He Hypnotized Me to Love His Rival

"From now on, the person you hate most is Max Sutton." The pocket watch swung in front of me. My eyes went glassy, and I repeated after Max, word for word.

To stop me from clinging to him, Max hypnotized me and sent me after someone else.

He told me that the person I liked, the person I'd been quietly in love with, had always been Silas Marlow. One of his friends made a startled sound. "Silas Marlow?

Who would dare go after him? And who could ever catch him?" Max didn't care. "That's the whole point.

If she can't catch him, she won't have time to cling to me." Chapter 1 Max found a magic pocket watch that could hypnotize people. The watch swung in front of me.

Max said it again. "Come on.

Say it after me." "The person you like, the person you've been quietly in love with, has always been Silas Marlow." My eyes were blank, and I repeated it. "The person I like, the person I've been quietly in love with, has always been Silas Marlow." Max put the watch away, thoroughly satisfied, and snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Snap out of it!" My eyes cleared.

My head swam a little. I stumbled, and Max caught me before I could fall. He needled me on reflex. "Faking another fall? You're so afraid of pain.

One of these days I won't be there to catch you, and then you'll—" He didn't finish. I shook his hand off.

There was none of the old softness in the way I looked at him, and my voice was cool. "Thanks." Max seemed to freeze. He stood there and watched me walk away. "It worked?

That watch is actually the real thing?" One of his friends threw an arm around his shoulders. "Come on, man. The girl next door isn't clinging to you anymore. You're a free man.

Aren't you into the bestlooking girl in the department? It's her birthday today.

Go pick out a present for her." Max didn't move. "What is it, having regrets?" Somebody shoved him and he came back to himself.

He laughed. "Who's having regrets?" "She's been clinging to me for almost ten years. I finally got her off my back.

I couldn't be happier." "I'm just worried that now she's stopped, my parents will get the wrong idea and think I've been picking on her." "Worst case I'll hypnotize her back." They moved off, their voices going blurry with distance.

I stopped walking. I looked back at them. Believing a pocket watch could hypnotize me would be like believing I was Cleopatra. Max and I grew up together. He was my little tagalong.

When we played pretend, I was the princess and he was my knight. I was the empress and he was my dog. It was only a few years ago that Max suddenly wised up.

I was used to having him around, so when he stopped coming to find me, I went to find him.

Every so often Max would say things about me in front of his friends. "Here she comes again." "Kind of a pain." I'd turn and go, and he'd come after me, catching my arm to make peace. "Del, I'm sorry." "I've got an image to keep up too.

I was putting it on for them." "You've got to leave me some dignity.

You can't order me around like a dog in front of them." Over time, more and more people got the wrong idea about the two of us.

In everyone else's telling, I became the girl who'd been quietly in love with Max for years and chasing him for just as long.

Even Max heard it often enough that he came to believe it. This time I'd gone to find Max to set the record straight. I didn't expect Max to come to me first.

When I got to the spot we'd agreed on, he was there talking with a few friends. "Can this watch really hypnotize people?" Chapter 2 "Just try it and find out.

It's not like you lose anything." "Haven't you been sick of Delphine forever?

If hypnosis gets rid of her, so much the better." Max hesitated. "I mean, it's not like I actually—" "Max." I said his name. "You wanted to see me?" I really hadn't expected that this was what Max had called me out for.

So he wanted me to hate him. If that was what Max wanted, he could have it. I was halfway through the roast chicken my mom had told me to bring Max when my phone buzzed.

A text from one of my roommates. [Aubrey's birthday thing is tonight. Are you going?] [Something came up and I have to go to my grandma's.

If you go, can you take her my present?] Aubrey. The girl Max liked. Max and his friends weren't in my major. But Aubrey had been in the same case competition as my roommate and me.

She'd invited us to her birthday. Traffic was bad, and by the time I got there almost everyone had arrived.

I handed the birthday girl the presents, turned around, and there was Max with his friends.

Max saw me and froze too. "Hey, the girl next door is here again." "Guess the hypnosis didn't take.

She followed you all the way here." "Unless she heard about you and Aubrey…" His friends went back and forth over there, all talking at once. My eyes met Max's across the room.

I frowned and looked away. When people sat down, Max nudged a friend over without being asked and opened a spot for me. I didn't so much as glance at him. I found my own seat.

A classmate I knew asked, "Did you and Max have a fight?

Why aren't you sitting with him?" I gave her a strange look and pitched my voice just loud enough to carry. "The person I hate most is Max Sutton." "If I sat over there, I'd be afraid I couldn't stop myself from hitting him." They heard both lines perfectly.

