I stared at Alyssa, the words sinking in slowly. It didn’t make sense. .
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my voice skeptical. “You’re her friend.”
Alyssa hesitated, her gaze dropping to the floor. “Because I’m tired of being her puppet. And because of what she did to you... it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Logan’s fault either.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
“She didn’t get those messages from him,” Alyssa said, meeting my eyes. “She saw them on his phone, sure, but he didn’t give them to her. She’s been trying to get under his skin for weeks—throwing herself at him, pushing his buttons. She got those messages because she was snooping. She waited until he left his phone unattended and took pictures of them.”
I felt like the ground had shifted beneath me. The narrative I’d clung to since the party—the betrayal I’d believed so deeply—suddenly didn’t seem so clear. But it didn’t erase the humiliation or the pain.
“Why should I believe you? How do I know you’re not just covering for her?”
Alyssa sighed, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Because I have proof,” she said, scrolling through her photos before handing it to me. On the screen was a picture of Vanessa sitting in the library, Logan’s phone in her hands. The timestamp matched the week before the party.
“She bragged about it afterward,” Alyssa said, her voice quiet. “She said she wanted to teach you a lesson. That if you thought you could take Logan from her, you were wrong.”
My stomach churned as I stared at the image, the truth settling in like a heavy weight. Vanessa had gone to unimaginable lengths to destroy me, and Logan... he might not have been the villain I’d made him out to be.
“People like Vanessa don’t stop unless someone shows them what it’s like to be on the other side.” Alyssa added.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you suggesting something specific?”
Alyssa smirked. “Depends if you’re ready to actually do something about her.”