Page 27 of Objection Overruled
I’m completely and thoroughly screwed.
More than screwed, actually.
I’m fucked.
I reach for my phone but end up staring at the lock screen instead.
For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to change the photo of Rowan and me, back when things were good. Back when I thought I was smart enough to out-argue him and dumb enough to believe I’d won.
Now it’s just me and a dog who can’t hold his bladder for more than three hours.
I drop the phone onto the table and lean back, staring up at the ceiling.
The truth is, Rowan King is untouchable.
And me? I’m one more Google search away from total annihilation.
Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong.
Or maybe I’m trapped with a manipulative sociopath.
But I know better.
Rowan is no sociopath.
That time I got food poisoning from the dining hall sushi and spent two days switching between my bed and the bathroom floor… Rowan showed up with soup, saltines, and exactly zero judgment. He sat on the floor beside me and read my assignments out loud while I tried not to die.
He never made me feel like I owed him.
Never made me feel small.
The boy I fell in love with is still in there somewhere. Buried under all the strategy and tightly controlled cruelty. I saw flashes of him in the alley. In the way he bandaged my arm. In the way he gave me a cover story instead of just taking what he wanted and disappearing.
Could it be he still cares for me?
Possibly.
This could be his twisted version of holding on because he doesn’t know how to ask. Because asking would mean admitting that he still cares, and caring is weakness in whatever cold-blooded chess game he’s been playing since I left.
Or maybe I’m an idiot, and it’s simply revenge.
But what if it isn’t? What if, beneath all the sharp edges and IOUs, he hasn’t completely let me go? That has to mean something. Maybe it means I can stop running. That I can use the one thing I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist—his feelings for me, however mangled they’ve become.
Because if Rowan King still cares, even a fraction, that’s leverage.
And I know better than anyone what he does with leverage.
So, I’m going to stop spiraling. Stop waiting for the next ambush and start playing. Not at his level, of course. But I can learn. I’ve been underestimating myself since this started, and it’s gotten me nowhere except cornered.
I straighten in my chair, the weight in my chest shifting into something sharper. Something closer to resolve.
Because Rowan King has forgotten something important about me.
I don’t just break rules when I’m desperate.
I break them when I’m angry.
And I definitely break them when I love someone enough to fight for them.
