32
FAULT RECOVERY (WREN)
Ihaven’t left my dorm in three days.
Campus noise still finds me, seeping through hallway chatter, vibrating under doors, echoing off group chats Aubrey warned me not to check. My phone’s been on fire since Friday. The quad video is everywhere.
My colors—normally soft greens and warm golds—washed out to white. White for overload. White for danger. White for humiliation I didn’t earn.
I flipped the phone over, crawled under my duvet, and slept through the weekend, trying to forget.
Monday, I made it as far as the mini-fridge. Managed two bites of yogurt before my hands started shaking so badly I had to set the spoon down. I brushed my teeth, staring at a version of myself I didn’t recognize, then climbed back into bed.
No classes. No dining hall. No dojo. Just the heater’s hum and the relentless static eating the edges of my thoughts.
The story writes itself: the delusional campus nerd thought she was special. The tutor was a joke. The dare wasalways the punchline. How could the campus king ever actually want a girl like her? Smart enough to solve his equations. Not smart enough to see the truth.
Threaded beneath all that chaos is the part that slices deepest.
I fell for him. Every second of it—every soft word, every steel-blue frequency, every time I thought he saw me—was a performance.
He made me a game. Isabelle was the prize.
I was the punchline.
The betrayal was supposed to be the sharp part.
Instead, it’s the quiet.
When I close my eyes, it replays: the quad, the cold, Kieran saying my name—"Wren, please”—like it cost him something. That crack in his voice. The one I hate myself for remembering. The one that shouldn’t matter now that I know what he is.
Pressure swells behind my eyes. Cold. Blank. A sheet pulled tight over all my senses.
I drag the blanket over my head and try to breathe through the tightness in my ribs. My shoulders lock. My throat closes. Breathing goes shallow.
I don’t want to think about him.
I don’t want to think about Reed or Isabelle.
I just want one minute where the world stops vibrating.
By late afternoon Tuesday, I’ve missed every class, lab, and tutoring shift. I’m curled on the narrow dorm couch, wrapped in a blanket, scrolling through the lecture notes Theo sent, complete with his trademark microscopic smiley face.
A notification lights upmy screen.
LARISA
BILLIE EILISH COUNTDOWN—FOUR DAYS!!! are you READY??? should I wear green shadow or silver?? and can I do space buns????
p.s. DINNER before?? PLEAAAAASE
Larisa doesn’t know anything. Not the drugging. Not the bet. Not the video that broke the internet nor the boy who broke me.
She’s just thirteen, full of hormones and glitter and chaotic joy, thrilled for the birthday concert I promised her. Green extensions, glow sticks, the playlist we spent a whole Saturday perfecting.
She just knows her big cousin promised her Madison Square Garden and Billie Eilish and the best thirteenth birthday of her life.
That promise is the one thing Reed and Kieran can’t touch.
