. He fucking knew it all along.

“Jolie?” A voice said from behind me.

“Annalise,” I said with a mixture of relief and a grimace. I was glad it was her over someone else, but then I wasn’t exactly too thrilled about coming face to face with the boy I loved’s ex. Love? Did I really just— I didn’t have time to second guess myself as I realised she was waiting for me to say something.
“How are you?”

“Oh, I’m alright,” she said with a genuine smile. Couldn’t she just be a bitch? Like a huge, unforgivable bitch just so I had a reason not to like her. Just once. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something actually.”

I chewed on the inside of my mouth. “Really?” She nodded, almost bashful. “What did you want to ask me about?”

“Well, you see, it’s going to sound awfully strange…” she trailed off. “No, it’s silly. I really shouldn’t.”

“No, no,” I told her, trying to match her easiness with a smile. But that was difficult when I was constantly looking around for the tall, brown haired god I really needed to avoid at the moment. “Go ahead.”

“It’s about your name.”

“What about it?”

Jolie. It was fairly ordinary. Nothing that should seem warranting of being brought up, surely.

“Jolie?” And there it was. Only, it wasn’t from her mouth.

I turned to the over grown spanish boy. He looked between me and Annalise, confusedly.

“Annalise? What are you—” he shook his head. “Never mind. Jolie, Archer’s looking for you.”

“I’m aware,” I muttered.

He laughed, eyebrows slightly furrowed. “Aren’t you going to, you know, go find him then?”

“I’m not planning on it,” I told him, straight-faced. Again, he looked completely bewildered— one dark eye brow higher than the other and his mouth slightly ajar. I caught sight of his best friend, not too far away from us. This large hall was beginning to feel smaller and smaller by the minute. “Please don’t tell him where I am, Noah.”

“Jol—”

“Noah, please.”

He sighed, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. He’d taken his suit jacket off, so now he was in only his white shirt and trousers.

Relieving himself of another large lungful of air, he said, “Fine, but if this gets me killed, there’ll be hell to pay.” He pretended to be serious. And maybe before, I would have laughed, have been able to relax a bit. But not right now.

“Thank you,” I said, genuinely.

“Are you alright?” He asked, watching me carefully, like I might suddenly shatter to pieces. “You seem… on edge.”

Try… about to spontaneously combust.

“Perfectly fine.”

He looked disbelieving but didn’t say anything else. I watched as he walked away, giving me a small wave. I smiled back. It dropped as soon as he’d turned away from me.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Annalise. “Do you mind if I get back to you?” She shook her head as if to say ‘not at all.’ Then, more to myself I said, “I just need some air.”

Yes, air. That’ll fix everything, I thought to myself, sarcastically.

When I did finally reach the back doors, I heaved them open and gulped down some much needed air. I found a spot on a swinging chair and sat down, careful not to get the dress in any mud as I stepped over patches of grass.

The stars, which I’d previously thought had seemed to shine only for Archer, now only taunted me. They only reminded me of that night, when everything was so simple. Maybe not simple, but simpler. I wasn’t trying to conjure the courage to admit to myself that I might love Archer. I wasn’t trying to avoid him at all costs. I wasn’t being trapped in conversation with his ex.

“Everything’s such a mess,” I muttered to myself, head in my hands.

“Jolie?” I’m getting sick of my own name now.

I took a peek at him.

I went to get up, but he grasped my wrist— gentle but firm.

“Why do you keep running away?”

I sat down again on the swing chair, Archer joining me. His long legs reached the floor easily, steadying us, whilst I just slumped on it.

Picking myself up from my slouched state, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were the one that paid for my uniform?”

He gazed upwards, then at me. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Of course it matters, Archer,” I said, quietly.

“Are you angry?” He asked, almost unsure. He looked like a lost puppy. I almost felt like laughing.

“No,” I told him, honestly. “I just wished you’d have told me.” He stood up and faced me. “What’re you doing?”

He offered his hand to me. I took it. “From this point on,” he said, helping me up. “No more secrets.”

“No more secrets,” I affirmed.

Too bad the biggest one I was hoarding wasn’t ready to come out just yet.

***

When we went back into where the party was taking place, Archer’s hand protective yet gentle around mine, I tried to relax. That was easier said than done with his mother watching us both over her glass of red wine. She didn’t even look in the least bit ashamed when I made eye contact with her, simply raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow as if testing me.

I stole my attention away from her as Archer led us forward. Not looking back over there was hard, especially when I spotted Annalise and her making conversation. Did she like her better than me? Of course, you fucking idiot, I told myself. She’d like that waiter better than you.

“Dance with me,” Archer said, lips grazing the shell of my ear as he leant down to my level. I looked up at him, almost taken aback by his beauty for the god knows how many timeth of the night. “Come on.”

I put my hand into his, letting the rest of me step closer to him. So similar to how we were at the school’s party. It almost felt like a distant dream. Yet, so did tonight, as I’m sure night after night after night would. Archer had this obscure ability to make me feel like I was stuck in the space between imagination and reality, like I was floating, and those azure eyes were the only thing keeping my feet on solid ground.

