Chapter 13
Jul 4, 2025
Lily drags me to the party like she’s leading a corpse by the wrist.
“You need to loosen up before you calcify,” she says, tugging me up the marble steps of someone’s rich cousin’s mansion. “You haven’t smiled in days. You’re turning into a mummy.”
I don’t argue. I just follow, because saying no feels harder than just pretending I still know how to breathe.
Inside, it’s all glitter and shadows. Rose perfume and vodka clash in the air. Girls toss their hair back like their secrets aren’t burning holes in the room. Boys hover nearby pretending to listen, but their eyes are already stripping someone else.
I sip water. I fake smiles. Someone offers me a red cup and I pass it on like a reflex. The music pulses through the floor like it’s trying to bring me back to life, but I’m not sure I want to be revived. My dress feels too tight across my ribs, my shoes are already pinching, and I feel like a mannequin trying to pass as a girl with a pulse.
And then I see Brielle. Red lips. Backless dress. Eyes like she already knows she’s won. She doesn’t walk—she prowls. Her gaze slices through the crowd until it lands on me. And then she moves, hips swaying like every step is a promise or a threat.
“Well, if it isn’t St. Juliet,” she says, smiling like the devil just granted her a wish. “Didn’t think this was your scene.”
Her voice is soft, but sharpened to cut. I keep my chin high, refusing to flinch, even when my skin prickles under her stare.
“Didn’t realize it was yours either,” I reply, voice flat. “Thought you preferred scenes where you’re the only one in the spotlight.”
She laughs, too loud and too fake.
“Oh, sweetie. I don’t need the spotlight. I am the show.” She steps closer. Her perfume wraps around me, sweet and cloying. “Grayson’s fun, isn’t he? He always liked the pretty ones who pretend not to like being watched.”
I clench the cup in my hand until the plastic bends. Her eyes flicker down to it, amused.
“He kissed you, didn’t he?” she adds, tone almost pitying. “That whole brooding mess of a boy routine. He knows exactly how to use it. Always has.”
“I’m not discussing him with you,” I say, though my throat is tight. I hate that she’s inside my head. That she’s even here, looking at me like she’s already rewritten my entire story.
She leans in, nails lightly dragging down my bare arm. The touch is slow, deliberate, too intimate.
“I hope you enjoyed it,” she whispers. “He always gets bored after they break their little rules.” Her smile is lethal. “He likes to ruin good girls best.”
I step back, but she follows, her heels clicking like daggers against the marble floor.
“Let me guess—he told you you’re different? That he’s never met anyone like you?” she purrs. “You think you’re the cure to his damage? Get in line.”
Before I can reply, I feel the shift in the room. A hush under the music. The pull of gravity shifting behind me. Grayson has entered.
He doesn’t enter the room. He takes it — like gravity, or a bad habit you don’t want to quit. His jaw is set, his hair slightly tousled like he drove here with the windows down. People part around him instinctively, but he doesn’t look at them. He only sees us. Me. Her. The space between us.
His eyes land on Brielle’s hand still wrapped around my wrist. Her grip is loose but meant to be seen. A silent threat. A declaration.
His jaw clenches. His eyes flicker once, darkening. He takes a breath. Takes one step forward.
And then stops.
He doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t move again. Just watches.
And somehow, that’s worse.
Because if he’d said something, if he’d even tried to fix it, I could’ve forgiven the hallway. The kiss. The silence. But he just stands there. Hands in his pockets. A statue in a storm he helped create.
I turn back to Brielle and peel her hand off my skin like it’s something toxic.
“I’m not your competition,” I say, my voice steady. “And I’m not your warning label either.”
Brielle scoffs, flicking her hair. “That’s what they all say. Right before they realize how replaceable they were.”
“I’m not the one who’s begging for attention,” I say quietly. “You are.”
I don’t wait for her response. I turn my back on both of them and walk out, my heels echoing like a countdown. My spine is straight, my hands fists at my sides, but my chest aches like something cracked open.
I don’t look back. I don’t check if he follows.
I just leave.
Because I can’t breathe in here.
