Chapter 28
Jul 18, 2025
The courtyard buzzed with barely contained bloodlust. Students scattered when I walked by—not because they didn’t want to see the show, but because they wanted front-row seats with plausible deniability.
Amber perched on the fountain like a queen surveying her kingdom of manufactured drama. Phone in hand, predatory smile locked and loaded. She’d been waiting for this moment since freshman year.
Time for the main event.
I walked straight up to her little throne, ignored her disciples flanking either side like designer gargoyles.
“We need to talk.”
“Oh, do we?” Amber didn’t look up from her phone. “Because I’m pretty busy destroying your reputation right now.”
“Yeah, about that.” I sat down uninvited, watched her whole crew tense up. “What’s your actual problem with me?”
She finally looked up. “Excuse me?”
“Your problem. With me. Specifically.” I leaned back, arms crossed. “Because this whole war you’ve been waging? It’s getting pathetic.”
Her laugh was crystal and venom. “You really want to do this here?”
“I really do.”
“Fine.” She turned to face me fully, phone forgotten. “You want to know my problem? You want the real tea?”
“Desperately.”
“You.” She pointed a perfectly manicured nail at my chest. “Your whole fucking existence.”
Her friends exchanged glances. This wasn’t going according to script.
“Be more specific.”
“You know what you did to me?” Her voice cracked, just slightly. “You made me invisible. For years, I watched Miles choose you over and over again. Sweet little Zoey with her violin and her college applications and her perfect fucking smile.”
The mask was slipping. Finally.
“I worked for him,” she continued, voice getting sharper. “I changed everything about myself. My clothes, my friends, my entire personality. And he still picked you.”
“So this is about Miles?”
“This is about you getting everything handed to you while acting like you don’t even want it.” She stood up, pacing now. “Miss Perfect Student with her color-coded planners and her fake modesty. ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m pretty enough.’ ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m smart enough.’ Meanwhile, you had every guy in school wrapped around your finger.”
“That’s not—”
“And the worst part?” She whirled around. “You didn’t even try. You just existed and everyone loved you for it. Do you know how exhausting it is to perform perfection when someone else just gets to be?”
The courtyard had gone dead silent. Even her friends looked uncomfortable.
“So you decided to destroy me.”
“I decided to show everyone who you really are.” But her voice wavered. “Except you went and proved me wrong, didn’t you? Turns out Saint Zoey has a dark side. Turns out you’re just as messy as the rest of us.”
“And that pisses you off more.”
“It pisses me off because you get to be messy and still be loved.” Tears were actually forming in her eyes. “You get to fuck up and have Chase Donovan ready to burn the world down for you. You get to be human and keep your crown.”
The truth hit me like cold water. “You’re not mad because I’m fake. You’re mad because I’m real.”
“Fuck you, Zoey.”
“No, fuck you, Amber.” I stood up, matched her energy. “You want to know the difference between us? I stopped pretending. You doubled down.”
“At least I know who I am.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m standing, you’re just a girl who’s been performing so long she forgot there was supposed to be a person underneath.”
That broke her. Completely. Her face crumpled, then hardened again.
“This isn’t over.”
“Yeah, it is.” Chase’s voice cut through the tension like a blade. He appeared behind Amber, calm as death. “Because if you keep playing games, I’ll show everyone exactly who you are when you think nobody’s watching.”
Amber spun around. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you’ve been obsessed with me since ninth grade. I know you practice conversations in your car before school. I know you cry in the bathroom after every party because nobody actually likes you—they just tolerate you.”
Her face went white.
“And I know,” he continued, stepping closer, “that if you ever come near her again, I won’t just ruin your reputation. I’ll make sure everyone knows exactly why you really hate her.”
Amber looked between us, trapped. Her perfect veneer finally cracking completely.
“This isn’t fair,” she whispered.
“No,” I said quietly. “It’s not. But neither was anything you did to me.”
She gathered what was left of her dignity and walked away. Her friends followed like lost puppies, leaving us standing in the wreckage of her carefully constructed war.
“You okay?” Chase asked.
“Getting there.” I watched Amber disappear into the building. “Think she’ll actually stop?”
“She’s done. Bullies like her only have power when their targets can’t fight back.”
“And now?”
He smiled, genuine for the first time in weeks. “Now you’re dangerous.”
Damn right I was.
