“He’s back to form.”
“Vivian and Leo? Elite.”
But they didn’t see the way my jaw locked every time we turned a corner and I caught a glimpse ofher.
Jade.
Still walking these halls with fire in her spine and dignityin her eyes, even though I’d left her to the wolves. Still showing up like the scholarship girl wasn’t supposed to survive a public breakup with the school’s crown prince.
And somehow, surviving anyway.
We passed each other in the hall more times than I could count.
Each brush of her shoulder sent something through me I couldn’t name. Not anymore.
Her eyes never lingered. Her expression stayed neutral. No emotion. No accusation.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t fall apart.
She moved on.
With Tristan fucking Gold walking her to class and carrying her books like some dark-haired bodyguard-slash-prince-charming. Everyone thought he was joking at first. That it was a stunt to rile me up.
But Jade let him.
She let him walk beside her. Let him be her shield. Let him exist in the space I used to fill.
And it was killing me.
Vivian made a passing comment about how “kind” Jade was “for someone with so little to offer.” I nearly snapped a fork in half under the lunch table.
She thought it was about class.
She didn’t know Jade was made of steel.
They thought she was quiet because she was small.
But silence was her weapon.
And right now, she was wielding it like a queen.
I hated how I’d made her do that.
Friday night—last week—I drove up to the cliffs. Our cliffs. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe just to feel closer to something real again.
When I turned the bend in the road and saw her aunt’s Jeep already there, my heart cracked open like adamn egg.
Jade stood by the edge of the overlook, arms folded, wind tugging at her sweatshirt. She looked like she belonged to the sea, to the stars, to no one.
I parked two spaces down.
We saw each other. Neither of us moved.
I should have walked over.
Should have told her everything.
How my parents threatened her future, her scholarships. How I thought leaving her would protect her.
