Dripping Glass. Broken Trust.

"You said you had the bio notes."

I drop my bag on the dirt. The heavy canvas hits the ground with a wet, dull thud. It is entirely too hot in here. The campus greenhouse was abandoned five years ago, left to rot behind the old science building. Now it just smells like wet earth and dead things.

Water drips from the glass roof. Tick. Tick. Snowmelt sliding off the curved panes. It sounds like a cheap clock running out of battery.

Shawn doesn't say anything. He is standing by the rusted iron tables at the far back. The light in here is wrong. It is that flat, gray spring light that makes everything look exhausted. The kind of light that gives you a headache if you stare at it too long.

"Shawn." I tap my phone. The screen is cracked right down the middle, splintering his face on my lock screen notifications. No bars. Zero service. Of course. We are at the very edge of the property line. "I don't have time for this. Midterms are tomorrow. I need the flash drive."

He steps out from the shadow of a massive, dead ivy vine. The leaves are brown and curled, clinging to the rusted frame of the building like dry skin.

"I have them," he says. His voice is totally flat.

"Okay. Great. Hand them over."

I hold out my hand. I am tired. I am so tired my eyes burn. I spent the last three nights running on vending machine coffee and sheer panic, trying to cram an entire semester of cellular biology into my head. I do not have the patience for Shawn's weird, dramatic pauses today.

He doesn't move. He just looks at me.

There is a physical weight in the air. A sudden shift. The Shadow Mass. It is that heavy, terrifying feeling you get when you step onto an elevator and realize the floor isn't there. My stomach drops. Just a fraction of an inch, but enough to make me acutely aware of my own heartbeat.

"It's hot in here," I say. My voice sounds thinner than it did a minute ago. "Can we just do this outside?"

"The damp ruins the paper."

"I thought you had a flash drive."

"I printed them."

I rub my eyes. "Shawn, seriously. Just give me the notes. I need to get back to the library. Chloe is holding my table."

He takes a step forward. His shoes are white. Optic, bright white. Brand new sneakers. They are completely spotless, which makes absolutely no sense because the path to the greenhouse is a hundred yards of thick, muddy spring slush. He must have walked through the grass. He must have taken the long way around just to keep his shoes clean.

It is a stupid detail. A completely irrelevant detail. But my brain latches onto it because the alternative is looking at his face.

"You don't need to go back to the library," he says.

"Yeah, I do. If I fail this test, my academic probation kicks in. I'm already on thin ice after last semester."

Last semester. The winter. The absolute worst four months of my entire life.

Just thinking about January makes my chest tight. The endless snow. The freezing wind rattling my dorm window. And the panic. The constant, suffocating paranoia that followed me everywhere. The feeling of being watched. The missed calls from blocked numbers. The weird, blank text messages that arrived at 3:00 AM every single night.

And Sam.

Sam pulling away. Sam looking at me like I was crazy. Sam finally packing his things and walking out without looking back, leaving me completely isolated in the middle of a blizzard.

Shawn was there, though. Shawn was always there. Sitting in the common room with two cups of bad coffee, ready to listen to me cry. Ready to tell me that Sam was a jerk, that I deserved better, that I was just stressed.

"You won't fail," Shawn says. He takes another step.

He is moving slowly. Deliberately. And he is angling his body to the left.

I look past him. The main aisle of the greenhouse is blocked by overturned pots and a collapsed wooden bench. The only way out is the rusted iron door I just walked through.

Shawn is standing between me and the door.

My mouth goes dry.

"Shawn. Give me the notes."

"Sam didn't deserve you."

The name hits me like a physical blow. I flinch. I actually physically flinch, my shoulders snapping up toward my ears.

"What?"

"I said, Sam didn't deserve you. He was weak. He couldn't handle you."

"Why are we talking about Sam?" My heart rate is spiking. I can feel the pulse in my neck, right under my jaw. It is beating too fast. The heat in the greenhouse is suddenly unbearable. The humidity is thick, wrapping around my throat like a wet towel. I reach up and unzip my hoodie, pulling it open.

"Because you're still thinking about him," Shawn says. He tilts his head. His eyes are dark, completely unreadable. "I can see it. You get that look on your face. You get quiet. You stare at your phone like you expect him to text you."

"He blocked me, Shawn. We all know that. You were there when it happened."

"I know."

"So drop it. Please. I just want to study."

"I can't drop it. Because it isn't fair. I did everything right, Wendy. I did everything perfectly. And you're still sad over a guy who didn't even fight for you."

