*Two years ago. Freshmen year*
First week of September. I am fifteen years old, and I have never wanted anything as badly as I want this.
Wentworth Academy. The name alone sounds like a promise—a doorway into a world where girls like me aren't supposed to exist.
I spent three years preparing for the entrance exam, staying up past midnight with borrowed textbooks while my brothers' voices drifted through thin walls, memorizing vocabulary words and mathematical formulas like prayers.
When the acceptance letter arrived, my mother cried. My father called from prison, his voice thick with pride: This is your way out, mija. Don't let anyone tell you different.
Now I stand in these marble hallways with my secondhand uniform pressed to perfection, and I feel like an imposter wearing someone else's skin.
But I'm here. Against every odd, despite every obstacle, I'm here. And I will make it count.
The library becomes my refuge. It's quieter than the hallways, safer than the cafeteria where wealthy students cluster in impenetrable groups. I find a table near the tall windows and lose myself in books, in studying, in the comfortable rhythm of words on pages.
That's where he finds me.
I notice the shadow first—someone blocking the afternoon light. I look up, annoyed, and my breath catches in my throat.
Golden hair catching the September sunlight. Blue eyes that crinkle at the corners when he smiles. He had the kind of face that belonged on magazine covers and moved through the world with effortless confidence.
Beautiful, that was my first thought. Beautiful in a way that boys from Southside never were—polished, untouchable, and impossibly clean.
Tate Mercer—even a scholarship student from Southside knows that name. The governor's son, Wentworth royalty.
He has no business looking at me, no business sitting down across from me without asking permission, no business existing this close to my carefully constructed bubble of anonymity.
"What are you reading?"
His voice is warm. Curious. Like he actually wants to know.
I hold up the cover, hating the way my heart stutters. "The Count of Monte Cristo. It's for English, but I've read it before."
"Yeah?" He leans forward, resting his chin on his hand, giving me his full attention like I'm the most interesting person in the room. "How many times?"
"Three."
"Three times?" His eyebrows rise. "Most people can barely get through it once. What's the appeal?"
"Revenge," I say, and something sparks in his eyes—surprise, maybe, or interest. "He loses everything, and then he spends twenty years becoming powerful enough to destroy the people who betrayed him. There's something satisfying about that."
Tate laughs—a real laugh, warm and surprised and delighted. The sound does something strange to my chest.
"You're trouble, aren't you?" He's grinning now, that megawatt smile I've seen in society photos, except here it feels different. Personal. "I can tell."
Trouble. The way he says it makes my cheeks warm. Like it's something worth being.
"I'm Harley," I manage.
"I know." His smile deepens, and my stupid heart flips like a fish on dry land. "I'm Tate. And I think we're going to be friends, Harley."
For two weeks, I let myself believe him.
He seeks me out between classes, falling into step beside me like we've known each other for years.
He saves me a seat in the classes we share—right next to him, close enough that his shoulder brushes mine when he leans over to whisper commentary about our teachers.
His observations are sharp, funny, irreverent in a way that makes me cover my mouth to hide my laughter.
He passes me notes folded into elaborate shapes—swans and stars and once, impossibly, a tiny paper crane. His fingers graze mine during each exchange, and every touch sends electricity skating across my skin.
"You're funnier than everyone else here," he tells me one afternoon, walking me to my locker.
The hallway is crowded, but he walks close enough that his arm brushes mine with every step. "They're all so boring. So obsessed with who's wearing what designer, whose father closed what deal. You actually have something interesting to say."
"Maybe I'm just better at hiding how boring I am," I deflect, but my heart is racing.
"No." He stops walking, and I stop too, caught in the gravity of his attention. His blue eyes hold mine, intent and warm. "I noticed you the first day. Couldn't figure out why at first, but now I know—you're real. Everyone else here is playing pretend."
I feel dizzy, light-headed. Like I'm standing on the edge of something vast and terrifying and wonderful.
"You barely know me," I whisper.
