Page 45 of Shy Girls Can't Date Rockstars

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I start writing, my hand moving across the page even though my vision is blurring from the headache.

Thesis statement.

Supporting evidence.

Analysis of the text.

It feels wrong.

Dishonest.

Exactly the kind of thing my parents would have been disappointed in me for doing.

But my parents are dead.

And I’m here.

And I just want this to be over.

“Paragraph one,” I mutter, more to myself than to him. “Sophia’s relationship with her grandfather establishes the foundation of inherited obligation...”

I’m maybe three sentences in when I hear it.

Thunder.

Distant, but unmistakable.

My hand freezes mid-word.

“Keep going,” Ryder says, watching me. “That paragraph actually sounds like something I would write.”

But I can’t keep going.

Another rumble.

Closer this time.

“Alice?”

I look up at the windows. Dark clouds are gathering, thick and heavy.

“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”

“What’s wrong?”

Lightning flickers behind the clouds. Thunder follows immediately after, loud enough to rattle the windows.

The pen falls from my hand. The notebook blurs in front of me. Everything blurs.

A suffocated squeak yelps out of me.

“Alice?” Ryder’s voice seems to come from very far away.

There’s a flash of lightning, and it’s immediately followed by thunder that’s close enough to rattle the windows.

Can’t breathe.

The library spins around me.

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