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Language:
English
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Published:
2026-02-26
Updated:
2026-03-10
Words:
196,484
Chapters:
31/?
Comments:
29
Kudos:
53
Bookmarks:
17
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2,356

Rules for Dating your Nemesis

Summary:

After discovering that her boyfriend of three years is cheating on her with his girl best friend, Yasemin Hogan knows she can do way better than a little material revenge. Julian broke her heart, she will break his.

By fake dating his enemy.

Elijah Harden seems like the man for the job. He's attractive, tall and smart; fake dating him sounds pretty fun. They just need to write down some rules. Like, we don't touch each other behind closed doors, only in public. We have to sleep in the same place. We stay together during parties.

And above all, we don't fall in love.

Well, easy. Yasemin and Elijah don't get along. It's been five years of fierce academic rivalry between them. Five years of hatred. Five years of winter.

However, as they start fake dating, the forced proximity ignites terrible feelings inside them. And leads the two rivals to face a new reality: the winter between them is the warmest season.

Notes:

This work is being posted on Wattpad too.
A dear reader of mine asked me if I could upload it on AO3 as well and of course I said yes (hey elvastral <3) I didn't even know non-ffs could get posted on here? but ykw hell yeah.
I doubt anyone will read this except them BUT if you come across my work and want to read, I love you already and please know that:
1. English is my second language. So please, bear with me.
2. US college system is heavily misrepresented and because it's fiction and I'm lazy I let it slide for the plot and I hope you will too. Sorry if it pisses you off.
3. Should I put the TWs in the tags? Story includes mentions of anxiety, mourning/death, eating disorder, abusive relationship, SA, child abuse/neglect, alcohol/drugs/insults, life threatening disease

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

 

 

I pour your name on my lips, which get stained with blood. I look at you and I see my world. My world that rejects me now. 

I close my eyes.

Let me love you. 

I beg you to. 

You refuse.

So I do what I've always known how to do, even if it involves the entirety of the forces that rule the universe. 

I bury you. 

In the abyss of silence, deep inside me, love has always been shouted. No one could hear, since the cries were only rustling, since I let die every sound, every tiny particle of voice that could have suggested that I had acquired the eight letters of love. 

As these letters died, you would die with them, but I didn't mind. I wanted you to die. I've always hoped you would.

I wanted to bury my feelings and bury you with them.

Anyway, even if I wanted to keep you alive, 

never 

never

never 

you would have let me.