I freeze.

The dripping water from the roof seems to get louder. Tick. Tick. Tick. Hitting the metal tables. Hitting the mud.

"What do you mean, you did everything right?"

Shawn sighs. It is a heavy, put-upon sigh. The kind of sigh a frustrated teacher gives a slow student. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket.

I step back. My heel hits the edge of a broken clay pot. It crunches loudly under my boot.

He pulls out his phone. Not a flash drive. Not a stack of printed notes. Just his phone.

"I wanted this to be a clean break for you," Shawn says, staring at his screen. "I wanted you to just move on. I thought if I cleared the board, you would see what was right in front of you."

"Shawn, you're scaring me. Stop talking in riddles."

"I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to explain. You were so miserable in December. Remember? You and Sam were fighting constantly. He was dragging you down. You were failing your classes because you spent all night arguing with him."

"That was our business."

"It became my business when you started crying in the library. I hated seeing you like that. You are too smart. You are too important. I couldn't just sit there and watch him ruin you."

I shake my head. The air is so thick I can barely pull it into my lungs. "So what? You told him to break up with me? You think I care what you said to him?"

Shawn laughs. It is a short, sharp sound. It doesn't reach his eyes.

"I didn't tell him anything, Wendy. I didn't have to talk to him at all. I just had to show him who you really were."

He taps his phone screen and turns it around to face me.

The screen is bright. Too bright for the gloomy greenhouse. I squint.

It is a text thread.

It's my text thread. The one I had with Sam.

But the messages on the screen are not the messages I sent.

Sam, I can't do this anymore. You're suffocating me. I was with Liam last night. Don't wait up. I think we should just see other people. You're holding me back.

My stomach turns over. Acid rises in my throat.

"What is that?" I whisper.

"It's an app," Shawn says casually, pulling the phone back and sliding it into his pocket. "It spoofs numbers. It's actually really easy to use. I just routed the messages through your carrier. To Sam, it looked exactly like it came from your phone."

The greenhouse spins. Just for a second. The dead vines blur into the gray light.

"You... you sent those to him?"

"I had to. He wasn't going to leave on his own. He was too dependent on you. I had to make him hate you. I had to make him think you were cheating on him."

"I never cheated on him!"

"I know that!" Shawn snaps. His voice echoes off the glass. Loud. Angry. The sudden volume makes me jump back again. My shoulders hit the glass wall of the greenhouse. It is cold. Condensation soaks instantly through my t-shirt.

Shawn takes a deep breath, smoothing his hands down the front of his jacket. Calming himself down. The rapid shift in his demeanor is more terrifying than the shouting.

"I know you didn't cheat on him," Shawn says, his voice soft again. Reasonable. "You are loyal. That's what I love about you. You are so fiercely loyal. But Sam didn't appreciate it. So I created a scenario where he would leave. And it worked."

It worked.

The memory of January crashes into me. Sam standing in the doorway of my dorm. His face pale. His hands shaking. Holding up his phone, showing me messages I had never seen before. Screaming at me. Calling me a liar. Calling me a cheat.

I had begged him. I had fallen on the floor, crying, swearing I didn't send them. I told him my phone must be hacked. I told him it was a mistake.

He didn't believe me. Why would he? The texts came from my number. They had my exact speech patterns.

Because Shawn wrote them. Shawn, who spent hours studying with me. Shawn, who knew exactly how I talked, exactly what words I used, exactly how to fake my voice.

"You ruined my life," I say. My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes. I want to sound strong. I want to scream. But my throat is so tight I can barely push the words out.

"I saved your life," Shawn corrects me. He takes another step. He is only five feet away now. "I got rid of the dead weight. And then I was there for you. Who held you when you cried, Wendy? Who brought you food when you couldn't get out of bed? Who helped you study so you wouldn't fail out of school completely?"

"You made me think I was going crazy."

"You were just stressed."

"You stalked me!" I scream. The sound tears my throat. "The blank texts at night. The knocking on my window. That was you. You did that to me."

Shawn tilts his head again. He actually looks confused. He looks genuinely hurt.

"I just wanted to make sure you were awake. I just wanted to know you were thinking about me. I wanted you to need me. And you did need me. You called me every time you got scared."

Sick. He is completely, totally sick.

My brain is moving too fast. Cognitive static. I need to get out. I need to run. But he is blocking the only door, and behind me is a solid wall of dirty glass and rusted iron.

I look around frantically. The overturned bench. The heavy clay pots.