He was graceful and elegant as ever, guiding me this way and that as he spun me, me likely looking far less put together than he was. I couldn’t bring myself to care, though, as I tilted my head back in laughter. He watched me, amused, and spun me so that I lost my balance and crashed into his chest.

“Want to get out of here?” I breathed, low enough for the aging couple beside us— dancing like they were chasing the memory of their youth— couldn’t hear me.

He raised his eyebrow, suggestively. I felt the urge to hit him, tell him to get his head out of the gutter… yet, that’s exactly what I was insinuating.

“I’m not sure if I can last that long,” he said, voice just as low as it took on a sultry undertone.

I flicked a stray piece of hair off his forehead and smirked, ever so slightly. “Well I’m not about to do anything in the coat room.”

“A pity,” he said.

Don’t blush. Don’t blush.

“Just meet me outside the toilets in five, okay?” He went to say something, but I was quick to cut him off. “Another peep and I might change my mind.”

He clamped his mouth shut.

As I turned, I saw him pretending to zip his mouth closed. I withheld a grin.

Pretty much five minutes to the second and I heard a distinct, crisp knock on the door. I chanced a final glance in the mirror, wiping my under-eye a final time. I thanked the heavens that nobody else was in the loos and went over to the door.

Just as it opened a fraction, I was grasped and spun round so my back leant against it, effectively closing it. His body was so close. I could feel every curve, every dip in his skin as we stood, nose to nose, hip to hip.

“Hey,” I said, barely above a whisper as he stared down at me, golden lights drawing shadows across his face so that he looked even more defined, even more sculpture like.

“Hey,” He returned.

I wound my fingers into the bottom of his hair, easing him down to me. He seemed to not be about to initiate whatever I’d promised out there, deciding instead, to let me do all the work. Putting my pride aside to bring his lips to mine was torture enough.

When no more than a millimetre away, however, I could almost feel that smirk. I almost wanted to push him away, just to wipe it off his stupidly handsome face, but I wanted this just as much as him. My slightly sweaty palms and dry mouth was enough to show that.

He took his time in exploring my lips with his own. One hand reached up behind me, the distinct clicking of the door as he turned the lock echoing shortly afterward, before joining the other in running up and down my sides, like he was trying to commit every crevice, every curve to memory.

I reached my own hands down and rested them on his hips, not really knowing whether it was to steady him or myself.

“No one’s home?” I asked, trying not to let my own jitters appear on my face as I looked up at him through my lashes.

“The house is—” his breath fanned my neck, enough to conjure goosebumps across my skin and I was sure the small hairs there would be standing proud. With each syllable, his lips would brush my skin and it took every cell in my body to not just let my legs fold beneath me, like some lavishly dressed deck chair. “—completely empty.”

He held out his hand, but I shook my head. “Me and you both coming out of the female toilets is a tad suspicious, don’t you think?”

He turned his head, analysing me, before nodding. “Five minutes again?”

I let him walk out, leaving the door unlocked as I went back over to the mirror and fixed my lipstick. Leaving the toilets with Archer was fairly obvious, but leaving with red smeared up half my face was blatant.

“Oh, sorry,” I told someone as I left the toilet in a bit of a hurry and bumped into them. Call me eager.

They didn’t look back at me, preferring to keep walking. I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t stop the encroaching feeling of ‘do I know you?’ as I tried to recall the glimpse of their side-profile I’d glimpsed.

I was making my way toward Archer, restraining myself from sprinting over to him as he waited by the door we’d come into the large room by. We’d be out into the hallway, out of the doors, and back to the chalet in no time. I swallowed my nerves, replacing them swiftly with only one thing: anticipation.

“There you are,” Annalise said, putting herself right in the way of my path. I had to stop abruptly to refrain from running straight into her. “I’ve been meaning to catch up with you all evening.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, remembering the promise of ‘getting back’ to her that I’d had no intention of keeping. “About my name, was it?”

“Yes!” She shook her blonde curls away from her face. I noticed then just how much she used her hands to talk. A nervous habit, maybe? “You see, this is going to sound completely insane, but I was wondering if you, by chance, know Jules?”

I drew my gaze from Archer, who looked less than comfortable with this situation. I didn’t want to seem rude, though, so kept my glances at him to a minimum.

“Jules?”

She tossed her hair off her shoulder, cheeks a little redder than before as she recognised my genuine confusion. And then, like a match had been ignited, her face lit up as she looked behind me. “Ah, there he is! Jules, come here.”

Archer didn’t look ‘less than comfortable’ anymore. That just didn’t cut it. He looked absolutely terrified. And that was saying something, considering Archer Redwood rarely, if ever, showed emotion so intense, especially one such as fear that— I could almost hear his voice saying it— would make him look weak and vulnerable.

I turned to this ‘Jules’ and watched as Annalise wound an arm around his waist, drawing him forward.

I swallowed the bile searing my throat.

There was a reason I’d thought that dark hair and those high cheekbones seemed so familiar. Dark eyes met mine, a swirling, intangible concoction of horror and shock.

I was first to speak.

“Dad?”