ANNA'S POV

I stood outside the house, my hands sweating profusely, glasses foggy and sight blurred. The loud music coming from the house overwhelmed my thinking. I needed to think of a way to go about this, I thought, pacing.

I needed a hint on how to confront him, my stepbrother Elijah Maquin. All my efforts to get his attention through my smut messages had proven abortive.

I had put them twice under his car windshield, because I was too shy to show my face, so this was my chance to tell him about my feelings.

I walked a few steps closer and I noticed his car, parked at the corner beside Connor's. They looked identical; not everyone would be able to differentiate them.

But I had Elijah's plate number stored in my head. He was the love of my life; I knew literally everything about him.

"I thought they hated each other. How are their cars parked side by side?" I said to myself.

Mustering courage, I went in for it, but when the door swung open, I was certain I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The air reeked of alcohol, marinated with the smell of smoke and what I may presume to be hard drugs.

The attention seemed to have tottered, because all eyes were on me.

I rarely got such attention, so I wondered what I did to get it.

I walked around briefly, trying to blend in, my eyes skimming through every forehead in the room. I wondered where Elijah would be. I needed to do this and disappear, but he wasn't anywhere within sight.

I asked a few other freshmen, but they didn't seem to know, and when I almost lost hope, I spotted a silhouette that looked exactly like his.

It looked like a guy with another girl sitting on him in a position I considered intolerable.

My heart began to drum violently. It couldn't be; it was just my imagination.

I took off my glasses and wiped them off with the lace from my hoodie. I would have used my pants, but they were too colorful; it would take a lot to get dirt off green pants.

Despite wiping off the fog, my vision was the same, but I needed a closer view.

It was Elijah, with another girl. She was sitting comfortably on him, her legs wildly wrapped around him like a reptile, while he ran his hands through them.

I staggered, my legs feeling a little too heavy to take another step. I could feel my chest tightening, my breath getting cold. I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Oh my god!" I blurted tearfully. He had someone else.

"How could he?" I cried, and when I thought it couldn't hurt any further, I saw the greatest shock of my life.

Cathy!! It was Cathy Mclerkin from high school, the same girl who had bullied me so much that I almost hurt myself.

The same girl? How was she here, and why was he holding her so close? I thought.

At this point my legs couldn't hold me anymore. I wobbled and tripped, causing an unintended rattle that pulled attention towards me.

Everyone looked at me weirdly, like I was plagued. I could never understand the hate towards me.

"What are you doing here, Anna?" Elijah roared, storming towards me in anger. He was always embarrassed of me, and until now, not everyone in school knew we were step-siblings.

"I'm sorry. I was just on my way out. Forgive me for the intrusion," I replied shamefully, too embarrassed to leave. All attention was on me, on how I had made a fool of myself.

"Get out of here. You don't belong here," he said.

I looked up at him, his eyes full of disgust for me, and then I thought to myself, what was I really thinking coming here? He hated me; he would never see me any differently.

"Is it really you, Anna Lyncyth?" Cathy said mockingly, moving closer to where I was, laughing loudly. My heart sank into my chest. The adrenaline surge I felt only prompted me to run off, but my legs were still too heavy to move.

I remained there on the ground, without the strength to pick myself up.

"She's the step-sister I told you about, babe. They moved in months ago," Elijah said to her, pulling her in for a kiss right in front of me. I looked up at them while they stood there making jest of me, and my eyes betrayed me, with tears rolling down my cheeks.

"You mean this is your sister now?" she mocked.

"Step-sister, as in S-T-E-P. She could never be related to me by blood. Look at what she's wearing."

Everyone laughed at me, judging my fashion sense. I never thought anything was wrong with a yellow hoodie and green pants, but they mocked me for it, and Elijah encouraged it.

"I could swear she put those smut letters underneath your car windshield. She must have sent them; nobody else would have."

My stomach dropped. My fingers went numb at my sides.

No, no, no, no!! What was going on? Why was everything happening so fast? How did she know I had left letters on his car? I was lost and at the same time confused.

"You did that?" Elijah asked, disappointed. The sound of his voice and the look in his eyes was all the answers I needed. He loathed me, both as a sister and as a lover.

Cathy's voice rang out sharp and gleeful. "Well, well, the school clowny nerd, who wears green on purple, wants the hockey champion. I'm so happy to be here."

A roar of laughter followed. They mocked me so bad I doubted myself.

“Your family should have stayed in Florida”

She says further with a sinister smile. I think she means the move, I’m at lost for words, I could hardly understand what she was referring to, but I couldn’t ask any further question.

This was exactly how she had treated me back in high school. She had isolated me from the others and made fun of my glasses.

She had called me an owl and everyone in school called me that afterwards, and now I had to deal with her again?

"Why don't you say something?" Elijah asked.

