When she uncovers his plan to lead an entirely uneventful life, Mia Evian is determined to teach Preston Maddox how to stop living like a ghost, but Mia and Preston have history, tension, and a lot of complicated feelings.
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It's been over a week since the story of Preston's past spread through UCL like a virus, and in a lot of ways, it's old news. Most of the rumour spreading has occurred online, and it's mainly been constrained to other third year students. People are finally starting to move on, but the damage has been done. Preston's still behaving like some evolved version of Zack.
I've been out with him another two times–both to nightclubs–and he's spent the entirety of those times testing me like he did with the flat party. If he wasn't so intent on pissing me off to the point of no return, I doubt I'd see so much as an invitation to these nights out. According to Margot, he's spent every other night out of their house, not returning until the early hours of the morning. I guess I wasn't invited to those ones.
The first thing I did the morning after the flat party was call Aiden. He couldn't help–I knew there was no way he could fix everything–but I didn't know what else to do. He tried reaching out to Preston, but wasn't even honoured with a response. He's travelled to London for the weekend, and we're in my bedroom with Margot trying to set out a plan for some kind of Preston-based intervention.
It still feels like nothing short of a miracle that Margot didn't tell me–and Preston, for that matter–to fuck off after everything came out, let alone that she's being so understanding about it all. She'd asked me multiple times if he and I were a thing since that first house party, and I always assured her we weren't. She could've easily been pissed at me for not telling her about that changing over Easter and summer, but she wasn't–she isn't. She just desperately wants to help.
The trouble is that I was hoping our meeting would inspire hope, that talking things through with Aiden and Margot would make me realise that we can fix this. If anything, it's making a solution seem impossible. Every resolution offered, every suggestion, every seed of an idea feels too small.
They don't realise how complex of a thing this is to navigate–how complex Preston is to navigate–not even Aiden, not really. Given one of his suggestions was for me to corner Preston after sleeping with him in, quote, a sneak attack at his most vulnerable, I'm not exactly sure Aiden's our idea guy anyway. Even if that wasn't a dreadful suggestion, mine and Preston's relationship has been entirely platonic since Robbie showed up, so it wouldn't be an option.
While Margot's sitting on my bed, Aiden's slowly spinning on my desk chair–it helps his thinking process, apparently–and I'm sitting on my floor between them, my back against my bedroom wall.
'It just–It feels hopeless,' I interrupt them mid-conversation, and they pause to look at me inquisitively. 'He won't listen. He won't even try to.'
'If we literally lock him in a room, he won't have any choice,' Aiden argues, but I'm already shaking my head.
'He'll ignore us.' I sigh. 'Maybe it's just time. Maybe he needs to get this out of his system and–'
I'm cut short by a knock on my bedroom door. With a grunt–my flatmates know I'm busy–I jump to my feet and answer it, poised and ready to ask whichever one of them it is to go away. Only, it's not a flatmate.
