Saint DeMeridian
Valentina Crow had picked Saint DeMeridian for all the right reasons.
It was a university far enough from Redwater to finally breathe.
Prestigious enough to make her parents proud.
And quiet enough that no one would know her last name—or care what past she came from.
At least, that’s what she’d hoped.
Saint DeMeridian looked like it had been built to impress God—ivy climbing limestone towers, courtyards slick with rainlight, bells tolling slow and solemn, as if marking judgments instead of hours. From a distance, it was all grace and history, the kind of beauty that pretended not to notice you staring.
But up close, the illusion thinned.
Everything felt too polished. Too deliberate. The stone watched. The air tasted faintly of metal, like a storm that hadn’t decided whether to break or dissolve.
Her mother had called Saint DeMeridian an opportunity.
Her father, escape.
Valentina called it a chance to start over—though the longer she stood there, the more it sounded like a lie she was still trying to believe.
She’d moved in that morning: a dorm carved from the east wing’s old bones, two narrow rooms joined by a shared bath and kitchenette. It was technically meant for four students, yet only three names were taped to the door.
Somehow, she’d ended up with a corner to herself.
She didn’t mind. The others hadn’t protested either.
Lila Fields and Kristina Duher had staked their claims long before Valentina arrived. Lila, all sunshine and curated chaos, had been delighted to offload the extra space. Meanwhile Kristina, normally quiet and reserved, had simply looked her over once and said, “You look like you need it.”
Val hadn’t asked what that meant.
Now the room was quiet. Cardboard boxes sat half-open, rain threading in through the cracked window. For the first time in years, silence didn’t feel like punishment.
It felt like relief.
She told herself it would last.
It didn’t.
Across the room, Lila let out a squeal sharp enough to make Val drop the stack of books in her hands.
“Oh my god, have you seen them?”
Val glanced over. Kristina didn’t even look up from her laptop, her sigh already practiced.
“Who?”
“The new guys,” Lila said, thrusting her phone out like proof of a miracle. “They’re already all over the Saint DeMeridian page. Everyone’s losing their minds.”
Val meant to ignore it.
Curiosity bit anyway.
She crossed the room, brushing a curl of dark hair from her eyes.
On the screen, a video played.
A black car pulled to the edge of the quad. Two boys stepped out into the rain-damp stone like they belonged there. Both tall. Both wearing that easy confidence that came from knowing exactly how the world bent around them.
One had dark, unruly hair and a calm, watchful stillness—presence without effort.
The other was lighter, sharper, all charm and motion, smiling as if he’d already decided this place was his.
Twins.
Her stomach sank before her mind caught up. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Rowan and Cassian Hawthorne.
The same boys who’d turned her last years of high school into a slow, grinding hell—snide smiles, whispered jokes, the kind of cruel attention that came wrapped in charm and money. Princes of Redwater Prep. Wolves in designer uniforms.
She hadn’t seen them since graduation. She’d sworn she never would again. The Hawthornes had their own world—old money, old power, everything Saint DeMeridian was supposed to stand above.
They didn’t belong here.
Not in this school. Not in her new beginning.
Except apparently, according to fate, they did.
Lila kept scrolling, gushing about how “they look like they stepped out of a magazine,” while Kristina muttered something about legacy admissions and rich kids buying their way in.
Val said nothing. She couldn’t. Her throat had gone dry, her body reacting before she could stop it—as if the memory lived somewhere deeper than thought, embedded in bone.
Cassian Hawthorne had always known how to start a war and make it look like a joke.
“Relax, Crow—it’s just homework,” he’d say, voice all honey and mockery, before sliding her worksheet from under her elbow. By the time she reached for it, his name was already scrawled over hers—bold, careless, and claiming.
Vickers, their teacher, would glance between them, then shake his head at her. “Copying again, Miss Crow?”
Because a Hawthorne couldn’t cheat.
Only a Crow could.
Cassian never even bothered to look sorry. Rowan didn’t have to look at all—he always pretended not to notice.
The marks came back clean and unquestioned: Hawthorne just above Crow, as if the order itself had been graded.
Every time.
Not luck. Not effort.
Inheritance.
God. It still lived in her.
And now, just over a year later, all it took was a video—two silhouettes stepping out of a black car—for every buried ember to flare back to life.
They weren’t supposed to be here.
The Hawthorne twins, standing in Saint DeMeridian’s rain-washed courtyard like they owned the weather.
The clip replayed in silence—Rowan tipping his head toward the camera, expression unreadable, while Cassian flashed that same grin that never reached his eyes.
Outside, the chapel bells began to toll—slow, deliberate—as if the campus itself had already sensed what she knew.
The balance had shifted.
Lila kept scrolling, giddy. “They’re brothers,” she said, voice pitched with excitement. “From somewhere up north. Nobody can tell if they’re identical or not, but—”
Val barely heard her. Her pulse was a drumbeat in her ears, memory bleeding into the present—chalk dust, laughter, the familiar sting of being less than. The Crows and the Hawthornes had never been anything but enemies dressed as classmates.
And now, fate had dragged them back to finish what it started.
“They’re from Redwater,” Valentina said at last, her voice lower, darker than she meant it to be.
Both roommates looked up.
Kristina frowned, brushing a strand of brown hair from her face. “You know them?”
