The Rival

by Emma Lord

Genres: YA Coming of Age; YA Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Rivals-to-lovers gets an academic send-up in this charming and irresistible romantic comedy from Emma Lord, New York Times bestselling author of Tweet Cute and Begin Again!

At long last, Sadie has vanquished her lifelong academic rival ― her irritatingly charming, whip smart next door neighbor, Seb ― by getting the coveted, only spot to her dream college. Or at least, so she thinks. When Seb is unexpectedly pulled off the waitlist and admitted, Sadie has to compete with him all over again, this time to get a spot on the school’s famous zine. Now not only is she dealing with the mayhem of the lovable, chaotic family she hid her writing talents from, as well as her own self doubt, but she has to come to terms with some less-than-resentful feelings for Seb that are popping up along the way.

But the longer they compete, the more Sadie and Seb notice flaws in the school’s system that are much bigger than any competition between them. Somehow the two of them have to band together even as they’re trying to crush each other, only to discover they may have met their match in more ways than one.

"If you haven’t read a novel by Emma Lord before, you’ve been missing out on something spectacular." - Paste

 

Read more

Release date: January 21, 2025

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter One



“Why do you sound like you’re being chased by a zombie horde?” Christina asks in mild alarm.

“McLaren Hall,” I gasp into my phone. “Where is it?”

“Uh—I’m assuming not where you are?”

I can count the number of times I have been late on one finger. The day I was born—end of list. Ever since I came into the world a week overdue, I have been so reliably on time that I wouldn’t be surprised if clocks started resetting themselves around me.

Turns out I’m making up for it now, because I’m not just late, but late.

Thankfully, Christina’s gorgeously manicured nails are clacking on her keyboard on the other end of the line, where she is no doubt still starfished on her bed in our dorm where I left her ten minutes ago. “So there’s a McLaren Hall and a McLaren Hall II across the street from it. Do you know which one you’re looking for?”

No, because it did not occur to me that somewhere in the universe there exists a college campus architect nefarious or lazy enough to do such a thing. “Shit shit,” I squeak.

“According to my good friend the internet, the zine meeting is in the OG McLaren, which is the one next to the fountain,” Christina informs me.

I do an absurd pivot like I’m auditioning for a musical, finally spotting the fountain across the street from me. “Angel human,” I wheeze gratefully. “Goddess among mortals.”

“Okay but like. Sadie. Take a beat, okay?”

“I’m out of beats,” I say, looking both ways for cars and booking it across the street. “I’m so late I have negative beats to take.”

“It’s an interest meeting, those always start late. And this is like—your big dream zine, right? You can’t go in there looking frazzled.”

“I’m not—” I glance down at myself and see that not only is one of my sneakers untied but my carefully chosen floral blue first-day-of-college dress has pit stains deeper than most emotions. The first building I was trying to get into was locked at every entrance, but that sure didn’t stop me from sprinting multiple laps around it to make sure. “That frazzled looking,” I concede.

“One beat,” Christina insists.

I take a breath and stare at the wide brick building, a small thrill working its way up my spine—not fear, but anticipation. I earned this opportunity. Every test I pulled all-nighters studying for, every school newspaper deadline I raced the clock to meet, all so I could get into Maple Ride University and have a chance to try my hand at getting a staff position on Newsbag, arguably the most famous college zine in the country.

Maybe I should be scared. It’s taken me years to get this close to the thing I want most, but now I have to prove myself all over again.

“You’re at your dream school. You’re finally away from your family drama. You’re hot as hell and have the best roommate in the world.” I roll my eyes at Christina’s pep talk but bite down a grin. “And you—how did you phrase it? ‘Vanquished your nemesis at long last.’”

By “nemesis” she means Sebastian Adams, whose favorite and only hobby growing up was one-upping me at every turn. It only got worse in high school when we both clearly took an interest in journalism. I’d get the editor position on the school paper, but he’d become the school’s most beloved writer. Seb would get a coveted recommendation from our recluse of an English teacher, and I would win the year-end student departmental award. The competition was so absurd that we started competing in every other way we could, forcing the school to declare the first-ever tie for salutatorian—our GPAs and mutual accomplishments were such a dead tie that nobody could decide who won.

But I broke the cycle. I got into Maple Ride. Seb didn’t.

I breathe back out, decidedly grounded again. “You’re right,” I say, nodding into the phone. “Thanks. You’re right.”

