Page 409 of Ruthless Court

“Nothing.”

She smiled.

“I love your glasses.”

“Thank you.”

“I bought these because of you.”

My stomach dropped.

“Why?”

She laughed like I was joking.

I wasn’t.

The next week, a campus fashion account posted:

BOOKWORM CORE

Apparently I am now an aesthetic.

Lila treats this like vindication.

“You started a trend.”

“I have severe astigmatism.”

“Iconic astigmatism.”

“That is not a thing.”

“It is now.”

Noor is worse.

She keeps sending me pictures of women wearing oversized glasses with captions like:

HANNAH GOODWIN, YOUR IMPACT.

I have stopped opening them.

Mostly.

The truly alarming part is that I’m getting used to it.

Not the attention.

I still duck when somebody lifts a phone too quickly.

But I no longer hide behind Kane’s hoodie every time we cross the athlete quad together.

Sometimes I even hold his hand.

In public.

Reckless behavior.