Valentina hesitated, the question landing heavier than it should. “Something like that,” she said finally, forcing a shrug before drifting back toward her side of the dorm.
She knelt beside a half-open box, hands busy with nothing—untangling cords she didn’t need, smoothing clothes that didn’t matter. The air felt thinner now, drawn tight with memory. She kept her back to them, willing the conversation to die on its own.
But luck had never been a Crow inheritance.
Behind her, Lila gasped again—bright and oblivious—padding closer with the fearless confidence of uninvited curiosity.
“Oh my god, you have to tell us,” she said. “Were they your exes? Or enemies? Please say enemies—that would be sooo dramatic.”
Kristina snorted. “Lila, not everything’s a soap opera.”
“Speak for yourself,” Lila shot back, undeterred as she brushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes. “Those boys look like they invented drama. Especially the shorter one.”
Val kept her eyes on the box. Her heartbeat stayed loud in her ears.
“Trust me,” she muttered. “You don’t want their kind of story.”
Lila laughed, unbothered by the warning. “Oh, come on. There’s definitely a story. What happened? Were they jerks, or, like, really hot—”
“Lila,” Kristina warned, though curiosity edged her voice too.
Val exhaled slowly. “Both.”
It was the truth—and all she was willing to give. The rest of it—the whispers, the games, the way their smiles could cut and still make her look again—belonged to a past she’d buried miles away.
Behind her, Lila sighed. “You’re killing me, Val. I need details. Were you, like, a thing?”
Val straightened, shutting a drawer with a soft thud that sounded final. “We weren’t anything,” she said—too quickly, too bitterly—to ever sound true.
Lila groaned, throwing up her hands. “Ugh, you’re impossible. Fine, don’t tell me—but I will find out. I’ll do my own research. Maybe even some field work.”
Kristina chuckled softly. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Lila echoed, twirling a strand of blonde hair around her finger, “if the shorter one’s in my orientation group, I’m introducing myself. Cassian, right? He looks like trouble in a really fun way.”
Kristina snorted, a half-smile breaking through her usual composure. “You’d flirt with a hurricane.”
“Please,” Lila said breezily, tossing her hair as she padded back to her bed. “I’d make it fall in love with me first—and then make it buy me dinner.”
Kristina laughed under her breath, shaking her head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Unstoppable,” Lila corrected, already scrolling again, legs swinging off the mattress. “There’s a difference.”
Val barely heard them anymore. She stood at her dresser, folding and refolding the same sweater, fingers tracing the worn knit like it might anchor her. Their laughter floated through the room, bright and harmless, and somehow distant—like something she no longer knew how to step back into.
She’d wanted quiet.
What she got was a pause—stretched thin, brittle, waiting to break.
Lila’s delighted squeal shattered it.
“Oh my god, look! The school just posted them!”
Kristina groaned. “Of course they did.”
But Lila was already leaning forward, phone clutched like treasure. “It’s official—Saint DeMeridian’s own welcome post. They’re right in front of the clock tower. Rowan looks like he wants to murder the photographer, but Cassian—” she let out a dreamy sigh—“Cassian looks dangerous in the best way.”
Kristina arched a brow. “You’ve known him for, what, thirty seconds on a screen?”
“Thirty very compelling seconds,” Lila said primly. “Look at that grin. Tell me that’s not a warning label.”
Val didn’t need to.
She could already see it—the glint in Cassian’s light-brown eyes when he knew he’d gotten under someone’s skin, the curl of that grin when he wanted you to remember he could.
Her fingers went still against the sweater.
“They’re going to own this place by next week,” Lila went on, oblivious. “Half the campus is already obsessed. Look—look at the comments! Someone started a fan account an hour ago.”
Kristina laughed, dry and skeptical. “You’re all insane.”
“I’m just observant,” Lila corrected with mock offense. “Besides, you’ll see. They’ll be everywhere—at the mixers, the dining hall, the quad. Probably already have professors drooling over their transcripts.”
Val’s jaw tightened. “Then I’ll know where not to be.”
That earned her a side glance from Kristina—measured, thoughtful—but Lila didn’t notice.
She was still scrolling, narrating each photo with breathless enthusiasm. “Cassian Hawthorne,” she declared, as if reading a prophecy. “Major flirt. Secretly poetic. Probably terrible at texting back.”
“You’re writing fanfiction now?” Kristina muttered.
“It’s called intuition,” Lila said brightly. “And if fate is kind, orientation will seat me right next to him.”
Val managed a thin smile. Her stomach felt hollow. Fate had never been kind—not to her, and never when the Hawthornes were involved.
“Ah—and look at him!” Lila gasped, zooming in on the photo. “Rowan Hawthorne. Broody. Mysterious. Six minutes older, apparently. Total dark-academia heartbreaker.”
Kristina leaned over, unimpressed. “He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.”
“Exactly,” Lila said dreamily. “That’s the point.”
But Val wasn’t listening. Her gaze caught on the glow of Lila’s phone—Rowan standing half in shadow, his expression calm, unreadable. The same quiet edge. The same storm still living behind his eyes.
The one that had followed her out of Redwater.
Across the room, Lila giggled at another post, and Val forced herself to look away.
Saint DeMeridian had promised her a clean slate.
But the past had a way of slipping through.
And this time, it was already inside.
