A pause.
“Don’t give up, Jade.”
“I’m not.”
I hung up before I could say more.
I turned the phone off. Not just airplane mode.Off.
No one else got to touch me tonight.
No pity. No apologies.
I stared at myself in the mirror again. My eyes looked different now. Older. Sharper.
My heart? Still cracked. But something stronger was starting to rise from the fault lines.
Not anger.
Not revenge.
Resolve.
“I need a makeover,” I said suddenly.
Shani raised a brow. “Jade, you just?—”
“No more nice girl. No more quiet scholarship mouse. This school needs a new ruler.”
She grinned, slowly. “Now you’re talking.”
I looked down at my ruined dress still puddled in the corner. The sticky mess on my once-favorite heels. That girl was gone.
I’d been silenced. Shamed. Humiliated.
But not broken.
Not anymore.
Shani handed me her phone. “Let’s find a new look, Your Majesty.”
I smirked. “This is my school now.”
My voice dropped to a whisper only we could hear.
“It’s my turn toReign.”
The house was quiet. Too quiet.
Shani had crashed on the couch after force-feeding me ice cream and half a bottle of wine. Aunt Susan was upstairs reading one of her endless Scottish Highlander romances, her cats curled in a ball like sentries at her feet.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Short hair damp from a quick shower. Head pounding. Soul worse.
And then?—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Not on my window.
