Chapter 26
Jul 4, 2025
Lunch is a minefield. Whispers, judgment, camera flashes. I can feel them all—like lasers on the back of my neck. Every move I make is watched, dissected, posted, reshared. My tray shakes when I set it down. My appetite vanished somewhere between the hallway and the hateful laughter near the vending machines.
I keep my head down, trying to eat. Pretending I don’t exist. Fork to mashed potatoes. Sip of lukewarm water. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Repeat. Like if I just stay small enough, they’ll forget I ever made headlines.
And then I hear it. Brielle’s voice, loud and clear, dripping with venom: “Heard round two’s about to leak. Maybe this time she’ll go full frontal.”
Laughter breaks across the cafeteria like a matchstrike. A table near the windows snorts. Another group cackles. Someone claps. I freeze, my hands curling around my fork so tightly my knuckles ache.
Someone whispers, “Is that true?”
“She probably posed for it.”
“I bet she liked it.”
My stomach turns. I grip the edge of the table until my fingers go white. The walls are closing in. And then — bang.
Grayson slams his tray down so hard it silences the entire cafeteria. The sound echoes like a gunshot, ricocheting off the tile, cutting straight through the laughter. Forks drop. Conversations die mid-word. My heart stalls in my chest.
He stands slowly, like something ancient and dangerous just woke up inside him. His chair screeches against the floor. His eyes are locked on Brielle like she’s already burning.
“Say one more word about her,” he growls, voice low and sharp, “and I’ll ruin you so fast your daddy’s lawyers won’t keep up.”
You could hear a pin drop. Brielle stares at him, caught off guard for once in her designer life.
“Excuse me?” she scoffs, trying to laugh, but it dies in her throat. “This isn’t your fight anymore, Grayson.”
“Oh, it’s exactly my fight,” he snaps. “Because I’m not letting another entitled vulture tear Juliet apart.”
She laughs, but it’s brittle. “Wow. Guess she really ruined you too.”
“Say that again,” he warns, stepping closer.
Her smirk falters. Grayson is dangerous when he’s quiet. But when he’s loud? When his anger has direction? He’s unstoppable.
Brielle looks like she’s just been stripped bare in front of the whole school. Her mouth opens. Closes. Her bravado shatters on the floor between them. I watch her blink fast, like the cafeteria lights are suddenly too bright. Like she’s not used to being the one squirming.
Grayson doesn’t look away. Doesn’t blink. His hands are clenched at his sides like he’s holding back a storm. People are staring now—not at me, but at him. At the boy who just declared war for someone everyone thought he was done with.
And then it happens. Someone says softly, “Good for him.”
Another whispers, “Did you see the way she flinched?”
A third murmurs, “He still loves her.” Brielle shrinks.
And then, slowly, Grayson turns. His expression softens when his eyes find mine. He moves toward me—each step controlled, careful. Like he’s trying not to scare me. Like I’m a wounded animal and he knows one wrong move might make me run.
He stops in front of my table. His hand extends toward me. An invitation.
“Come with me,” he says softly, like it’s just us in the room.
My breath catches. Everything in me wants to take his hand. My heart screams for it. For him. But my body is frozen.
And I… can’t. The air in the room is too heavy. The silence too loud. Every phone camera is pointed at us. I see it in my peripheral vision—red recording dots, mouths hanging open, eyes waiting to see what I’ll do.
I can’t give them more. I stand, chair scraping behind me, a screech that cuts through the tension. My legs are trembling, but I force them to move. I don’t look at him. I can’t.
And I bolt. Through the tables, past the doors, down the hallway. Because right now, love feels like another spotlight.
