INSTALOVE

Chapter 36: Crisis Averted

For now, I head to my own room with no visor. No backpack. No hope of retaining the slightest shred of dignity. Only my laptop tucked beneath my arm.

I reach the top of the steps and I draw up short.

Wait.

Am I seeing things?

Oh, please tell me I'm not hallucinating...

I could almost cry from happiness as I stride quickly toward my door. I clap my hand against my chest as the relief pours through me.

There, hanging from the doorknob, is my backpack.

"Oh, thank God!" I whisper. I set my laptop on my bed and hug the backpack fiercely. Finally, something went right in my accident-prone existence. Someone must have recognized my bag and brought it back here. I rush to pick it up and zip it open. My visor sits inside, filling the dark cavity with blue LED light.

I'm so happy to see it, I could kiss it. I pluck it out of the bag and, for a brief moment, I press my lips to the smooth black frame. Then I slip the lanyard around my neck where it belongs.

Crisis averted!

Well, no. I silently amend that last statement as I kick off my shoes and sink down at the edge of my bed. Minor predicament averted. The real crisis still looms over me like a thundercloud.

I cover my eyes with my hands and collapse backward onto my mattress. Maddox... I was so sure he was going to kiss me. I can picture the look on his face afterward. The look of a boy with mixed feelings. The look of a person being torn in two.

"I can't," he said in that voice full of regret. "It's complicated."

I suppose I should be happy. This is progress. The last time I confessed to liking a boy, he looked vaguely like he might vomit. On the scale of rejections, "it's complicated" scores a huge step up.

So why do I feel infinitely worse right now than I did when Trevor shot me down? Maddox didn't even reject me. He told me he'd explain. He promised to talk later... But now that the adrenaline has subsided, I feel the disappointment chafing inside my chest, shredding up my heart like a cheese grater.

Nothing with Maddox feels remotely like my crush on Trevor Chang. Not even close. The stakes feel so much higher. This program ends in four days, and then we'll scatter to the winds. I'll head back to New Hampshire, Maddox to New York. I doubt we'll keep in touch. We'll never cross paths again...

The thought makes me feel like I might break.

Maddox and I will go our separate ways, whether he kisses me or not. So why does it matter to me so much? The answer stares back at me, impossible to ignore. There's only one explanation if I'm being honest with myself. What I feel for Maddox goes beyond a simple crush. He's been the object of my every waking thought for the past three weeks. His face is the first image that pops into my head the moment I wake each morning... and the last thing I think about each night before I drift to sleep.

Is it possible that I might be in love with him?

That idea makes me tremble. I can't help thinking of the first night of the program. The first time I played InstaLove on visors. That euphoric sensation that I was floating, that my feet were no longer connected to the ground.

Remember where that feeling left me that time? Didn't I vow to protect myself from ever making that mistake again?

I built entire warning system to prevent any further missteps. But I didn't even see the real hazard until it was already too late. Too late to protect my heart. Too late to pull back from the precipice. I was too busy floating on air, and I've stumbled over the edge.

Now I'm falling hard—and I have no idea where I'll land.

I sit back up. Reese was right. "I warned you..."

I should've listened. This won't end well. Talk about hazardous terrain. I can only hope that Maddox will reach out a hand and catch me before my heart ends up completely smashed.

"I'll send you an InstaQuest," he told me. "Later. Tonight. After curfew."

That's hours away. How am I supposed to survive the suspense until then? I slip on my visor, hoping by some miracle to see a new notification from his avatar.

My most recent interaction fills the screen. I can only squint at it, sucking in a shaking a shaky breath.

"What the heck?" I murmur. My fingers tense, and my bedsheet bunches against my palms.

Weirdness.

Did he change his avi? To that?

"No," I moan out loud. "Whyyyy?"

Why would Maddox do that? Does he know how often I log in and check my account, purely to see the expression on his avatar?

There's no expression now. No puppy-dog eyes to make me smile. No smirk to make me blush. His perfect face has been replaced by a fathomless gray square. And his username? He must have changed that too—shortened to only his first initial: M.

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