"I know enough." He steps closer, and I forget how to breathe. "I know I want to know more."
That night, I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying every word, every accidental touch, every time he called me trouble with that warmth in his voice.
Maybe Wentworth won't be so bad. Maybe I can belong here. Maybe the governor's golden son actually sees something in me worth knowing. Maybe—and this thought makes me press my hands to my burning cheeks—maybe this is what it feels like to be seen.
I'm falling for him. Hard and fast and completely against my better judgment.
And I don't even try to stop myself.
***
Someone discovers my address.
I never find out who does the digging—probably one of the girls who noticed Tate's attention shifting my direction, who saw the way he smiled at me and decided to investigate.
Word spreads like wildfire through the gilded hallways—scholarship student. Southside, brothers in the Wolves, father in prison.
The warmth in Tate's eyes vanishes overnight.
He stops saving me seats. Stops walking me to class. Stops meeting my gaze across crowded rooms. When I try to talk to him, he looks through me like I've become invisible—or worse, like seeing me causes him physical pain.
I tell myself there's an explanation. A misunderstanding. Some external force keeping him away. The boy who called me trouble, who said I was real, who made me feel seen for the first time in my life—he can't just disappear.
Three days of silence. Three days of waiting, hoping, making excuses.
Then my phone buzzes.
Unknown number. A single message: Behind the gymnasium. After the last bell. I need to explain.
My heart nearly stops. Then it races so fast I feel sick with it.
I spend the rest of the day in a daze, barely hearing my teachers, counting the minutes until the final bell. When it finally rings, I practically run to the gymnasium, my heart pounding with desperate hope.
He wants to explain. He's going to fix this.
The gymnasium casts long shadows in the afternoon light. I round the corner, already rehearsing what I'll say—
Ice water crashes over my head first.
Then paint—bright red, thick and chemical-smelling, coating my hair, my face, soaking through my secondhand uniform to my skin. I gasp, choking, temporarily blinded.
Laughter erupts from everywhere at once.
When I manage to clear my eyes, I see them. Tate, Brooks, Reid, and at least a dozen others emerging from hiding spots, phones already raised and recording. Sloane stands at Tate's side, her smirk sharp enough to cut.
"Oh my God," someone howls, "she actually came! She actually thought he wanted her!"
"Pay up," another voice crows. "I told you she'd come running the second he crooked his finger. Southside girls are desperate like that."
Behind me, spray-painted on the gymnasium wall, someone has written FREE with an arrow pointing down at where I stand.
For one terrible moment, I feel myself shrinking. The urge to run crashes over me, to flee this place and never come back, to let them win because fighting hurts too much.
Paint drips into my eyes, my mouth, tasting like copper and humiliation. Their laughter bounces off the walls, surrounding me, suffocating me.
But then I hear my father's voice, steady and sure, the way it sounded during our last conversation before they took him away.
Never let them see you break, mija. You break in private. In public, you stand tall. Understand?
Something harder rises up inside me. Something forged in Southside streets, in watching my mother work double shifts, in learning to fight before I learned to read.
I don't run.
I walk straight toward Tate, paint streaming down my face, dripping onto the pavement with every step. The laughter falters. He watches me approach with something flickering behind his eyes—confusion, maybe, or the first hint of uncertainty.
I stop directly in front of him. Smile sweetly, the way Sloane smiled when she was about to destroy someone.
Then I drive my knee into his groin with every ounce of strength I possess.
He crumples like paper, a strangled sound escaping his throat, his hands clutching himself as he collapses to his knees.
The phones keep recording, but the laughter has died completely. Shocked silence replaces it—the good kind, the kind that means I've done something they never expected.
I lean down until my mouth is inches from his ear.
"Bet you didn't see that coming either," I whisper.
Then I straighten, turn, and walk away. Head high. Spine straight. Red paint trailing behind me like a war banner.
Their silence rings louder than their laughter ever could.
That is the day Harley Valdez stops believing in fairy tales—and starts hating Tate Mercer with everything she has.