CHAPTER ONE: The First Scar

Sunlight spilled like molten gold across the tangled sheets, creeping up the length of the girl lying motionless in bed.

Marceline groaned softly, burying her face beneath the pillow in a futile attempt to escape the dawn. The sunlight cut through the curtains like a blade, warm and merciless, illuminating the ghost of a night that still lingered on her skin.

She wanted to drift back into the haze of sleep, back into the arms that had held her so tightly hours before—arms that were no longer there.

Then her phone rang.

Sharp. Shrill. Jarring.

She jolted upright, her heart skipping once—then twice—as her gaze swept the room.

Empty.

The spot beside her in the bed was cold. Sheets undisturbed. Like he had never been there at all.

But he had. She knew he had.

Memories surged back, uninvited—his breath against her neck, the way his lips had traced promises down her spine, the things he whispered between gasps and kisses. She blushed despite herself, one hand reaching out to the vacant pillow beside her. It was cold. Too cold.

"Cross?" she called out, voice soft, unsure.

Silence answered her.

The ache in her muscles made it hard to stand, but she pushed herself upright with a groan. Every step across the room was laced with soreness, her body remembering what her heart refused to question.

She reached the vanity, where her phone buzzed with another incoming call—an unfamiliar number. She ignored it, scrolling instead to his name.

Calling…

No answer.

Again.

Still nothing.

Her fingers trembled as she lowered the phone. She bit into her lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. The silence screamed louder than any ringtone.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess of raven waves, her lips swollen, eyes still carrying the weight of everything she’d surrendered the night before. There had been truth in his touch, hadn’t there? Something more than just a game?

Why then… why was she alone?

She turned away from the mirror, phone slipping from her hand onto the dresser with a soft clack, and shuffled toward the bathroom. Her limbs moved slowly, weighed down by more than soreness. Something inside her felt out of place—off-kilter.

Like the world had shifted and she’d missed the moment it cracked.

She tried to tell herself it was nothing. Maybe he’d just left early. Maybe he’d come back. Maybe—

But deep in her chest, wrapped in the fragile silence of that empty room, something began to splinter.

… … ..

She stood beneath the steaming spray of the shower, eyes closed, letting the water wash over her like a baptism she hadn’t asked for. It kissed every bruise and sore place he’d left behind—traces of pleasure now turned to thorns.

Her heart pulsed like a wound.

She tried not to think. Tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut. But when she shut her eyes, all she could see was the look in his—intense, possessive, soft—a lie, her mind whispered.

No, she told herself. He wouldn’t vanish like that. Not after everything.

But the ache in her chest begged to differ.

SCHOOL HALLWAY

“Celine!”

The name cracked through the noise of morning chatter like thunder. Marceline turned just in time to see Cora rushing toward her, panic etched into every step.

“What’s wrong?” Marceline asked, brows furrowed, heart beginning to pick up speed.

“Didn’t you get my texts? Didn’t you check the school blog?” Cora’s voice trembled, eyes flicking nervously over the students gathering like moths to flame.

“My phone was dead,” Marceline replied slowly. “What are you talking about?”

Cora's eyes widened. “You… You need to leave. Now. Don’t ask me why—just go. I’ll explain later.”

“Cora, what the hell are you saying?” Marceline’s voice dropped. “You’re scaring me.”

Cora opened her mouth to answer.

But it was already too late.

“Oh look—if it isn’t the whore of the hour,” a voice laced with venom cut through the hallway.

Samantha.

She strode toward them, flanked by a gathering crowd, the swagger in her step promising blood. Phones were already out. Faces lit up in anticipation. Marceline could feel the tension shift—the moment before a storm breaks.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

“How does it feel, Celine?” Samantha sneered. “To finally be the center of attention? Oh, right—you’ve always craved it.”

Marceline blinked. “Samantha, I don’t have time for your games today.”

Samantha laughed—a brittle, high-pitched thing. “Oh, I love your boldness. Shame it won’t save you. Not this time.”

The crowd closed in like sharks circling blood.

“You pretended so well,” Samantha hissed. “Perfect little saint. But turns out, you’re just a common slut.”

Laughter erupted. The word slut echoed down the hallway, bouncing off the walls like a slap.

Marceline froze.

“What… what are you talking about?”

More laughter. More whispers.

“God, she’s still pretending!” someone said. “Iconic.”

Another voice added, “Guess the good girl mask finally slipped.”