"She's got nothing to say. She knows I'm telling the truth," Cathy said.

Everyone wanted to hear me explain myself. They wanted to hear it from me that I had written the letters, but I was too weak to defend myself. I had the words in my head, but I couldn't get them out.

"The letters were meant for me, not Elijah," hollered a man's voice down the stairs, leaving everyone in surprise, me included.

ANNA’S POV

The room suddenly went quiet, all attention fixed on him as he made his way up the stairs towards me.

My hands suddenly went cold.How was it possible Connor was helping me? He hated me; he wouldn't even look at me whenever we met for our project assignments.

Besides that, he was Conner Edison, my stepbrother's rival, the hockey team star, every girl's dream guy. He had girls flocking around him incessantly, so I panicked.

He stretched out his hands towards me, a gesture to help me up. I looked around; I felt stared on me, My eyes lit up, not from joy but from doubt.

"She wrote those letters to me. It wasn't for Elijah, so you can back down now," he said in my defense.

"Come on, Conn, you know that's a lie. How do you explain those letters on my boyfriend's car?"

"That's a dumb question to ask, Cathy. You know how much your boy loves to copy me.

He even got the exact color and model of car as I." He paused and looked at me, a smirk escaping the corner of his mouth, then continued.

"She must have left those letters on his car, thinking it was mine. You know how she is; my baby is very clumsy." He said it pulling me closer to himself, my shoulder against his, in a fit to present more convincing.

"Come off it, Conn. You know she's not your type. I know what you like; remember, I'm your friend. I know you like the palm of my hands. She's way beneath you. Look at her," Cathy replied.

Elijah stood by, watching the whole drama. I couldn't read his face anymore; I couldn't figure if it was disgust or pity, but he sure wasn't believing this story. I panicked.

"And I'm sure no one is aware of this, but we're together. We've been seeing each other for quite some time, and I love this little nerd," Conner said, making it even worse than it was. I felt completely lost in a story that clearly included me in it. My glasses had gone foggy again from the heat blowing off my breath; I wiped them once more to get a clearer view.

"So why don't you kiss her, if she's really your girlfriend?" Elijah said provokingly, seeking a reaction from Connor. They had been in competition for so long, I couldn't figure out if he said that to mock him or because he meant well for me as his stepsister.

Connor looked at me, fretting under him. He knew I was naïve and inexperienced; it was also too soon for such. His eyes looked like he was rethinking his decision, but before I could conclude a conversation in my head, he kissed me.

His hands firmly placed around my waist and on my chin, he pulled me in, his lips placed on mine. I could feel the softness and warmth of his lower lip; my heart stopped.

I came here to confess my feelings to my stepbrother, and now I'm caught in a kiss with the school's most wanted playboy. It felt like a dream, but I couldn't do anything about it. I had to play along for my own sanity.

"Convinced enough, loser?" Conner said, pulling away from me gently, leaving my stepbrother, his girlfriend, and the entire party in total silence.

"Let it be known henceforth that Anna Lyncyth is my girlfriend, and anyone who dares bully her will have to face me," Conner declared publicly, his voice loud as it echoed across the entire room. Now no one could bully me anymore, including Cathy, I hoped. She was his friend, and I doubted if she would follow through with his warning.

"Let's get out of here, Anna," he said, holding my hands, leading me out of the party. All eyes were fixed on us as we walked out side by side. Murmurs resounded across the room; I could tell it was about me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

He looked unbothered and calm, like it was all planned out in his head, but for me it was like a volcano erupting.

When we came out of the house to the front yard, I expected he would let go of my hands, since the drama was over and there was no need for the pretense anymore, but he held onto my hands still.

"The first one is mine. Get in," he said bluntly, finally letting go of my hands, pointing towards his car parked at the corner.

I got into the car, sitting right beside him, my eyes focused in front of me. I tried to avoid eye contact; I needed him to say something first. I was dying to get an explanation for the drama.

"So, your place or mine?" he asked me firmly. My mouth swung open in shock.

CONNOR’S POV

She froze. Her eyes grew wider without saying a single word. There it was, the innocence that got me every time. The look in her eyes seemed like relief. I loved it.

Seeing how Elijah treated her like she was nothing triggered me. I had seen him toss her out of his car on occasions when she rode to school with him; other times he would let her take the bus all by herself, even late at night.

One time I picked her up a few miles away from the bus station, walking all by herself. I didn't need to ask; I knew he had abandoned her there, in the middle of nowhere.

Somehow I found her cute: her innocence, the way she pulled up her glasses at intervals, her combination of funny outfits that made her look like a clown, her loud, weird laughter, how she knew the answer to every question asked in class and yet could not hold a decent conversation—all of it.

I could see through those bogus hoodies, baggy pants, and thick glasses to who she really was.

I watched Elijah allow Cathy to humiliate her from where I was seated. I felt irritated by it.

