Summer’s POV
Present
The corridor outside the PR office was usually empty this time of day.
I'd learned the facility's rhythms over the past weeks—when the players trained, when the staff took breaks, when the administrative areas fell quiet enough to move through unnoticed.
It was a survival skill I'd developed without meaning to, mapping safe passages the way I'd once mapped high school hallways.
Some habits never die. They just find new territory.
I was heading toward the medical office when she appeared, stepping into my path with purpose in her stride and fire in her eyes. No pleasant smile this time, no pretense of professional courtesy. Just Mariana Voss, blocking my way with the same predatory precision she'd perfected a decade ago.
"I finally figured it out." Her voice cut through the corridor like a blade. "I knew there was something about you. Had that feeling from the first day—like I'd seen you somewhere before. It was driving me crazy, you know? That nagging little itch in the back of my mind."
My stomach dropped through the floor. Every muscle in my body went rigid, bracing for impact.
"I couldn't sleep last night, so I started going through old photo albums. Reunion committee work—someone has to organize the ten-year, and God knows I'm the only one with the taste to do it properly."
She smiled, and the expression was razor-thin, barely concealing the triumph underneath.
"And there you were. Page after page after page. The ugly duckling. Nathan's pathetic little mouse. The girl I spent four years putting in her place."
The words landed like physical blows, each one finding the soft places I'd thought I'd armored over.
She circled me slowly, her heels clicking against the linoleum with predatory precision. Her eyes catalogued every detail of my transformation—the clear skin, the styled hair, the clothes that fit properly, the confidence I'd built from the ruins of myself.
"I have to admit, the glow-up is impressive."
Her voice carried a cruel appreciation, the kind of praise that was really just another weapon.
"The hair, the body, whatever you did to your face... I almost didn't recognize you. That mousy little creature who used to scurry through the hallways like she was apologizing for existing—where did she go?"
"She grew up." My voice came out steadier than I expected. "People do that."
"Do they?"
Mariana stopped in front of me, close enough that I could smell her perfume—something expensive and floral, the same scent that had haunted the bathrooms where she'd cornered me, the hallways where she'd whispered.
"Because from what I can see, you're still the same desperate little nobody. Just wearing better clothes and pretending you belong somewhere you don't."
"I belong here as much as you do."
"Oh, sweetie." She laughed, and the sound scraped across my nerves like broken glass. "You belong here because they hired you to tape up injuries and fetch ice packs. I belong here because this world was built for people like me. There's a difference."
Her eyes found mine and held them, and I saw the moment she stopped playing.
"But those eyes..."
She leaned closer, close enough that I could see the carefully applied makeup, the contact lenses that made her irises look greener than nature intended.
"Those are the same eyes that used to cry so prettily when I reminded you where you belonged. You remember that, don't you? The way you'd crumble when I looked at you? The way you'd shake when you saw me coming?"
My hands trembled at my sides. The old instincts screamed at me—shrink, apologize, disappear. Make yourself small enough that she'll lose interest, invisible enough that she'll find another target.
I'd spent four years obeying those instincts. Four years letting her break me down piece by piece, convincing myself that survival meant submission.
Not anymore.
"I'm not the same girl who let you break her." I met her eyes without flinching, held my ground when every cell in my body wanted to retreat. "That girl doesn't exist anymore. I made sure of it."
Something flickered across Mariana's face—surprise, maybe, at the resistance she hadn't expected. Then her expression hardened into something uglier, the mask of civility dropping away entirely.
"No? For me you look exactly the same, doesn’t matter how many glow ups will happen to you. Still chasing after things that don't belong to you. Still desperate for attention from people who are never going to see you as an equal."
She stepped closer, her voice dropping to something intimate and venomous. "Still sniffing around my fiancé like you have any right to him."
"Jay isn't property. He doesn't belong to anyone."
"He belongs to me." The words came out sharp, possessive. "Legally, publicly, permanently. Our families decided that when we were children, and no amount of sad little fantasies from sad little girls is going to change it."
"Funny how you have to keep reminding everyone of that." I felt the anger building in my chest, replacing the fear that had held me frozen. "If he was really yours, you wouldn't need to stake your claim every time another woman looks at him."
Mariana's composure cracked, just for a moment. I saw the fury beneath—real, uncontrolled, the rage of someone who wasn't used to being challenged by people she considered beneath her.
"You think you're clever now? Think a few years and a makeover gave you the right to talk back to me?" She laughed again, but the sound was harder now, dangerous. "You're still nothing, Summer. Still the invisible girl nobody wanted to look at. The only difference is now you've convinced yourself the mask is real."
"The only mask I see is yours." I stood my ground, forcing my voice to stay level. "The perfect fiancée. The PR princess. The woman who has everything under control. But we both know what's underneath, don't we? We both know who you really are."
"And who is that?"
"A bully." The word hung between us, simple and devastating. "A cruel, insecure bully who spent four years destroying a teenage girl because making someone else feel worthless was the only way you could feel powerful. That's who you really are, Mariana. That's who you've always been."
For a moment, something flickered in her expression—something that looked almost like recognition, almost like pain. Then it vanished, replaced by cold calculation.
"You should be afraid of me. You should remember what I'm capable of, what I can do to people who get in my way."
Her voice had gone quiet, more threatening than any shout.
"Whatever you think is happening between you and Jay, whatever pathetic fantasy you've constructed in your desperate little mind, it's not real. It's never going to be real. And if you keep pursuing something that belongs to me..."
She let the threat hang unfinished, more menacing for its ambiguity.
"I'm not afraid of you anymore."
I said the words clearly, deliberately, letting them carry the weight of every bathroom ambush, every whispered insult, every moment she'd made me feel worthless.
"I was afraid of you for years. I let that fear control me, define me, shrink me down until I barely existed. But I'm not that girl anymore, and you don't have power over me."
"Everyone has something to lose, Summer. Everyone has vulnerabilities. You'd be surprised what I can find when I start looking."
"Then look."
I stepped toward her instead of away, and I saw the surprise register in her eyes.
"Look all you want. Dig through my past, expose my secrets, do whatever you think will break me. But I've already been broken by you once, Mariana. I survived it. And whatever you throw at me now, I'll survive that too."
We stood inches apart, neither willing to retreat. Two women who'd been shaped by the same history, carrying opposite scars from the same wounds.
"We'll see about that." Mariana's voice was soft, deadly. "We'll see what happens when the people you care about learn who you really are. What you really are. The pathetic little mouse hiding inside the pretty new shell."
She stepped around me and walked away, her heels clicking a steady rhythm down the corridor.
I stood alone in the aftermath, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. My hands were still trembling, but not from fear anymore—from adrenaline, from the release of years of suppressed rage, from the terrifying exhilaration of finally fighting back.
Battle lines drawn. Neither of us willing to retreat.
I walked toward the medical office with my head high and my pulse racing, knowing this war had only just begun.
But for the first time in my life, I wasn't running from Mariana Voss.
I was ready to fight.
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