But she’s just getting started.
She reaches out and trails her fingers lightly down Tyler’s arm-casual, like it means nothing. But she’s watching me the whole time.
“Poor Ty,” she says. “Does she even give you head?”
My entire body goes cold.
“She looks like such a prude,” Rebecca continues, eyes glittering. “Like if you touched her the wrong way she’d shatter. Or report you.”
The group howls.
Tyler pulls his arm back, finally. “Okay, that’s enough.”
But Rebecca isn’t done. She waves a lazy hand toward me and turns to her girls.
“This one actually thinks ballet is a real career.”
More laughter.
I don’t realize how still I am until Tyler starts pulling me forward again.
“She’s not worth it,” he mutters, guiding me away.
I glance back just once.
We walk halfway down the hall before I finally find my voice.
“That was Zoe,” I say, even though I already know it was.
Ty glances back, shrugs. “I think so?”
“Since when does she hang out with Rebecca?”
“I don’t know. Maybe recently?”
I stop walking.
He stops, too, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. His jaw is tight. Not annoyed-yet. But I can see it inching that way.
“She’s the one you helped with chemistry, right?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Did she ask you for help?”
There’s a pause. Just a second. Maybe less.
“No. I offered. Why does it matter?”
I stare past him, back down the hallway. Rebecca’s voice is still ringing in my ears. Her laugh. The look on Zoe’s face-like she was in on it, even if she didn’t speak.
“It just feels off,” I say. “Like maybe it wasn’t random.”
“Pen…”
“Last semester,” I start, and my voice wavers a little, but I don’t stop. “They dumped an entire tray of food on me and said it was an accident. Rebecca put gum in my pointe shoes. She made a fake account, posted about me, and got people to screenshot it and send it to my instructors. Do you remember that? Or was that not enough for you to think they’re capable of this?”
Tyler exhales and pulls his hoodie sleeves up to his elbows. “I’m not saying they’re saints. I’m just saying Zoe doesn’t seem like the type.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I know she’s quiet. Smart. Funny. She just needed help, and I gave it.”
I cross my arms. “And now she’s standing beside Rebecca while she humiliates me in front of a hallway full of people.”
“She didn’t say anything.”
“She didn’t have to.”
Ty looks away, then back at me, visibly trying to stay calm. “Look, maybe she just ended up in the wrong group. Or maybe she thought Rebecca was joking.”
“That wasn’t joking,” I snap.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. I know. I just think maybe you’re jumping to conclusions.”
I stare at him.
I want him to be mad. I want him to go back there and say something. I want him to look at me the way he did yesterday on my porch and say, You didn’t deserve that.
But instead, he’s defending Zoe. The girl with the soft eyes and the now-familiar smirk who gets to fade into the crowd while Rebecca guts me with a smile.
I blink hard and turn away. “You really don’t get it.”
Tyler softens, stepping in close. “Penny, come on. Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“She didn’t mean it-“
“Rebecca or Zoe?”
He hesitates.
Exactly.
I shake my head, trying to shove down the lump rising in my throat.
“You’ve got a lot going on,” he says gently. “The Gala, rehearsals, your classes… this stuff, it doesn’t need to take up space in your head.”
“I don’t get to decide that,” I say. “I don’t get to choose what sticks. She humiliated me in front of everyone. She made me feel like I was-“
I stop. I don’t even know the right word.
Tyler touches my arm. “You don’t have to carry that. I’m here, okay?”
I nod, but it’s stiff. Mechanical.
He leans in and kisses my temple like nothing happened. “Text me after class?”
“Yeah,” I say.
He heads one way.
I walk the other.
The classroom’s already almost full by the time I slip inside.
The buzz of half-awake conversations, the scrape of chairs on tile, the thud of overstuffed backpacks hitting the floor-none of it slows down for me. I tug the strap of my bag higher on my shoulder and scan for an open seat.
There’s only one.
Middle row, second from the end.
Next to a guy who looks familiar in the way most of Tyler’s teammates do-broad shoulders, school sweatshirt, ball cap turned backward like he came straight from some heroic sports montage.
Jonathan, I think.
Maybe.
I slide into the seat, trying not to make a sound. He glances up from his notebook, gives me a quick, easy smile-the kind that says hey, I’m a nice person, you can sit here without regretting it-then turns back to whatever he’s halfheartedly scribbling.
No mockery. No Rebecca-level sneers. No drama.
It’s… weirdly disarming.
I stare at the front of the room, where the professor’s already launching into an explanation about comparative essays like we’re all desperate to know. My notebook stays closed on my desk. My pen stays unused. My brain refuses to click into gear.
I hate this feeling.
I hate when my day starts bad.
I can never quite turn it around. It’s like getting shoved off balance first thing and then tripping over everything else for the next twelve hours. I want to focus. I want to forget Rebecca and Zoe and the weird, prickling disappointment still sticking to my ribs after talking to Tyler.
I shouldn’t be mad at Tyler.
I know that.
He was just trying to help Zoe. He didn’t ask her to stand there and laugh at me. He didn’t know.
Still.
Still.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and focus hard on a spot on the wall, willing the memories to come softer this time.
Tyler.
When we first met, it had been easy.
Stupidly easy.
He moved into the neighborhood just before spring semester last year. His parents bought the old white house three streets over, the one with the broken porch swing and the peeling blue shutters. I remember biking past it and seeing the boxes stacked on the lawn, the way his mom stood on the porch shouting instructions at the movers like a general.
And Tyler.
Leaning against the doorframe, baseball cap pulled low, headphones tangled around his neck, a little sunburnt like he hadn’t figured out the Florida sun wasn’t a joke.
He smiled when he caught me staring.
Not the cocky kind of smile. Not the practiced one I’d learned to avoid in boys.
Something softer.
Almost shy.
It didn’t take long after that. A few “accidental” run-ins at the grocery store, a few bike rides to nowhere, and then it just… happened.
We started hanging out the way people start breathing after being underwater too long.
At first, he didn’t know anyone. It was just him and me and the sleepy sidewalks of our neighborhood stretching out like they were built for us.
But it didn’t stay that way.
Tyler made friends fast. Coaches practically climbed over each other to get him on their teams. Soccer, football, basketball-anything with a ball and a scoreboard, he crushed it without trying.
And the girls noticed, too.
I noticed them noticing.
The way they laughed a little too loud around him. The way they tugged their sleeves down when he passed. The way they touched his arm when they didn’t need to.
I hated it.
Still do.
But Tyler never gave me a reason to doubt him. He always came back to me. Always picked me first.
He was my first kiss.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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