Different nights. Different girls. Sometimes blurry, sometimes clear. Sometimes laughing, other times with lips barely a breath apart. There were cups in hands, glow from phones, a few balcony shots that screamedafter midnight andsomeone’s shirt’s already off. One with Jake practically inhaling a girl I didn’t even recognize. Another with Coop and two girls in a pool. There was Bubba, sprawled back in a chair and a girl on her knees in front of him. The angle hid exactly what she was doing but with his hand in her hair, it was pretty clear. And Archie—God, Archie—with his signature smirk and someone straddling his lap.
My stomach dropped.
Not because I was shocked by what they were doing. But because they’d all mademeuntouchable. Like I was too precious or too volatile or too whatever to touch.
But this?
They were saints in speeches and sinners in silence.
I stared at the photos, teeth sinking into my bottom lip to stop the wave of I-don’t-even-know-what that tried to rise. Rage? Humiliation? Betrayal? I didn’t have the words yet, just the heat spreading under my skin like a burn that had taken its sweet time to blister.
Rachel caught a glimpse of the phone. Her mouth twisted into a dark, mockery of a smile. “Well, well,” she said, voice going sharp. “If it’s not the weekly meeting of the dicks are us, club.”
I didn’t answer. I just kept scrolling. The captions were smug.Boys will be boyswith a devil emoji.Summer to remember.Don’t tell Frankie lol.That one made me pause.
“You have to stop opening those,” she said, voice low. “They’re bait. They want a reaction.”
“Do I look like I have restraint?” I asked, then immediately felt stupid. “No, I obviously don’t.”
Rachel’s voice softened, but only a little. “You okay?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Want me to gaslight them until they cry? Because I have a shovel, but I also have a gift for psychological warfare.”
I snorted, more a forced breath than a real laugh, but I appreciated the offer.
Rachel nodded toward the phone. “Shovel offer still on the table.”
I let the screen go dark and slipped it into the bottom of my tote like it was a cursed object. “How old do you have to be to get a tattoo?”
Rachel blinked. “What?”
I looked up at her. “If it’s eighteen, maybe I should go dye my hair. Or—I don’t know. Do something that’s mine. Something reckless but only in amekind of way.”
She gave me a long, measured look, then smiled like she’d been waiting for me to say that. “Tattoo shops won’t card you if you look confident. But hair dye’s cheaper than a tat—cheaper than therapy too. I’m thinking purple.”
“Purple?” I echoed.
“Purple,” she confirmed. “It saysI’m no one’s dirty little secretandI’ll set your bed on fire in a hot wayall in one.”
“Good,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Because I’m done being protected from a world that’s already burning.”
Rachel grabbed the cart and wheeled us toward the exit like she was leading a jailbreak. “Then let’s go start a fire, girlfriend.”
Chapter
Seven
FRANKIE
Idon’t know what it says about my mental state that I drove right past the hair salon and ended up in the parking lot ofBeauty Galaxyinstead. Maybe it said I wanted control. Or chaos. Maybe both.
Rachel pulled into the spot next to me, her car making that littletick tick ticksound of cooling metal. We didn’t even need to talk—we just knew. No stylists today. No pretending I trusted anyone else to fix what life had broken in me. Just two girls on a mission to dye my hair purple and, apparently, rewrite my life.
Inside, the place smelled like plastic and coconut oil. Aisles of bottles lined up like soldiers—every shade of blonde, brown, and pink imaginable. My reflection in the wall mirror looked too normal, too golden, like I was still pretending to be the kind of girl who didn’t get in trouble, didn’t break hearts, didn’t spiral.
Rachel was already picking up boxes like she was auditioning forProject Runway: Hair Edition.
