“Fine,” she says, then holds out her hand. “But he’s still going to find out.”
“I know.” I sigh, taking her hand. “But I don’t want him to find out who’s responsible.”
We walk back toward Sterling together, shoulders bumping, my hood up, and my phone buzzing in my pocket. And as my name continues to flood across campus and eyes turn our way, Ivy doesn’t let go of my hand the whole way.
I glance sideways. Her jaw is set, her eyes bright and wet and fixed ahead, and the look on her face is the same one she had when she put the phone away. It’s a look that says fuck the world, or anyone who stands in my way.
And, just once, I wish I could be like that.
twenty-six
ROWAN
The movie ends,and I don’t remember any of it.
I picked a showing of some thriller I’d never heard of, bought a ticket, turned my phone off, and sat in the dark. I don’t remember the plot or the character names, and while I think somebody died at the end, I couldn’t tell you who or why or whether I was supposed to care.
It was perfect.
It was what I needed.
When I head out, the lobby is bright, and I squint as I walk through the doors and into the cold. Only then do I turn my phone on. The screen lights up, and notifications start rolling in, one after another, the vibration acting like one continuous shudder in my palm.
Forty-seven unread messages in the team group chat. Three missed calls from Theo. One from Sebastian. A missed call from Ivy. A voicemail from Luca. And underneath all of it, the Ravens chat is scrolling so fast the preview text is a blur of names.
Nothing from Sloane.
I open the group chat and scroll back to where it started.
The first message is a link that Theo sent with a comment:
Theo: What the fuck is this?
I tap it. It’s @HaldenGoss, the account I’ve seen around but never followed because I don’t care about campus gossip. The post has Sloane’s full name, her old school, and a photo of her.
It’s all there.
Harrison Tisdale. The senator’s son. The version of the story where she’s the scandal and he’s the footnote. It mentions the photos, and in a reply thread someone brings up the birthmark, almost offhand, like this is some kind of chat about a TV show.
Two thousand shares.
I read it once, my eyes sliding over Sloane’s name like it can’t actually be there. I read it again, slower this time, and my hands close around the phone and stay closed, my breath coming short and my fists locked hard enough that my knuckles ache.
I scroll back to the group chat.
The first ten messages are confusion. There’s Theo asking what the account is, Luca saying he saw it trending, a bunch of the other guys talking shit about the post or the poster, and Sebastian typing one word.
Seb: Who?
And then Luca finds out, twenty minutes later.
Luca: Talked to Jake from Pi Sig. Mason did it.
Seb: You’re sure?
Luca: Yeah.
I lower the phone, stunned. Not just by the news — what’s been done to Sloane, for the second time in a year — but by whatit means for me and for us, because it means she wasn’t cheating on me.
