Page 78 of The Last Love Story

Callum scrubs his hands down his face. “I just wanted to send you a message. My dad wouldn’t let me write you, and I knew your parents wouldn’t be okay with letters going to the White House. But it was too easy. I mean, I barely know anything about hacking. But your training computer—the firewalls—the webcam. And then... I saw you.”

“Yousawme?” Nausea swims through my chest and I fight to stay on my feet. It’s like the whole world is dropping out from under me.

“I didn’t mean to. But the training computer has a monitoring system built in. You know, how they track your eye movements?”

“Of course it does,” I say, spinning around and covering my mouth in horror.

“And when I tapped into it... it started streaming. And... it was like seeing you again. I know it was wrong, watching you in your bedroom. But you said it yourself: We’d had sleepovers. I wasn’t seeing anything you wouldn’t have let me see. So I watched. And I saw you writing. You were so intent on it... and once you uploaded it, I read it.” Callum sighs, his eyes softening. “You’re an amazing writer, Ripley. And I knew what you were writing about. Who. I knew you were missing me too.”

My mouth drops open as I listen. I can’t even try to keep the shock off my face.

He readWritten in the Stars. He knew it was about him.

Callum looks down in shame. “It’s not okay. I know it’s not. But seeing you... I couldn’t lose you again. When you got a new computer, I figured out how to hack that one too. And your tablet, and... it wasn’t okay.”

“No, it’s not,”I bite out, my entire body buzzing with humiliation. Shame. Rage.

I think of all the things I did in my bedroom. Private things.

“Did you watch me change?” I demand, swallowing hard.

Callum looks up, his expression fierce. “No. Never.” He steps closer to me and tries to take my hand, but I pull back like he’s on fire.

“Never. I just... I watched you write, Ripley. I watched you look out your window. And I read your stories. I needed to read your stories. They made me want to be better.”

I push him away, needing to walk away, but there’s nowhere to go to burn off this energy buzzing inside me. We’re trapped in the middle of a hurricane on a boat with the worst people in the world, who are all laughing at me.

He follows. “Don’t you get it? Your stories made me better. I asked what Orion would do, and I did that.”

I whip around, lifting a finger to his face. “Orion wouldneverviolate Saffron’s privacy, Callum!”

He holds his hands up in surrender, and I pace, thinking.

“Why does your dad know?” I ask, looking up. “There’s no way he would have been okay with it.”

Callum grits his teeth. “He found out a few months ago. Someone was poking around in your story, on your devices, and they found my code. It set off a million alarm bells, someone trying to hack the White House without realizing it. And then our security team traced my code. After that, it didn’t take them long to figure out who I was... who you were, to me. We all decided the best thing was to bring you here. Because once it got out that I’d been spying on you... we had to have a story ready. A love story. And yes, it was wrong of me to do it without you knowing. But what if we... pretended... that you did? That we were long-distance and you wanted, invited me to watch you?

“It wasn’t so hard for me to pretend, because I’d read your stories. And part of me believed—or hoped—that you felt the same.

“And I wanted to tell you, Ripley, I swear. I was going to. The second I could.”

I bite down, hard. Lyceum. They were searching for the origin ofWritten in the Stars. They didn’t know they were tripping the White House cybersecurity unit by doing so. All of this is because of them.

“And I guess someone told my dad about your story. How popular it was. He didn’t understand—he barely reads—but he understands popularity. He was... thrilled. For the first time in my life, he actually was excited about something I had done, because I had found you. And you had written this... book.”

I blink, trying to will my mind to keep up. “Why? He banned books, Callum.”

I want to cry, I want to laugh, loud and unladylike. I settle for a little bit of both as my back finds the window and I sink down. Callum keeps his distance but crouches down across from me.

“He thought he could use you, use us, rebrand a book as a viral sensation. But he’s always thought too small. I saw the truth.”

His voice chills me, and I slowly lift my face to meet his. “And what is that?”

“People want the story, Ripley. You told me that yourself. Stories keep us alive. And we canwrite that story, Ripley. That’s real power. We can write our own ending. We control the DopaMine feeds and the press. We tell them what story to tell.”

My head spins.

Another wave of sickness spreads through me. “Did you leak the tape? Of the kiss?”