Could I hit him? Could I grab a pot and smash it over his head?

He is six inches taller than me and he works out. I am running on three hours of sleep and half a bagel. If I swing and miss, he will grab me.

"Wendy," Shawn says softly. He reaches out a hand. "Don't look like that. Please. I did this for us."

"There is no us, Shawn."

"Yes, there is. There has always been an us. You just couldn't see it because Sam was in the way. But he's gone now. It's just you and me."

"I am going to the police."

Shawn drops his hand. His expression hardens. The "nice guy" mask slips entirely, revealing something cold and completely hollow underneath.

"You have no proof. I used a burner app. I deleted the account months ago. If you go to the police, you just look crazy. And honestly, Wendy, given your mental state last semester... who is going to believe you? Everyone on campus knows you had a breakdown. Everyone knows you failed your midterms. They'll just think you're having another episode."

He thought of everything. He planned this. He spent the entire winter systematically destroying my reputation, my relationship, and my sanity, just so he could be the one to pick up the pieces.

"Why are you telling me this now?" I ask. I need to keep him talking. If he is talking, he isn't moving. I need to find an opening.

"Because I was tired of waiting," he says. "I thought by spring, you would realize. I thought we would be together by now. But you're still distant. You still look at the door every time we study, like you're waiting for someone better to walk in. I needed you to know the truth. I needed you to understand what I sacrificed for you."

Sacrificed. He thinks destroying my life is a sacrifice on his part.

"You're insane."

"I'm in love with you."

He steps forward again. Three feet away.

I press myself harder against the glass. The dead ivy crunches behind my back. Dust filters down onto my hair. The smell of his laundry detergent hits me. It is a sharp, clean scent. Artificial mountain spring. It is completely out of place in this rotting, damp room. It makes my stomach heave.

"Get away from me," I say.

"We just need to talk."

"We are talking. Back up."

"You're being irrational."

He reaches for me.

I react without thinking. I shove him. Hard. Both hands flat against his chest.

He doesn't stumble. He barely even moves. But his eyes flash. A spark of pure, unadulterated anger.

He grabs my wrists.

His grip is iron. His fingers dig into my skin, right over my pulse points. I gasp, trying to yank my arms back, but he holds me effortlessly.

"Don't fight me, Wendy," he says. His voice drops an octave. The calmness is gone. He is gritting his teeth. "I hate it when you fight me. I do everything for you, and you treat me like garbage."

"Let go of me!" I kick at his shins. My heavy boot connects with his knee.

He grunts in pain, but he doesn't let go. Instead, he shoves me backward.

I slam into the glass wall. The impact knocks the wind out of me. My head bounces against a rusted iron beam. White spots explode in my vision.

I slump forward, but he pins me against the wall, his weight pressing into me. The heat radiating off his body is suffocating. I can't breathe. My lungs shrink.

"I didn't want to do this," he whispers, leaning in. His face is inches from mine. I can feel his breath on my cheek. "I wanted this to be romantic. I wanted you to understand."

"Shawn... please..."

"You made me do this. You always make things so difficult."

A loud crack echoes above us.

Thunder.

Then, the rain begins.

It doesn't start as a drizzle. It drops all at once. A massive, violent spring storm. The water hits the glass roof with deafening force. A roar of water masking everything else.

The gray slush outside the windows begins to wash away, rivers of mud pouring over the glass.

The noise is incredible. It sounds like we are trapped under a waterfall.

Shawn looks up at the roof. Just for a second.

It's my only chance.

I bring my knee up as hard as I can.

I hit him dead center.

He drops my wrists instantly, folding forward with a sharp, choked gasp.

I don't wait. I push past him, scrambling over the overturned bench. My boot catches on a heavy clay pot and I trip, falling hard onto the muddy floor. My hands slide in the wet dirt.

I scramble up, ignoring the burning scrape on my palms.

I run for the rusted iron door.

I grab the handle. It is cold and wet from the condensation.

I pull.

It doesn't move.

Panic spikes through my chest. Pure, blinding terror. I pull again. I plant my foot against the frame and yank with all my weight.

The door rattles in its frame, but it doesn't open.

I look down.

There is a thick, heavy steel padlock looped through the latch.

Shawn locked it. He locked it after we walked in.

I spin around, pressing my back against the heavy iron door.

Shawn is standing up slowly. He is wiping dirt off his perfectly clean white sneakers. He doesn't look angry anymore. He looks disappointed.

The heavy spring rain battered the glass, drowning out the sound of my screaming mind.