chapter 2

We met in the back corner of the library — the unofficial mischief headquarters. It smelled like old paper and teenage anxiety, which honestly felt on theme. I had my debate team laptop, the one with four different color-coded folders and a keyboard so loud it could be used to signal distress.

Jaxon showed up ten minutes late, carrying a Red Bull and exactly zero books.

“You ready to go full villain?” he said, flopping into the chair across from me and dropping a flash drive on the table like it was a weapon.

I adjusted my hoodie and raised an eyebrow. “Define villain.”

He grinned. “Leaking Liam’s old texts. You’re officially past the moral gray zone.”

“You mean into moral swamp territory.”

“Exactly,” he said, like that was a selling point.

The texts weren’t new. I’d seen some of them during the relationship. The cocky ones. The jokes that were never funny to me but always got him a chorus of “brooo” from his soccer group chat.

But now I read them differently. Without the filter of denial.

Bragging about who he’d hooked up with before me. Bragging about me. Telling someone I was “more into him than he was into me.” Complaining that I “made him feel like a dumb jock” — which, for the record, I never said out loud.

“Let’s burn it down,” I muttered.

He nodded. “You post. My account’s already flagged.”

I uploaded the screenshots to the school gossip page — The Halls Have Eyes. I did it under a burner account: @truthbombs4u. Because subtlety is dead and I was mourning nothing.

The post went live during the second period.

By third, it had over three hundred views.

By fourth, the comments were… unhinged.

“Liam’s ego could power the gym lights.”
“This man really wrote ‘I could pull Madison too if I wanted’ while dating Zoe??? LMAO.”
“WHO IS THIS MAN AND WHY IS HE STILL ENROLLED?”

I didn’t smile.

But my locker slammed with a kind of authority that hadn’t been there in days.

Jaxon leaned against the wall nearby, arms crossed, watching people whisper in the halls like he was studying a controlled explosion.

“Next?” he asked.

“The group chat,” I said, already typing.

It was the one Liam had let me into by accident a year ago when he was trying to “prove he had nothing to hide.” Classic.

Inside were the usual suspects — Liam, his boys, a handful of JV bros, and one too many gifs of The Rock.

The message that stopped me cold? From two days ago.

LIAM: “Zoe would’ve forgiven me in like two days. Easy.”

Like I was some spineless fallback plan. Like I didn’t have fire in me.

I copied the whole thread, cleaned the screenshots, and posted them anonymously through @truthbombs4u.

It spread faster than the first.

By lunch, Madison and Liam were yelling in the parking lot near the junior lot. Loud enough for the seniors in third floor chem to hear.

Maddie’s finger was jammed in his chest. His hoodie — my old hoodie — was on the pavement like it wanted no part in any of this.

From across the quad, Jaxon sipped a Capri Sun like it was Dom Pérignon.

“Art,” he said.

But art or not, I wasn’t done.

I found Maddie by the vending machines after sixth. She was texting, looking annoyingly calm for someone who’d detonated my life in her Close Friends story.

“You seriously posted that?” she asked when she saw me.

“I should’ve done worse,” I said.

Maddie’s mouth flattened. “You don’t understand—”

“No, I do,” I snapped. “I walked in on you, Maddie. Bra on, Liam by the window. You don’t get to act misunderstood.”

Her eyes darted around, checking who was listening. She lowered her voice.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

I laughed. “Oh, was I early? Should I have knocked?”

Leah appeared at the end of the hall, eyes wide. She didn’t move closer. Just stood there, watching.

“Leah didn’t even know,” I said, cutting my voice sharp. “None of them did. You were going to smile through brunch and prom planning like it wasn’t happening.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t mean to get caught.”

She flinched. Just a little. Enough.

I turned to leave — but not before I saw Macy and Jamie watching from behind the stairwell, silent and pale.

That night, we FaceTimed.

I was in my room, wrapped in a fleece blanket, brain somewhere between exhausted and buzzing. Jaxon was shirtless — of course he was — sprawled on his bed, tossing a hacky sack in the air like he wasn’t partially responsible for the greatest social implosion of the semester.

“We should hit Maddie next,” he said. “Sabotage prom committee. A little printer drama, maybe?”

“She’s not even on that subcommittee,” I said. “And I don’t want this to get… excessive.”

“This is excessive.”

“I mean cruel. Cruel-er.”

He smirked. “Too late, Torres. You’re already in too deep.”

I rolled my eyes and shifted on my bed.

That’s when I noticed the hoodie I was wearing.

It was black. Oversized. Faint scent of cologne that didn’t belong to me.

Jaxon’s.

Somehow, I’d left school with it yesterday, after we’d finalized the upload plan and he’d tossed it onto the chair beside me. I’d slipped it on without thinking.

Now it was warm and familiar and made my stomach do this annoying little flip.

I looked up at the screen. He was still tossing the hacky sack, not looking at me.

Neither of us said anything, but we both knew.

And still — I didn’t take it off.