And she is. At least until five seconds later, when a boy rounds the corner at top speed, lets out a surprised, “Shit, sorry, shit!” before colliding right into me, depositing half his smoothie on my human form.

Naturally, I open my mouth to say “sorry” right back, a reflexive smile already poised on my lips. Avoiding conflict is quite literally in my DNA. Or at least I assume it is, since my sisters seem to have absorbed all the conflict-creating genes, leaving me to play family peacekeeper more often than not.

But then I glance up into the wide, apologetic brown eyes directly in front of mine and realize this is not just any boy. This is the aforementioned archnemesis, looking distinctly unvanquished in the late August sun.

“Sadie!”

A grin cracks across Seb’s face—that trademark wide-open-sky one that somehow only got more dazzling in the last few days. There’s a dusting of new freckles on his newly tanned skin, and his dark-brown hair is even more tousled than usual, like it’s still salty from the beach trip I know he took this past weekend. He looks like he should be recruited for a billboard for an all-inclusive, family-friendly resort.

Unfortunately for Seb, I’m immune to every inch of it.

“What, no hello hug?” he asks, extending his arms out in a gesture made more absurd by the fact that he is also now covered in smoothie.

In lieu of answering him I stare briefly up at the sky as if it’s going to explain to me why Seb Adams is two feet in front of me instead of clear across Virginia at Blue Ridge State University. Unsurprisingly, it does not answer. Worse still, when I lower my head, Seb is still standing there.

“I really am sorry,” he says, reaching out as if he’s going to help with the disaster zone that is my dress and clearly thinking the better of it. “Shit. I got you good.”

I sigh. At least the smoothie will distract from the pit stains. “What on earth are you doing here?” I demand.

“Enriching my young mind. Widening my cultural horizons. Trying to figure out where I’m going to drink tonight.” He looks me up and down again, slower this time—apology mingled with mischief. “You should wear green more often. It suits you.”

“You should shut your mouth more often. It suits you,” I say, plucking what remains of the smoothie from his hand.

I take an experimental sip. Something with banana. It’s not half-bad.

“This is mine now,” I inform him, knocking the remaining inch of green goop back.

Seb’s grin is back in its usual insufferably effortless way, but his eyes linger, widening with surprise. “You got a haircut.”

More like a hair eviction. Two days ago when my parents dropped me off I had strawberry-blond locks that fell to my waist. Now they’re ten inches shorter and curling up so aggressively in the humidity that I’m pretty sure this lob thinks it’s a bob. Not that it really matters—the cut was less about vanity and more of a “lean into a full main-character cliché” of shaking off my old hair and my past right along with it.

But now the past is upsettingly present, in the form of Seb saying “It’s very you.”

I have no idea what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but that doesn’t stop my face from flushing. I use it as motivation to move faster.

“So where are you headed?” Seb asks.

Maybe if I just keep walking he’ll disappear. He’s just a panic mirage, is all. The ghost of academic rivals past.

“Apparently hell, if you’re here.”

“Satan does make a killer smoothie.” Seb gestures at the backpack slung over his shoulder. “I’ve got a sweater in here you can borrow.”

I’m too fixated on Seb following me into the building to consider the offer. “I’ve got a one-way ticket out of my sight you can keep.”

“I hope you can get a decent refund, then,” says Seb, taking a few quick paces ahead of me to open the door. “I just moved all my stuff into my dorm.”

He’s holding open the door for me, but I’ve suddenly forgotten how to pass through it, like a vampire that needs to be invited in.

“I am begging you to unsay every single one of those words.”

Seb leans in close, his hand braced on the door. He smells the way he always does—a salty honey sweetness. Equal parts nostalgia, irritation, and something loud and warm in me that doesn’t deserve any kind of name.

“No can do,” he tells me, with enough glee that I know he imagined this moment long before now. “I got off the waitlist. You’re looking at a fellow Maple Ride Sweetie,” he says, referring to our school mascot.

I close my eyes. The thing is I am largely a good person. I dutifully babysit Christina’s pet rat Blorbo every summer she goes on her annual family trip, despite clear evidence of him needing an exorcism. I eat all of my mom’s alarmingly crunchy mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving with a smile on my face. I even managed to remain cordial with our next-door neighbor Pat when she said she “wasn’t that big of a fan of Harry Styles.”

