Jaxon flipped the switch on day five.

By mid-morning, he had officially entered what I was mentally labeling his Madison Era.

It started before the first period, when Madison was standing at her locker, elbow-deep in lip gloss tubes and eye contact with herself, when Jaxon casually walked up behind her like they’d planned it. He didn’t say anything right away, just leaned against the locker next to hers with his usual I-do-what-I-want posture, eyes tracking her reflection like it owed him something.

“Hungry?” he asked eventually, holding out a granola bar with a lazy smile that made it feel like a dare. “Breakfast is a power move.”

She looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head. But she took it.

That would’ve been bad enough, but then came the compliments.

“You changed your hair,” he told her. “Good call. Frame your face better.”

She smiled. Bit her lip. The whole deal.

Then he said, “Braver than I expected. Honestly, I didn’t think you could pull it off.”

Compliment and insult. Packaged like a love note. Madison lit up anyway.

And somehow, it kept going. Between the third and fourth, he laughed at one of her jokes. Like, full-bodied, head-tilt laugh. The kind that echoed. The kind he definitely didn’t give freely. And when she walked away, adjusting her shirt and smiling like she was walking through fog, I realized he hadn’t even looked back.

I told myself it didn’t matter.

That it was strategic. Controlled.

We planned this.

I agreed to it.

Still, when I passed them in the hallway and caught the tail end of his grin, something twisted just beneath my ribs.

That smile was supposed to be mine. Or no one’s. Or… not Madison Kim’s.

By the time we met in the library, I was practically vibrating with leftover adrenaline and nowhere to put it. I threw my backpack onto the table with more force than was necessary, the thud echoing across the stacks.

Jaxon looked up from his chair, eyebrows raised like I was the one being dramatic.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” I said, dragging a chair out with a screech and sitting hard.

He leaned back like he’d been expecting the explosion. “She’s two suspicious texts away from cutting Liam’s face out of her scrapbook. We’re right on schedule.”

He popped a gummy bear in his mouth — my gummy bear — and gave me that infuriatingly calm look that always made me feel like he was five moves ahead and I was still unzipping my pencil case.

“That’s not the point,” I muttered, arms folded so tight across my chest I could feel my nails pressing into my skin.

“Oh?” he said, tilting his head slightly. “Then what is the point, Torres?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Not before my phone buzzed twice in my pocket.

Liam.

You looked cute today.
Miss talking to you.

I stared at the screen for a second too long. Not because I wanted to respond. Not even because I cared. But because this — this — was how it always started with him. Little messages. Friendly. Casual. Gentle reminders that he used to be in my orbit and didn’t see why he shouldn’t still be.

I didn’t reply.

But I didn’t delete them either.

Jaxon must’ve caught something in my expression, because he didn’t joke about it. Just watched me close my phone with the kind of curiosity that felt too intimate.

The next day at lunch, I was sitting alone for five seconds — five — when Liam slid into the seat beside me like he’d never stopped doing it.

“You ever think we peaked too early?” he said, voice soft, too careful.

I turned to look at him. “What?”

“You know. Us.” He shrugged. “We were kind of perfect.”

I laughed, but it didn’t sound like me. “I think I hallucinated a different version of perfect.”

He leaned in, close enough that I could smell whatever aftershave he’d just rediscovered. “You haven’t changed as much as you think, Zoe.”

I didn’t have a comeback. Just… sat there. Breathing too carefully.

Later, in the library, I stared at our revenge spreadsheet without reading a single line. Jaxon nudged my arm gently with the edge of his knuckle.

“Earth to Torres.”

I blinked, still stuck on Liam’s words. “Sorry. I just…”

I didn’t finish.

I didn’t say, I used to be the kind of girl who double-checked her citations and apologized for using too many sources.

I didn’t say, Now I’m playing emotional chess with someone who makes me forget my own rules.