The Weight Of Paper Crown
Sixteen-year-old Auden "Lora" Jackson is Beverly High’s untouchable queen. She has the perfect grades, the star-athlete boyfriend, and the flawless, wealthy pedigree. But Lora’s entire life is full of lies. In reality, she spent her childhood in the orphanage when she was six and was adopted by the Jackson family, when she was six, before being returned to her biological parents who are currently drowning in debt and on the verge of a bitter divorce.
Her house of cards threatens to collapse when Adam Hayes moves in next door. Quiet, dangerously observant, and entirely unimpressed by the school's social hierarchy, Adam knows Lora's secret and he sees right through her plastic smile.
They are Forced together for a semester-long biology project, Lora expects an enemy but finds something entirely different: someone who finally lets her exhale.
But just as the ice between them begins to thaw, an anonymous hacker known only as The Archivist starts leaking the darkest secrets of Beverly High’s elite. When Lora becomes the main target, she and Adam must team up to unmask the culprit. As the secrets grow darker and the threats become personal, Lora is forced into a corner. To save her future, she must destroy her own perfect image. But the truth behind the hacker is more twisted than she could ever imagine, and the mastermind pulling the strings is someone she trusted with her life.
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Chapter: Chapter 5Lora's pov Down in the alley, Adam reached back into the cab of the moving truck to grab one last thing off the dashboard.It was a folder.Even from the third floor, I could see the thick, glossy cardstock. I knew that exact shade of deep, aristocratic maroon. I knew the gold-foil crest stamped on the center of it. It was the Beverly High School new student orientation packet.My stomach tumbled, a cold stone dropping straight into the abyss.He wasn't just a neighbor. He was transferring to my school. He was going to walk the same way as mine, a carefully constructed kingdom carrying the stench of the harbor on his leather jacket.As if he could hear my heart hammering against my ribs, Adam stopped. He didn't look at his own building. He didn't look at the truck.He turned his head back and looked straight up.Directly into my window.He couldn't possibly see me through the glare of the morning sun and the narrow slit of the curtain, but his intense, slate-gray eyes were locked dea
Last Updated: 2026-10-11
Chapter: Chapter 4I sat in the dark of my bedroom, a silent ghost in my own home. This was the reality beneath my paper crown. This was the truth Kellan Brooks and his wealthy friends could never, ever see. If my secret got out, the school board would investigate our residency. The scholarship would be revoked. My mother would completely break. My entire life, and everything my parents sacrificed to get me back, would turn to ash. I once lived in a wealthy home; they fed me, gave me shelter and gave me whatever I needed. Before my parents even took me back, they promised to fully fund my academics. I can't lose. No, ,I can't… I couldn't let that happen. I would lie, cheat, and manipulate every single person in Crestwood before I let my family lose the one thing they had left: my future.I wiped my face with the back of my sleeve, taking a deep, shuddering breath to steady my racing heart. I needed to focus. I needed to find out exactly what the new neighbor wanted, and how much it would cost to buy hi
Last Updated: 2026-10-11
Chapter: Chapter 3Lora's povI scrambled backward from the window, my spine colliding hard with the edge of my narrow desk. The rusted iron of the fire escape seemed to rattle long after I pulled my hands away. My breathing was ragged, tearing through my throat as I stared at the warped glass of the closed window.The boy in the alley. The cardstock. The knowing, cynical smirk.He didn't just know my name. He knew exactly where I lived, and he was completely unafraid to let me know he held the matches for my entire life. I reached up with trembling fingers and locked the window, an utterly useless gesture against a guy who looked like he could kick the glass in without breaking a sweat.Before I could even attempt to process the panic clawing at my ribs, the front door of our apartment slammed open, the deadbolt smacking against the drywall with a sickening crack."Don't start with me, Sarah. I swear to God, do not start with me tonight."My father’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated thro
Last Updated: 2026-10-11
Chapter: Chapter 2Lora's pov “All my perfection”The cream-colored cardstock burned against my thigh like a lit match shoved deep inside my skirt pocket.Getting away from Kellan after the final bell took a tactical precision I had spent months perfecting. I claimed an emergency meeting with Mr. Vance about the upcoming biology project, kissed Kellan’s cheek with the trophy case, and slipped down the B-wing stairwell before he could offer me a ride. My fake Prada bag hit my hip in a rhythmic, bruising cadence as I practically ran off the campus grounds.I didn't let out a real breath until the manicured lawns and sweeping oak trees of the hillside gave way to the cracked, salt-stained concrete of the lower harbor.The transition was always brutal. It was a geographic line drawn in the sand of Crestwood. Up there, the air smelled of eucalyptus and expensive car exhaust. Down here, the wind off the Atlantic carried the heavy, suffocating stench of diesel fuel, low tide, and rotting kelp.My spine, held
Last Updated: 2026-10-10
Chapter: Chapter 1Lora’s povSurviving in Beverly isn't about the money; it's about the posture. Though students in my school mostly come from rich or middle-class families.If you don't hold your shoulders stiffly, people think you're trying too hard to fit in; they will think you are not in their class. They will be bullying you. I always think about the life I lived when Calloway’s family adopted me.I took a slow, shallow breath, wear on the exact smile I had practiced in the cracked mirror of my harbor-side apartment at five o’clock this morning.Pushing through the heavy glass double doors of Beverly High, I stepped into the main hallway. The hallway smelled of bleached floors, imported espresso, and the sharp, “citrusy tang of Le Labo perfume”, at least four hundred dollars a bottle, a scent I reproduce with a fifteen-dollar knockoff oil I bought online and carefully transferred into a glass vial."Lora! Oh my god, I love your bag. Is that the new Prada collection?"I didn't break my stride, tur
Last Updated: 2026-10-10
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