All of which is to say, I cannot think of one thing I have done in the eighteen years of my Seb-addled existence to deserve this fate.

Seb’s voice is close to my ear and wry as ever. “Please, Sadie. Try to contain your joy. I’m embarrassed.”

My eyes pop open, right into his smug, tanned face. “When did this even happen?”

His eyes brighten. “Two days ago. Plot twist, right?”

I’m too dumbstruck to move, but Seb makes himself useful for once by settling his hand on the small of my back and nudging me forward. I surge ahead out of his reach, and just like that I’m snapping back into a familiar pattern: I best Seb and he bests me right back. It’s second nature, like riding a bike or periodically asking Blorbo to please not curse my family line.

But there was never a moment I entertained this particular scenario in the ongoing saga of “Sadie versus Seb.” Maple Ride has historically only ever let in one student from our high school each year. As in, one of us had a shot at Newsbag, and the other was old news.

“Since this is a waking nightmare that’s only getting worse by the minute, I assume you’re also here for the interest meeting,” I say.

Seb is a half pace behind me now, the two of us following a neon-pink sign taped to the wall that says NEWSBAG NEWBS THIS WAY!! with a badly drawn arrow. “Still sharp as ever.”

“Aren’t you majoring in engineering?” I demand.

Seb’s head tilts to meet my eye. “Yes, but surprisingly, I’m still allowed to have hobbies.”

“Is your hobby ruining my otherwise perfectly decent life?”

“Aw. I’ve missed this,” says Seb, gesturing at the air between us.

My nostrils flare. “It’s been seventy-two hours.”

Seb’s pace slows, and I can’t help stopping, too. It’s an annoying magic trick of his, how you can’t help naturally wanting to do whatever Seb is doing. He’s got the kind of magnetism that makes parents say things like “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” It’s my theory as to why his Instagram account Adams’ Apples is so popular—sure, the ridiculous memes and TikToks he rounds up for it are funny, but don’t get half as many likes as when he posts a photo of himself being goofy and hot. Seb turned himself into a damn billboard for wholesome internet nonsense.

Which is to say, I respect that Seb uses this power of his for good, not evil, but right now he is using it to make us perilously late.

“No, I mean this.” His eyes may be smug but his smile has gone soft at the edges. “The real Sadie.”

I point at my banana-clad self. “This is the angry Sadie.”

His smile quirks back up like it’s on a fishing line, and as usual I can’t help feeling caught in it. “Whatever you say.”

He reaches up unexpectedly then, his hand just under my chin, his thumb warm just under my lip. Despite our lateness I go entirely still, like he’s accidentally pressed a small nerve that’s radiating all over my body.

“You’ve got a little something,” he says, swiping his thumb across what must be a splatter of smoothie still on my chin.

The brown of his eyes flecks the barest of gold where the late-summer light is streaming in through the window. I blink but don’t pull my face away.

“No,” I say. “I’ve got a big something. A five-foot-ten something I can’t seem to shake off. And if you think you’ve got a shot of getting a staff position over me, I will make it a personal mission to shave a few of those inches off.”

Seb pulls his hand off my face, slowly and deliberately. Every now and then we get into each other’s space like we’re playing a game of chicken. Like we have to prove how little of an effect we have on each other.

I know we don’t. My heart is only hammering because I’m stunned to see him. My skin is only tingling because yet again I’ve let him get under it. But still, these are the only times in our lifelong competition that I’m never sure who wins.

“Or maybe we could both get staff positions, bury the hatchet, and work together in peace and harmony at last.”

His eyes are glinting again, the way they always do right before we’re about to try and mercilessly decimate each other. The way they did before he won the school spelling bee after I fumbled the word “coccyx” in fifth grade. The way they did before I laid his mock-debate strategy to ruin in AP Lang junior year. The way they did the day we were supposed to get our admission decisions back from Maple Ride, and my email ended up a whole lot longer than his.

I straighten up my spine and smooth out my dress. “That’s a cute little self-insert fan fiction you’ve written for us. Maybe you can submit it for your first piece.”

