Chapter 4
The fallout was immediate.
Madison was suspended for a month.
Ethan was stripped of his title as student council president and suspended for two weeks.
But the real punishment for Ethan didn’t come from the school.
It came from his mother.
That evening, as I walked past the Lane apartment, I heard glass shattering inside.
Then Mrs. Lane’s hysterical voice.
“You are going to study until your eyes bleed. You are not leaving this house. You are not looking at another girl. You are going to MIT. Do you hear me?”
Then Ethan’s voice cracked through the wall.
“Mom, stop! Put the bat down!”
I stopped in front of my own door.
In my past life, those screams had been aimed at me.
Mrs. Lane had dragged me by my hair through this same courtyard while Ethan watched from behind his window, safe and hidden.
I unlocked my door and stepped into my home.
My mother was in the kitchen, humming while she chopped vegetables.
My father sat on the couch reading the paper.
They were alive.
They were safe.
“Lily, sweetie, is that you?” my mother called. “I heard all that noise next door. Is Victoria okay?”
I set my bag down and forced my voice to stay light.
“Just the consequences of their own actions, Mom. What’s for dinner?”
For the next two months, Ethan became a ghost.
When his suspension ended, he returned to school looking hollowed out. His old confidence was gone. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He walked with his shoulders hunched.
Mrs. Lane escorted him to the school gates every morning and waited for him outside every night at ten-thirty sharp.
She confiscated his phone.
She cut him off from his friends.
His grades started to collapse.
On the midterms, Ethan fell from first in the grade to thirty-eighth.
I took first place.
When the rankings were posted on the bulletin board, I stood in front of them and stared at my name at the very top.
“Not bad.”
I looked over.
Derek Frost leaned against the board with his hands in his pockets. He was ranked somewhere in the three hundreds, dead last, and looked not remotely bothered by it.
“Looks like Golden Boy is finally cracking.”
I glanced past him.
Ethan stood a few feet away, staring at the rankings as if they were his death sentence. His eyes moved from my name at number one to his own name buried far below.
He marched toward me, fists clenched.
“Are you happy now?” he hissed. “Is this what you wanted? You ruined my life.”
I didn’t flinch.
“I didn’t force you into the grove with Madison. I didn’t undo your belt. You ruined your own life. I just stopped covering for you.”
His jaw trembled.
“You set me up. You tipped off my mom.”
“Yes,” I said. “Because if I hadn’t, she would have kept blaming me for the lingerie and the forum posts your girlfriend made. You were perfectly fine letting me take the heat so you could keep pretending to be the good son.”
I stepped closer and lowered my voice.
“You’re a parasite, Ethan. And I’m done being your host.”
His face twisted.
He raised his hand.
He was going to hit me.
Before I could react, a large hand clamped around his wrist and stopped him midair.
Derek stepped between us.
The lazy boredom had vanished from his eyes. What was left was cold and dangerous.
“I suggest you put your hand down,” Derek said quietly, “before I break it in three places.”
Ethan swallowed hard.
He looked at Derek’s massive frame, then at the iron grip around his wrist.
The fight drained out of him instantly.
He yanked his arm back and stumbled away.
“Thanks,” I said.
Derek shrugged.
“He’s pathetic. How did you put up with him all those years?”
I adjusted my backpack.
“I was blind. My vision’s perfect now.”
The SATs approached like a storm cloud hanging over the whole senior class.
Madison returned from suspension a different person. The school had ostracized her. Ethan refused to even look at her, terrified that his mother had spies everywhere.
Heartbreak rotted into hatred.
One afternoon in the girls’ locker room, Madison cornered me with two remaining friends.
“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” she sneered. “You think because Ethan dumped me, he’s going to crawl back to you?”
I tied my sneakers calmly.
“I’d rather drink bleach than have Ethan crawl back to me.”
Her face turned an ugly shade of red.
“You’re the reason she caught us. I’m going to make you pay.”
She lunged.
But I had spent the last few months taking kickboxing classes every weekend.
I wasn’t the same weak girl who burned alive in my past life.
I sidestepped, caught her arm, and used her momentum against her.
She slammed hard into the metal lockers.
Before her friends could move, I snatched a heavy combination lock off the bench and slammed it into the locker beside her face.
The clang rang through the room.
All three girls froze.
I pressed the lock lightly against Madison’s cheek.
“Listen carefully. I don’t care about you. I don’t care about Ethan. My only goal is getting out of this town and into an Ivy League school. If you interfere with my studies again, I won’t just embarrass you. I will destroy whatever miserable life you have left. Do you understand?”
Madison stared at me, wide-eyed and terrified.
Then she nodded.
“Good.”
I dropped the lock, picked up my bag, and walked out.
She never touched me again.
But she didn’t stop being dangerous.
She simply found a new target.