A/N: You are advancing into unedited territory. Proceed at your own risk.

Mr. Crawford stared at me when I entered his classroom that morning, suspecting foul play.

It was early enough that I had walked through a nearly empty campus, early enough that I had beat the sun to the classroom.

"Can I help you with something, Ms. Rivers?" His eyes narrowed as I sat down in the front row.

I got settled in my chair and pulled my laptop out of my bag. "No, I'm just here early." My response surprised him as much as I had expected it to.

He was probably used to my constant visits from my first semester in creative writing. He wasn't our dean or official writing counselor, but none of us cared, as we attacked him with questions and concerns, each sharper than the other.

"Unexpected change of heart?" he asked as he continued to organize his lecture notes and assignment introductions.

"More like a change in sleep schedule."

My body had been acting like a toddler throwing a tantrum, refusing to fall asleep by the time I had decided I was done for the day. Instead of listening to me, thoughts skipped rope in my mind, and it pounded under every last thud.

My body woke up hours before my alarm and pestered me to get work done. I had initiated the weird sleep schedule, but now it just couldn't stop, addicted to productivity at the cost of my new preferences and health.

But I couldn't complain—thanks to the odd rhythm, I was working ahead in my classes instead of trying to catch up.

The look on Mr. Crawford's face would have resembled concern if I didn't know better. "So, the internship," he said.

When he wasn't admonishing me or crushing the entire class's dreams with snippets of life lessons, he made minimal effort to form explicit sentences.

"It's going great." Not exactly a lie.

I had read dozens of stories, some better than others, that I would never have seen otherwise. Alec was also a delight to be around in between the concerning throat-clearings. His interactions with Olivia had been the highlights of my days.

And Miles...

"Not as terrible as I expected. It's been a little stressful, though." That part was a lie—it was a lot stressful.

Alec had stopped reviewing my work. He had the ridiculous belief that my descriptions of the manuscripts' contents were thorough enough. Down went my sanity.

It was a task in itself to get rid of that persistent thought that the writers had entrusted me with their stories. Every last one that Alec didn't accept would forever haunt the back of my mind.

"Good. I didn't think you'd last a week." It almost sounded like a compliment from him even though his face remained as emotionless as ever.

"Your faith in me makes me tear up."

Was that a scoff? It had faded as soon as I heard it, but I counted among my accomplishments that I had forced out of Mr. Crawford the closest thing to a laugh I had ever heard from him.

"What's with the poetry structure page?" I pointed to the projector screen that hung over the whiteboard, my nose scrunched up at the thought of the poetry workshop class I had taken the semester before.

He dismissed the question by going back to his organizing task. "You'll find out with the rest of the class."

The rest of his students soon filed in, scattering around the room and chatting as they waited for him to start.

It didn't take a genius to get that we were launching into a poetry module. There was no way poetry would be any sort of improvement on the short story module. Different kinds of torture with varying degrees of stinging pain.

"The goal is to get you to complete a poetry book by the end of the semester." He glared at the couple of people that groaned in response. "I'm announcing it early for those of you who move at a snail's pace. As long as I get your collection by the last day of class, I don't care what you do or how you do it. I do need to critique your first poem by next week before you jump off the cliff completely by doing your own thing."

My phone rang with a call from Ace a few seconds after I stepped out of Mr. Crawford's classroom. It wouldn't surprise me if he memorized my schedule.

"Meet me at the student lounge." Something he could have texted. But he had this bad habit of calling every single time. No wonder he got along with Mom.

I joined Ace at the lounge halfway across campus and deliberately ignored the sweat pooling on my forehead.

"What's the issue?" I asked him, and he snapped a picture of me as I sat across the table from him.

Several other kids were in the lounge, typing away at the school computers in the room. The catchy ticks of their fingers on the keys would join the rest of the things on my mind tonight as an extra challenge to make falling asleep an adventure of itself.

"Well, I told Emma I couldn't be at her rehearsal because I was meeting up with you. Not meeting you would make it a lie."

Somehow, the combination of the sheepish expression on his face and the camera itching for a moment to capture almost made it like a logical explanation.

"So you didn't want to go to her rehearsal. Why didn't you just say that?" My head fell back onto the headrest of my seat for a much needed rest.

"Because she'd want a reason."

"And what's your reason?" It occurred to me that I had to leave in ten minutes if I hoped to make it to Triple W in time for work, but moving would require the kind of energy I would soon have to fake anyway.

"Sebastian's been around a lot lately. I don't mind him, obviously, but they get very technical about music and dance. I don't have much to contribute to that. It's awkward to be there because it makes Emma believe she has to include me in their conversations, which only makes it weirder."

"Emma would get that if you told her, you irrational human being."