He’s laughing softly as he opens the door to the classroom, which is mercifully full of chattering students who don’t even look up at our lateness. I do a quick scan, unsurprised not to recognize anybody save for the two people at the front of the room. One is an upperclassman half draped on a desk and looking effortlessly cool in a pair of drawstring sweatpants, a bright-pink crop top, and a row of fruit-shaped earrings popping from the dark skin of her ear. The other pale lanky upperclassman is sitting upright on a stool typing into a laptop, clad in a white T-shirt tucked into a pair of jeans so crisp they look ironed, rocking black combat boots and matte black–painted fingernails. They can only be Amara and Rowan, the coeditors of Newsbag, whose articles I’ve been diligently reading since they became staff writers when they were freshmen themselves.

“Oh, shit,” I murmur to myself, because this just got real.

“Hmm?”

I nearly jolt. For two blissful seconds I had forgotten about the Seb of it all. Naturally, he’s already slipping into the chaos of the room with the same ease he’s had pretty much since the day he was born. I would know—I met Seb at the ripe age of three days old, when my mom plopped me into his bassinet. See, the frosting on the “I can’t stand Seb Adams” cake is that our dads were best friends growing up, then married two women who became best best friends, and somehow this culminated in them moving into identical houses next door to each other in our small town and having weddings and kids within days of each other.

As a result I have more early pictures and videos of myself with Seb in the frame than not. Baby Seb and Sadie getting pushed around the block in identical strollers for our dads’ Sunday-morning eighties pop–themed jogs. Toddler Seb and Sadie trying to yank the beard off an unsuspecting mall Santa’s face. Kindergarten Seb and Sadie running around the town’s Fourth of July parade scooping up candy thrown from the floats, the two of us wordlessly swapping his Twix for my Skittles, his Reese’s for my Sour Patch Kids.

Safe to say that none of those versions of us would recognize the two mortal enemies side-eyeing each other in this room today.

“Oh yikes,” says Rowan, taking in the sight of our smoothie carnage. “I’m scared to ask.”

Amara evidently isn’t, her dark eyes widening as she glances between us. “Did we miss a rave at Jamba Juice?”

I’m not expecting it to hit me sideways, the strangeness of seeing the two of them in real life after reading their work for three years. Amara especially, because I’ve read every single word she’s published in Newsbag. She writes the gut-bustingly hilarious “Maple Mishaps” column from the perspective of Sweetie, a made-up student at Maple Ride who keeps accidentally stumbling into the most absurd gossip the school has to offer, like an undergraduate Amelia Bedelia. Amara is the kind of quick, understated, bitingly funny that’s headed for sitcom writing rooms or the SNL stage.

Then there’s Rowan, who made a name for themselves before they even got to Maple Ride by writing for Newsbag as a high school correspondent, chronicling the absurd lengths students were going to in the overly competitive admissions process. (I wish I could say I didn’t buy into it, but the mountain of SAT study guides under my bed say otherwise.) They wrote about the school’s policies with a lens so critical that everyone reading was holding their breath to see if they’d get in, and when they did they were offered a coveted staff position at Newsbag on the spot. They’ve been writing the more hard-hitting topical pieces about the school and larger community ever since, and manage to do a ton of freelancing for major websites on the side to boot. At the rate they’re going, it’s only a matter of graduating before they’re hosting an NPR podcast or launching an edgy site of their own.

Seb shifts his weight between his feet, clearly giving me the space to answer first. I’d appreciate it, except then something utterly ridiculous happens: I freeze. It’s like I’ve imagined being in this room in front of these writers I’ve idolized for so long that there’s no room in my brain to process it in reality.

“Well,” I start, certain that if I get that far, the other words will follow.

The other words that follow are, unfortunately, shit. Shit shit shit. Because the thing is, I’m not like Seb, who’s so charming he could walk into a bank heist and make friends with everyone in the room. I am only a medium amount of charming, which is doing precisely nothing for me right now.

Then Seb’s head tilts beside me, a silent but familiar signal. Not to rescue me, but to decide between our well-established modes of being. There’s Parental Mode, which is when we’re mildly polite to each other, even downright thoughtful, in front of our families. There’s School Mode, where we’re absolute parodies of Best Friends Ever, nearly sickening half the student body with how well we get along.

This situation feels like it’s outside of both those universes, but in my panic, School Mode prevails.

“Seb and I are from the same high school, so we wanted to match in solidarity,” I say, easing into our old rhythm but shooting Seb a wide smile that he knows to interpret as The instant we’re out of here I’m going to figure out a way to launch you into the sun.


Copyright © 2024 by Emma Lord