“Your Homecoming King and Queen… Leo Holt and Jade Bryan!”
The room cracked with gasps. Laughter. A few claps. A lot of glares. I turned my head to Xavier in disbelief.
“You rigged this?” I hissed.
He just smirked. “Nope. I engineered justice. Let the court eat itself.”
Before I could respond, Leo stepped forward, expressionunreadable. Vivian backed away like she’d smelled something sour.
A slow song began.
“Shall we?” he said.
I hesitated. My whole body screaming to run. But I didn’t.
I took his hand.
And for two minutes, we danced beneath crystal chandeliers, under thousands of candlelit reflections and judgmental stares. The press of his palm against my back was too warm, too familiar. He twirled me once. Pulled me back in.
Then he whispered it.
“Gitanilla.”
My chest cracked open. My breath caught. Our eyes locked—and for one fleeting second, I saw him again. The real him. Not the version that ghosted me. Not the boy on someone else’s arm. But Leo—the boy who once kissed me beneath stars and promised I was worth the fight.
Was this a truce?
Was this a beginning again?
Then—
Splat.
The cold hit first. Then the smell. Sharp. Sticky. Acid-sweet.
Lemonade.
No—slime. Gluey. Dyed yellow and green.
It coated my shoulders, splashed down my dress, soaking through the satin like poison.
Gasps. Laughter. Phones lifted. Flashes erupted.
“What?!!! Oh my,—”
“Someone dumped it from the balcony!”
“Is that… slime?!”
I stood frozen in place. Humiliated. Humiliated doesn’t evenbeginto cover it.
Leo spun, looking up, eyes burning. Tristanshouted something and shoved past the line of stunned dancers. Xavier was already in motion, barking into his phone.
I just stood there, trembling.
A monster was breathing down my neck.
Not a person. A system. A school. A caste I was never meant to enter. And now they were spitting me out.