"I don't want to add anything to her stress level now. Every rehearsal practically catapults her closer to the showcase. If it's anything less than perfect, we'll never hear the end of it."

"Feel free to use me as an excuse at your convenience. Well, unless I'm busy—which I am right now. I should be getting to work."

"That reminds me," he said, pushing his camera away to grab his backpack, drawing a book out of it. "You'll probably want to read this at some point. Emma's been nudging me to read it for days."

I looked down at the book he handed me, the odd pattern of the cover design catching my eye before I noticed the title and the author's name—M. A. Whitman.

➷➷➷

"Ha!" was the first word out of my mouth when I found Miles in the indoor garden, hovering above the plants, scrutinizing them as if he expected a response from them.

I didn't typically buy into childish phrases like this one but victory was so close that I figured an exception was in order.

He looked up and rectified his posture. "Ha?" he repeated, his expression split between amusement and confusion.

I noted that he had been to Triple W more often lately, and I liked to think it had something to do with me.

A grin appeared on his lips at the sight of the page I dangled in front of his eyes. "Well, well, what do you know?"

It was a simple phrase that likely had no deeper meaning, but it sounded like a special pat in the back coming from him.

He took the page from my fingers and sat down on the nearest bench. I did not plan that far when I tried to visualize how that conversation would go. I didn't imagine that he would want to read it.

I shifted my weight from one foot to another, not sure what to do with myself while he read. Suddenly, the idea of analyzing the plants in the room as he was doing seemed reasonable.

Pacing the room, I watched the leaves tremble. A string of golden light reflecting on specific spots attracted my attention as I gave myself a tour of the small room.

"Kelly, you're making me nervous." Miles's voice brought me out of my head, and I stopped walking.

"What do you think?"

"Still not done. It's only been two minutes." He returned back to the text. A small smile sneaked up on his face, and he slid the paper to try and hide it.

He was drawing this out to make me squirm.

I rolled my eyes and entertained myself by finding similar patterns on the leaves. Just being in the room filled my veins with the illusion of a power surge.

"You know, you could save us both a lot of time by just saying that you like it," I told him after a few more minutes had passed.

"I like it." His voice betrayed no emotion I could pinpoint.

Miles Whitman was a twisted guy.

"Now you're just saying that."

His eyebrows shot up at the accusation. "But, you said—"

"Not the point, Miles. What did you really think?"

"I like it," he repeated, his expression more serious this time. "It's messy—like the characters are ignoring your direction to do their own thing."

"And that's good?" None of these things sounded particularly reassuring.

"That's really good."

I held back the grin that wanted to creep up my face. "Did you find your next big idea?"

I wasn't sure what answer I was hoping for. I wanted to see Miles out of his bind, but I also needed a win, and it would taste much sweeter if he would admit he had lost to me.

Miles shook his head. "I guess you win. I am as close to coming up with an idea as I am to winning the Pulitzer."

"I'm sorry, I heard you win and tuned out everything else." Apparently, I was in no shortage of childish comebacks, but Miles laughed in response. "What?" I asked as a grin gradually grew and took over his face.

"Well, would you be interested in a double-or-nothing deal?"

Part of me knew this would join my list of bad decisions before I even said, "What did you have in mind?"

The more I made mistakes and paid for them, the more my decisions stayed the same.

"How about a longer project this time?" Miles asked with a concerning glint of excitement lighting up his face.

"You're grasping at something so much smaller than straws. Second time's the charm, huh?"

"What can I do? I'm an optimist. Whoever finishes their task first takes all," he said as if we were talking about actual prizes. "You do your final writing class project, and I will write my book."

"You want to play the long game, Whitman?" I had no idea where the short bursts of confidence came from whenever he presented me with a new challenge, but I wasn't complaining. "You're in."

I stared at him for too long a moment not to notice that his gaze didn't hold mine. His eyes skipped across the plants, and his fingers dug into his jeans as though seeking support.

"You don't look good." It slipped past my lips before I gave myself a chance to reconsider.

"That's what I like to hear." Then the playful expression on his face faded to make room for an honest one I hadn't seen often on him. "It's a little weird not to have anything to do. Maybe quitting my day job wasn't the best move." The rare look left as soon as it came, replaced by the usual one. "What are you doing after work today?"

Clips of my homework pile in my bedroom played on repeat in my head before I could cast it right out.

"Why?"

"Well, if I'm to beat you, Ms. Rivers," he said, rising up from the bench, "I'm going to need to step up my game."

"What does that involve exactly?" My eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Not threatened, just curious."

"A trip to my top-secret inspiration spot," he said without missing a beat. "Though I should warn you," he said, and his lips curved into the smile I had found myself missing since I last saw it, "It's never failed me."