“Maybe she should switch majors,” a girl called. “P**n seems to suit her better.”

Cora stepped in front of Marceline like a shield. “Enough! You don’t even know if that’s her in the video!”

“What video?” Marceline asked, voice barely a whisper now, trembling.

Samantha’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, sweetie. Allow me.”

She held up her phone, and with a triumphant swipe, the video played.

Marceline leaned in—

And the world fell apart.

Her room. Her bed. Her voice.

Her face.

There was no mistaking it. Every moment is captured. Every sound is immortalized. Her body was bare, her pleasure raw, her trust exposed.

Cross’s face was turned away, blurred by shadows, but hers—hers was crystal clear.

Time stopped. The laughter faded into white noise. The floor seemed to vanish beneath her feet.

“No,” Marceline breathed, her throat raw. “No, this can’t be real.”

Cora touched her shoulder. “It has to be fake, Celine. There has to be a mistake.”

But deep down, beneath the horror, beneath the shame, a deeper pain began to rise.

She remembered his hands. His voice. The way he held her like she was more than just a girl in a bed.

He made her believe

—-----

"Looks like even the saint of the college isn’t who she claimed to be."

The words rang out like a verdict, loud and triumphant. Laughter followed—sharp, cruel, unrelenting. The hallway became a stage, and Marceline was the unwilling, broken star of the show.

She lifted her head.

And there he was.

Cross.

Leaning casually against the stone pillar like he hadn’t just destroyed her. Like he hadn’t filmed her at her most vulnerable and left her to be fed to the wolves.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Cross…” she whispered, voice trembling, a prayer slipping through a battlefield.

He stepped forward, slow and languid, every movement radiating arrogance. His golden eyes bore into hers—void of guilt, void of remorse.

Only venom.

“How could you?” Her voice cracked, not with anger, but with disbelief. With the raw ache of a heart splintering beyond repair.

“How could I?” he echoed, a cold smile curling on his lips as he circled her. “That’s rich coming from you.”

Her hands trembled, curling into fists at her sides.

“Why…?” she asked, the word torn from somewhere deep and bruised. “Why did you do this?”

“Why?” he scoffed, his tone mocking, razor-edged. “Because it was easy.”

“You told me you loved me,” she said, voice a ghost.

He laughed—a sound so cruel it sucked the air from her lungs.

“That was all a lie,” he spat, cutting through her like a blade. “Every word.”

Her chest tightened, ribs collapsing inward. The tears she’d fought so hard to bury surged forward, spilling down her cheeks.

“All the promises… everything we shared—” she tried again.

“Lies,” he snapped, dismissing her as if she were nothing. “You were a game. A distraction. A fool with her legs open.”

The crowd gasped, some recoiling, others eating it up like a feast of scandal.

“You meant nothing to me, Marceline. You disgust me.”

She staggered back a step as if the weight of his words had struck her physically. Her voice broke. “All this time, you were pretending? Every moment… all those nights—was I just a toy to you?”

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.

“Tell me,” she whispered, desperation bleeding through, “tell me that not once, in all these months, your heart didn’t skip a single beat for me. That you never loved me.”

“I didn’t. And I never will,” he said. “Not now. Not ever.”

Her knees threatened to buckle. Still, she clung to the last threads of her soul.

“You must be insane to think I, Cross Deveja, would stoop so low for someone like you.”

His voice dropped, eyes gleaming with something vile.

“A bastard daughter of my father’s mistress. A stain. Just like your slutty mother. You’re nothing but a warm body. A whore I used and tossed away.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Marceline blinked through the tears, her vision blurring. Her chest heaved with broken sobs, every word a hammer to her ribs.

“I hate you,” she breathed, voice rising. “I hate you, Cross Deveja!”

“Good,” he said, turning away. “The feeling is mutual.”

And just like that—he left.

Walked away without a glance, without remorse. While she crumbled to the ground, her body folding in on itself as the weight of it all came crashing down.

The whispers returned. The laughter. The sting of betrayal echoed louder than the crowd.

She pressed a hand to her chest like she could hold the pieces of her heart together.

“I hate you,” she whispered again. “I hate you. I regret ever knowing you.”

Her voice cracked, her soul screaming through the silence.

And beneath it all—beneath the humiliation, beneath the grief—something else began to stir.

It wasn’t hope.

It wasn’t love.

It was wrath.