The Betrayal

CHAPTER TWO - The Betrayal

Stella’s POV

The jacket was still warm on my shoulders as I stood outside Chase’s door.

My hands trembled slightly as I stared at it, trying to steady my breathing. Everything that had happened earlier still felt unreal. The fall, the laughter in the stadium, the humiliation that spread through the crowd like fire, and the way I had walked away while everyone watched me break and then Jaxon.

The way he had covered me without asking anything.

I swallowed hard and told myself I needed to see Chase. I needed to believe there was an explanation for everything that happened. He always told me to be smart, so maybe he did not understand how bad it looked, maybe he thought I was fine, maybe he was just angry about the game.

I lifted my hand and knocked softly.

“Chase…” I said quietly. “It’s me.

There was no answer at first, I waited, my heart still felt heavy, still tangled in confusion, still holding onto the version of him I had always believed in

There was no answer, so I decided to open the door… but what I saw shook me…

Chase and Ava kissing.

My breath stopped completely as my eyes moved between them, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“Chase?” I whispered, like saying his name could fix the image in front of me.

He looked at me, and something in his expression felt different, distance and caress . Almost irritated, like I had interrupted something unimportant.

Ava stepped closer to him, and before I could process it fully, she kissed him.

Right in front of me, the world went silent in my mind, everything stopped, even my breathing.

The jacket on my shoulders suddenly felt heavier, like it did not belong to me anymore.

“No…” I said softly, almost unable to believe what I was seeing. “Chase…”

He pulled back slightly, and for a moment, he looked amused, like my reaction entertained him. Then he laughed. A short, easy laugh that cut through me more than anything from earlier that day.

“You really came here?” he said casually.

My lips parted, but no sound came out at first.

I stepped forward slowly, my voice breaking as I spoke.

“I am your girlfriend…”

Ava leaned against him, smiling like she had already won something I did not know I was losing.

Chase shook his head slowly, like I had misunderstood everything from the beginning.

“Girlfriend?” he repeated, still laughing. “Stella, you really took this too seriously

My chest tightened painfully. “What are you saying…” I whispered. “We are together…”

He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged like it meant nothing at all.“It was never that deep,” he said simply. “It was just fun.”

The air left my lungs completely, my mind struggled to process the words. Fun.

I repeated it silently, hoping it would change meaning but it did not.

Ava laughed softly beside him, then looked at me properly for the first time.

Her eyes moved over me slowly, and her smile turned sharper.

“You really thought you fat pig who couldn’t hold yourself together could have the Star player?”

My fingers tightened at my sides. Chase leaned against the doorframe, completely relaxed, completely unaffected.

“I never planned anything with you,” he said. “It started as a bet. Truth or dare between I and my friends and you fell for it.”

The world inside me cracked again, q bet, a game.

Everything I had believed in suddenly felt like it had never existed. My throat burned as I tried to speak.

“All the things I did for you…” I said quietly. “Everything…”

Chase exhaled like I was becoming a burden.

“You did.., what did you do? Other than embrassed me everywhere, do you expect a Star player like me to be with you? Ava is smart, beautiful and have a good stature”

Ava stepped forward slightly, flaunting herself, her tone soft but her eyes sharp. “You should leave, we don’t have food to feed you” she said.

Something in me broke at that moment, Chase turned away first, like I was already gone from his world.Ava closed the door slowly after him, and the sound echoed longer than anything else.

I remained standing there for a long moment, completely still, until my legs finally gave out.

I slid down the wall slowly, the jacket still on my shoulders, the warmth now feeling like something from another life.

And then it came, the tears tears.

They fell without control, shaking my entire body as I finally stopped pretending I was fine.

Everything I had built my life around collapsed at once.

The love I believed in, the future I imagined, the person I thought I mattered to. All of it disappeared inside that hallway.

I cried until my chest hurt too much to breathe properly.

And in the silence that followed, one truth stayed behind, heavier

than everything else.

I had never been chosen.

I had was only a bet