His friends were obviously thrilled — the hypnosis had worked, he'd shaken me off. Max didn't look happy at all. Aubrey and I weren't close.

After a while I made an excuse to leave early. "Delphine!" At the sound of it, every eye in the private room went to the two of us. "Thank you for coming." She glanced at Max without seeming to. "And thank you for letting go." I smiled at her and let that last line go. "Happy birthday." Max came after me on his own.

I hadn't even made it out the hotel doors before I heard him calling my name behind me. "Delphine!" His chest was heaving and his face was tight. "Aubrey and I aren't—" His friends were right behind him. "Max, what are you doing?

They're cutting the cake." Max swallowed the rest of the sentence. The look he gave me was complicated. "Oh, Max, guess who I saw on my way out?" "Silas Marlow!

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I never would have guessed he works here." "He acts so above it all, you'd never think he was broke.

Aubrey was into him for how long, and he wouldn't look twice at anybody?

And now she's throwing her birthday here and he's the one carrying plates." "Max, go stand next to him right now. Aubrey will know exactly which one of you to pick." Silas Marlow.

Such a familiar name. Chapter 3 The one I'd "liked for so long, been quietly in love with for so long," right? I turned and walked toward Max. The knot between Max's brows loosened.

He said it in that slightly wheedling tone he always used with me. "Del, I knew you wouldn't—" I stopped in front of the friend beside him.

My cheeks were faintly pink, the delight and the eagerness plain to see. "What you said just now — where is Silas Marlow?" The hotel lobby went dead quiet.

The color drained out of Max's face. The guy in front of me stammered. "Silas — Silas Marlow?

Aubrey stopped him a minute ago to talk to him." I nodded. "Thanks." Then I went that way without hesitating for a second. Max and the others followed.

I heard Aubrey's voice from a long way off. "Do you work here?" "It's my birthday.

Do you want to come cut the cake with us?" Before the person she'd stopped could answer, Aubrey's roommate spoke up. "Come on, Aubs, don't keep him from his job." "That dress of yours is this season's, twelve hundred dollars.

Look what he's wearing. What if he gets something on it?" Aubrey pushed back right away. "We all go to the same school.

Don't talk like that." The roommate made a face. "You're too nice for your own good." The party was worth the trip. I even got the full goodcop, badcop routine.

The two of them had him boxed in with their little routine. He didn't seem to care at all. All I could make out was his back. "Excuse me, ladies.

Coming through." And Silas pushed his cart past them and away. All that song and dance, and he didn't even care who Aubrey was. I followed him. Behind me, Max got held up.

His friends were shoving him toward Aubrey, hooting. "Go cut the cake for the bestlooking girl in the department!" … The noise fell away behind me.

I followed Silas as far as the corner, then turned the other way and left through the hotel's side door. It was an act, that was all. No reason to drag anyone else into it.

As for Max. Getting under his skin was something I could do in passing. I'd barely eaten at the party. I found a convenience store nearby and got a hot dog and a cup of hot soup.

I took my time with it, then ordered a ride and waited at the corner. "Where's the money?" "What good does it do you, throwing every cent at a woman who's already half dead?" I turned and looked down the black alley. "You're my son.

You think I'd do you harm?" "You'd be better off buying yourself a couple of decent outfits. Your school's full of rich kids, isn't it?

With a face like that, you can't land some CEO's daughter?" The man stood half in the yellow light of the streetlamp at the mouth of the alley, half lost in the darkness behind him.

He wore a wellcut suit and his hair had clearly been done. He looked like a respectable man who worked in the office building across the street.

He was pleading his case like it was all for his son's own good.

Another voice came back at him, mocking. "The way you live off a rich woman?" The face of the man in the suit went dark, and without another word he went at his son. "Where's the money?

Your mother's half dead, she's going to die anyway. Throw it in the river and at least you'd hear a splash." "You work all those jobs, you must be pulling in plenty.

Give me all of it!" "Is this a mugging?" I stopped at the mouth of the alley. It was pitch black in there.

I didn't go in. "Mind your own business!" The man in the suit turned, looked me over, and the twist in his face smoothed out fast.

Chapter 4 He tugged his suit straight and softened his voice. "He's my son. We were just—" "I'm recording." I held up my phone. "One more word out of you and this video goes out.

Are you sure you want to keep going?" The man in the suit pulled his mouth into an ugly smile, picked his bag up off the ground, and hurried away