The library closes at four-thirty on Wednesdays, which means I have exactly fifteen minutes to get to the student council room before the other members arrive for our weekly meeting.
I take the east corridor—the long way around, but usually empty this time of day.
Most students have already left for sports practice or club activities, and the wealthy ones who remain tend to congregate in the west wing, closer to the parking lot where their expensive cars wait.
The east corridor offers something I desperately need right now: silence.
My mind won't stop circling—Ezra's terrified face, Tate pinning me against the wall, the weight of a secret I never asked to carry pressing down on my chest like a physical thing.
I've barely slept in three days, lying awake in my cramped bedroom while my thoughts chase each other in endless loops.
I should be focusing on my campaign. The election is approaching fast, and my poll numbers are... not great.
But every time I try to strategize, I see Laurent's hand in Ezra's hair, hear that soft French endearment, feel the cold horror of witnessing something so wrong.
The afternoon light slants through the tall windows, casting golden rectangles across the marble floor. My footsteps echo in the emptiness and for a moment, I let myself breathe.
Then I round the corner and freeze.
Tate and Sloane stand near the windows at the far end of the hallway, their bodies angled toward each other in a way that speaks of intimacy—or its aftermath. Their voices are low but sharp, the kind of sharp that comes from familiarity turned bitter.
I should turn around, walk away. This is none of my business. But before I can move, Sloane's voice rises just enough to reach me.
"—don't get to just walk away from me! Do you have any idea how this makes me look? People are already talking!"
"Let them." Tate's response is clipped, dismissive. "I don't owe you an explanation, Sloane. We were never actually together, you knew that from the start."
"We were together enough for you to fuck me whenever it was convenient! Now suddenly I'm disposable?"
"You've always been disposable. We both were, to each other. Don't pretend this was something it wasn't."
I try to slip away unnoticed, taking a careful step backward. My shoe scuffs against the floor and both heads snap toward me.
Sloane's eyes narrow into slits, her perfectly glossed lips twisting with contempt. She turns back to Tate, jabbing a manicured finger at his chest. "This conversation isn't over."
Then she stalks toward the exit, toward me, and I brace myself, but it doesn't help. Her shoulder rams into mine hard enough to send me stumbling sideways, my back hitting the wall.
She doesn't even glance back—just keeps walking, her heels clicking an angry rhythm against the marble until she disappears around the corner.
Then it's just me and Tate in the heavy silence.
He leans against the wall near the windows, watching me with an expression I can't read. The afternoon light catches the sharp line of his jaw, the way his uniform shirt stretches across his shoulders.
I hate that I notice. Hate that even now, even after everything, some traitorous part of my brain catalogs these details like they matter.
He pushes off the wall and steps closer as I hold my ground.
"Enjoying the show, Valdez?" His voice is silk over steel, smooth and cutting at once. "Didn't know eavesdropping was a Southside specialty. Then again, your kind has to take whatever scraps you can get."
The words land like a slap. Your kind.
Like I'm a different species. Like two years of cruelty somehow wasn't enough—he still needs to remind me exactly where I stand in his world.
I can't believe I ever had a crush on this boy. Can't believe I ever let myself imagine his smile meant something real, that his attention was anything other than a setup for humiliation.
I meet his gaze, refusing to flinch. "At least I don't have to pay people to pretend they can stand me. How much does Sloane charge for the girlfriend act? For letting you fuck her under the bleachers whenever you're bored? Or is that one charity pro bono?"
Something shifts in Tate's face. A flicker I can't name—not quite anger, not quite pain. His jaw tightens, a muscle ticking beneath the skin and for a moment, I think he's going to fire back.
Part of me wants him to. Part of me craves the familiar rhythm of our warfare, the back-and-forth that at least makes sense. But he turns and walks away without another word.
I stand alone in the hallway, heart pounding, victory hollow in my chest.
No satisfaction.
Just the ghost of his proximity still burning on my skin.
***
A week passes, and Tate has been almost civil.
Not kind—never kind. Not friendly or warm or anything approaching decent. But the active cruelty has stopped.
He does his corrective hours without sabotage, hauling equipment and following directions with minimal attitude. He doesn't mock my posters or make comments about my clothes or find excuses to brush against me in ways that make my skin crawl.
It's unsettling. I don't trust it. But I don't have the energy to question it either, because the election is approaching and my campaign is drowning.
I have policy ideas. I have competence. I have a record of actually getting things done—two years of organizing events, managing budgets, solving problems that no one else wanted to touch.
None of it matters.
The wealthy students see me as an outsider, an intruder who somehow slipped past the gates. The other scholarship kids are too afraid to publicly back me, too aware that supporting the Southside girl could make them targets themselves.
Meanwhile, Sloane has appointed herself my primary tormentor. With Tate no longer participating in my daily humiliation, she's stepped up to fill the vacuum. And she's creative about it.
Rumors spread through Wentworth's hallways like wildfire—whispers that I'm sleeping with teachers for grades, that I got my scholarship through "favors," that my family's gang connections extend to the faculty.
My locker gets vandalized twice in three days: the first time with TRASH spray-painted across the door, the second time with something worse, a slur I won't repeat even in my own head.
Yesterday, someone "accidentally" tripped me in the cafeteria.
My lunch tray went flying—food splattering across the floor, across my clothes, across my dignity. The rich kids laughed and even some of the scholarship students looked away, too scared to show sympathy.
I cleaned myself up in the bathroom and went to my next class. What else could I do?
Now I sit alone in the council room after hours, staring at poll numbers that show me losing badly. Grant, the current president, sent me the latest survey results with an apologetic note.
The numbers don't lie: I'm down by twenty-three points with a few months until the election. Something close to despair settles in my chest.
I don't know what to do anymore. Every path forward seems blocked by walls I can't climb, doors I can't open, people who've decided I don't belong before I even had a chance to prove myself.
My mother's cracked hands flash through my mind, my father's voice.
Make me proud, mija.
How can I make anyone proud when I can't even—
The door opens and Tate walks in dragging me out of spiralling, still in his football gear—practice jersey stretched across his chest, grass stains on his shorts, hair damp with sweat.
He closes the door behind him with deliberate care, the soft click echoing in the empty room. He looks tense, uncomfortable even. Nothing like his usual arrogant self.
I straighten immediately, walls slamming into place. "Council room is closed. Your corrective hours are done for the day."
Tate ignores me and crosses the room with purpose, reaches into his gym bag, and pulls out an envelope—thick and heavy, throwing it onto the table in right front of me.
What the actual fuck?