A massive rupture opens up in my chest.
He didn’t offer to help me.
He set me up.
Every memory reframes in sickening clarity.
Him sitting next to me in Engineering 204. Not chance, but targeted selection.
The tutoring offer. Not genuine need, but his opening move.
“If you fake date me, Theo will look your way.”
Oh God.
My no’s weren’t obstacles. They were foreplay. They were what made the game interesting for him.
The fake dating wasn’t helping me. It was the framework for breaking me.
And the cabin?—
My vision whites out.
The cabin weekend. When the Defenders crew left and we stayed. When he kissed me, looked at me like I was special.
When I gave him my first kiss.
My first time.
My first everything.
That wasn’t us becoming real.
That was him winninga bet.
Another post loads—Isabelle’s handle.
Never underestimate what boys will do for a dare. Or how easily some girls believe they’re the exception.
The photo attached: Kieran and Isabelle, recent, her lips at his ear. The time stamp: yesterday.
Yesterday, when he texted me between his classes. When he said he couldn’t wait to see me tonight.
Him, collecting his prize.
The guitar cuts to metal scraping bone. Color spikes wrong—aggressive orange, blistering white.
My phone buzzes with a direct message:
UNKNOWN:
How does it feel to be a checkbox? Did he make it good? Or were you a quick finish? xx
Sound shears to a single white thread. The quad tilts.
I lift my head.
Across the lawn, by the statue, Kieran and Isabelle stand in a strip of clean light.