We had been in competition for so long that I could only see him as a rival.

When I got a red-colored helmet, he wanted that too, and days later he had it, in the same color. When I exchanged it for the color blue, he did the same. The same thing happened with the cars.

I was shocked when I arrived at school to see the exact car I drove being driven by none other than Elijah barely a month after I got mine. He was my copycat.

"There's no need for the frown. Don't take what happened in there too seriously. You can breathe now," I said, trying to comfort her.

She took off her glasses, cleaned them with the lace hanging off her hoodie, for the fifth time according to my calculations. It looked like a subconscious habit she wasn't aware of, but I found it strange that she didn't have a glass case or microfiber cloth for cleaning them.

"You keep cleaning those glasses with your clothes; it's weird," I said, searching through the clutter stashed in my dashboard for an old glass case, so she could properly wipe her glasses with the cloth inside it.

"Here," I said, handing it over to her without any explanation. She seemed to catch up immediately and took it from me.

"I know you're trying to get back at me for what happened the other day at practice, but I'm not in for your games," she said sharply.

"You looked like you needed my help. You know I can't stand Elijah; it's nothing personal," I replied in my defense.

"I had it under control. You didn't have to. I can take care of myself."

"I couldn't stand by and watch. They were hurting you."

"Please take me home. I'm exhausted. My mom must be worried sick about me," she said, her eyes glued in front of her. She wouldn't look at me, and I never understood why she was embarrassed around me. I was clearly on her side.

"I'll take you home right away. It's not safe for you out here."

I turned on the ignition switch, and my car engine fired into action immediately. Of course it did; it was a Corvette C8 Z06, the latest edition, the same one her copycat stepbrother had gotten.

The drive to her house was wrapped in silence, with her face thrown out the window. It was difficult to tell if she was grateful for my help or if she was being a brat about it.

"Thanks for your help. I appreciate what you did in there, but I think you went too far. What will happen on Monday, when the school realizes it was all a lie and we are not together?" she said almost immediately, dismissing my thoughts.

"We keep up with it. We don't have to stop by Monday. Let's do this."

"What do you mean?" she asked, clueless.

"Be my girlfriend," I replied sharply, my lips shaking slightly.

She looked at me, maintaining eye contact briefly. I guess she was trying to figure out what had possessed me.

"You're delusional," she responded with a scoff.

"I thought you wanted to get back at him for what he did to you. Don't you want revenge?" I said convincingly.

She looked at me once more, her eyes looking defeated. She knew this was an excellent plan, and we needed to work together to make it happen.

"Okay, let's do it!" she replied with a heavy sigh, which proved she had thought carefully about it.

My lips spread slightly, forming a subtle smile. It was what I needed to hear, but I didn't want to let her see that her response made my heart flutter, so I put up a cold face.

"I still need to know why you helped me," she asked moments later.

"I helped you because—"

I let out a sigh, realizing I didn't have a sensible reason to have helped her. I couldn't define it, but I wanted to protect her. I wanted to make her battles mine. She was too innocent for the cruelty she received from everyone; it hurt me to see it.

"You always get into trouble. You're clumsy and almost blind. You looked like you needed my help." That was the best excuse I could come up with. I couldn't tell her that I cared about her, or that I would do anything to keep her safe, even if it meant getting hurt in the process.

"By the way, I wrote those smut letters. I was too ashamed to admit my feelings for Elijah, so I—"

"You don't need to explain yourself to me. I really do not care. Your life, your choices," I said sharply, trying to save her from the embarrassment she was struggling to conceal. I knew from the beginning she had feelings for her stepbrother; even the blind could see.

It was obvious, from how she looked at him, and how she would try to tuck her short hair behind her glasses whenever he spoke to her in private, trying to avoid prying eyes.

She panicked whenever he fell on the rink during hockey practice, tried to play nurse for every scratch he got while playing, and got rejected every single time. It was more than the kind of love shared between siblings. I knew there was more.

We finally arrived at the Maquin mansion. She insisted I drop her off at the gate, to avoid all the questions from her mother.

"Thanks for tonight," she said softly, avoiding eye contact.

"Have a good night's rest. I'll call you when I get home," I said, and drove off speedily.

Looking at her from my side mirror, I could feel her concern, and I couldn't help but worry about her. I knew she would cry herself to sleep; she had been humiliated in front of half the school's population. That was a lot.

And now she had to be under the same roof as her bully, who she called her brother. I wished I could protect her from him.

As I drove home, I pondered what would have happened if I hadn't done something to help her. Cathy would have shown her no mercy. I cringed at the thought of her being bullied again. It hurt me to see her in pain or in tears. I would do anything to protect her.

No one would bully her anymore. Now that they had heard me call her my girlfriend, she would be safe. I let out a sigh of relief.