Each step toward the club felt heavier than the last, heels scraping against the pavement, the sound too loud in my ears. The streetlights blurred a little, catching on every tear I refused to let fall.
Aly.
Layla.
Jennie.
Their faces wouldn’t leave my mind. The way they’d gone silent. The confusion, the hurt, the shock.
Just a few days ago, they’d made space for me. Sat with me in the library. Talked to me even when I couldn’t talk back. Treated me like I was part of something for the first time in my life. My whole life.
For the first time in forever, I wasn’t invisible.
And now they’d seenthis.
Me in the skirt, the heels, the name tag. The girl who wasn’t a student or a friend, just a doll dressed for tips.
My stomach twisted. My chest burned.
What if they thought that’s all I was?
What if they told everyone?
What if they stopped sitting with me, stopped texting me, stopped smiling when they saw me?
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. The city lights smeared across my vision. I kept walking.
The club’s neon sign came into view. I’d walked this same path a hundred times, but tonight it felt different. Exposed.
Inside, people would laugh, drink, and call me pretty names I hated. And I’d smile and pretend and count the hours until I could go home.
But now, even home didn’t feel safe. Not with the thought of Aly, Layla, and Jennie’s faces burned behind my eyes. For one small week, I’d believed I wasn’t alone anymore… and now I wasn’t sure they’d ever look at me the same again.
So I straightened my spine, pressed my trembling hands flat against my skirt, and whispered a lie to myself.
You’re fine. You’ve always been fine alone.
Then I pushed open the club door, the noise swallowing me whole.
Chapter Twenty
Aurora
Monday came too fast.
The campus looked the same as it always did. Sunlight bouncing off the glass buildings, voices drifting from the courtyard, coffee cups in every hand, but everything in me felt wrong.
My bag strap cut into my shoulder. My shoes scuffed the pavement. Every sound was too sharp.
I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t be here.
Every step was a countdown. Stares, whispers that probably weren’t about me but still made my stomach twist.
They’d seen me.
Hehad seen me.
Theyhad seen me.
