Prom was approaching like a glitter bomb strapped to a countdown timer. The halls were chaos. Handmade signs screamed in fluorescent marker, half of them peeling off the walls by third period. Confetti dusted the stairs like pollen. Someone actually wheeled a fog machine into chemistry class during an announcement.

One guy parachuted off the roof during lunch period. He got detention and a sprained ankle. But he also got 80,000 views on VidClik, so… worth it?

Everyone was either proposing, planning, or panic-buying something tulle-covered and overpriced.

And me?

I was painting backdrops with a glue gun in one hand and a metaphorical detonator in the other.

Because sure, I was smiling. I was decorating. I was pretending like glitter and forgiveness were the same thing.

But I was also running point on the final stage of the plan.

The confession.

It had been too easy to set up.

Liam’s tells were like clockwork — a smirk when he thought he was winning, the way his shoulders rolled back when someone let him talk uninterrupted. He was addicted to the sound of his own voice. All I had to do was act like I still cared.

So I did.

I waited by the benches near the back parking lot, where we used to sit after his games. Hoodie zipped up, hair tucked behind my ears just right. I looked like someone trying to make peace.

“I’m not here to fight,” I’d said, quiet, eyes down. “I just want to understand. I don’t want to carry this anymore.”

That was the bait.

He fell for it with both feet.

He sat next to me, close but not too close — like we were still something.

“What do you want to know?” he asked, voice smooth, rehearsed. “I thought you didn’t want to hear it.”

I met his eyes, let mine go glassy, like I was still a little bit broken. “I need to hear it from you. So I can move on.”

There was a flicker of something across his face. Not guilt. Never guilt.

Pride.

He leaned back like he was settling into a story he liked telling.

“I mean… it wasn’t even supposed to be serious with Maddie,” he started, like that made it better. “But she got it. She didn’t make everything a competition.”

I didn’t speak.

“I didn’t plan to cheat on you. But it just kind of happened, you know? And yeah, I talked to the guys about it. It’s not like I was lying about everything.”

He shrugged, casual.

“You were just… always perfect. The ‘together’ girl. Everyone looked at us like we were the dream couple or whatever. I couldn’t even joke around without you giving me that face.”

“What face?” I asked, voice soft.

He smirked. “That one you’re doing right now. Like you know better.”

I held his gaze, even though my stomach twisted.

“You played the part really well,” he added. “I’ll give you that. Classic girlfriend material. Just enough ambition to impress the parents, just enough edge to keep it interesting.”

I swallowed hard.

He thought this was closure. That this was his final act of control — giving me the “truth” so I could thank him for it.

But all I could think was: you’re finally saying it out loud.

I didn’t forgive him. Not even a little.

And now, the voice memo lived on my phone. Thirty-seven seconds. Crisp, clear, damning.

Every time I passed him in the hall, I felt it like a pressure point under my ribs. The weight of what I had. The choice of what to do with it.

But the glitter-covered surface of my life was starting to crack.

Leah pulled me aside during AP Lit, somewhere between Emily Dickinson and my slow descent into chaos.

She didn’t even blink. “Why do you act like you hate Jaxon when you talk about him like you’re writing Wattpad fanfiction?”

I blinked back. “I don’t.”

“You really do.”

She tapped her pen against the margin of my annotated poem. “This metaphor about conflicting identities? Yeah, that’s not about the speaker. That’s about you.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“You’re confusing,” she said. “And I don’t like lies.”

I told her to focus on her thesis statement and turned back to mine, which was mostly blank.

Macy, meanwhile, had gone full frost queen. She smiled less. Her replies to texts came with periods. Not casual ones — threatening ones. Like “sure.” and “okay.” which felt like social knives when they came from her.

She started spending more time with Maddie again. I caught them whispering near the punch list for the prom setup, laughing at something just as I walked in. Neither looked at me.

Jamie wasn’t much better. He’d gone weirdly philosophical.

“Would you rather be betrayed by someone you loved or lied to by everyone else?” he asked during setup, half-casually, like he was polling for the yearbook.

I said, “Is there a third option where I don’t end up sobbing behind the gym again?”

He didn’t answer.

And Liam?

Liam kept looking at me like we shared some kind of inside joke. Like he’d let me get my anger out and now I was going to come crawling back.

“Are you sure you’re over me?” he asked one day at my locker, voice too syrupy, leaning way too close.

I didn’t answer.

Mostly because I didn’t trust myself not to recite the entire voice memo like a dramatic reading.

Instead, I smiled.

That same, perfect smile I’d worn all junior year — the one I’d perfected when we were still dating. The one that said everything was fine.

And walked away.

But that smile was getting harder to keep in place.

Because the truth was, my world had stopped spinning around Liam Carter weeks ago.

Now it orbited someone else. Someone who kissed like he was solving a riddle. Who held my hand like it was his idea of rebellion. Who showed up when no one else would.

And that someone?

Was getting harder and harder to hide.