-1999- | Cruel Intentions

Sebastian sells his Leica cameras anyway. He donates the money to a scholarship fund in Annette’s name. He withdraws from Manhattan Day and enrolls in a small college in Vermont, where no one knows his name.

Sebastian begins his campaign. He does not flirt. He listens. He finds Annette in the library, where she is tutoring a struggling freshman. He sits down and asks for help with Voltaire. She is suspicious at first, but his act is flawless: humble, curious, wounded. He confesses that his reputation is a mask—his father abandoned him, his mother remarries every two years, and he has never known real intimacy.

He finds her on the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the East River. It is Christmas Eve. Snow falls.

But something shifts. One night, Sebastian and Annette are caught in a rainstorm. They take shelter in an abandoned greenhouse. Annette, shivering, looks at him and says, “You’ve never let anyone see you cry, have you?” cruel intentions -1999-

“You get the car. But if you lose—if you fall for her—you give me your vintage Leica camera collection.”

Sebastian leans forward. “And if I win?”

But he does not delete it either.

They begin meeting secretly—walking through Central Park in the gray November drizzle, sharing hot chocolate, talking about God and art and fear. Sebastian is brilliant at this: he gives her just enough vulnerability to trust him, just enough mystery to chase him.

Sebastian smirks. “I’m just saving my energy for someone worth ruining.”

The target: Annette Hargrove (19), the new headmaster’s daughter. She has just transferred to their elite private school, Manhattan Day, from a small town in Ohio. She is beautiful in an unpolished way—no highlights, no designer labels, no cynicism. Worse, she has published an op-ed in the school paper titled “Virginity: Not a Disease,” arguing for abstinence and integrity. The school’s wealthy, jaded students have mocked her mercilessly. Sebastian finds her… interesting. Sebastian sells his Leica cameras anyway

He kisses Annette. It is tender. It is also a lie.

But Annette, wounded but not broken, goes to Kathryn’s penthouse. She has kept a journal of everything—every text, every email, every whisper from Kathryn’s own victims. She hands it to the school board.

Annette stays in New York. She writes a new op-ed—not about virginity, but about the cost of cruelty. She does not name Sebastian. She writes: “Some people break your heart. Others show you that you have one.” Sebastian begins his campaign

On New Year’s Eve, as fireworks explode over Times Square, Sebastian stands alone in a snowy field in Vermont. He takes out his phone. He has Annette’s number. He does not call.