LOGINZach’s POV
The days blurred into a careful, self-imposed exile. My isolation wasn’t a sudden decision, but it settled over me like dust on an unused shelf, gradual till it was complete.
I changed my routines w
Zach’s POVThe explosion came without mercy the next morning.I woke to my phone buzzing incessantly on the nightstand, notifications piling up like an avalanche.Group chats. Campus forums. Social media stories. All exploding with the same story.Zachary Jameson tried to force himself on Damien at the party.The accusation was everywhere. Damien had posted a carefully worded statement with witnesses he had planted who backed his version with dramatic details.Screenshots, timestamps, edited voice notes. The narrative was clear: I was the aggressor. The desperate scholarship kid who couldn’t handle rejection. The one with the “troubled history.”Campus erupted by mid-morning.I walked to my first class in a daze, hood up, earbuds in. Heads turned. Whispers followed like a wave. “That’s him.” “Did you see what he did?” “Always knew there was something off about him.”Eyes that once glanced past me now lingered with judgment, disgust, or morbid curiosity, and my skin crawled under the w
Zach’s POVThe business building’s side entrance was usually quiet in the late afternoon, especially around a narrow path lined with trimmed hedges that most students avoided in favor of the main quad.I’d started taking it deliberately because fewer people meant fewer chances of running into anyone I didn’t want to see. My bag felt heavier than usual, textbooks digging into my shoulder as I kept my head down.Damien’s threat echoed in the back of my mind like a low-frequency hum I couldn’t shake, but I’d convinced myself that silence was the safest response.I didn’t see him until it was too late.“Zach.” His voice cut through the quiet like a blade wrapped in velvet. Warm. Familiar. Completely fake.I stopped mid-step, every muscle tensing. Damien stepped out from behind one of the hedges like he’d been waiting, that polished smile fixed on his face as if the party, the folder, the threats had never happened.He looked the same as always; crisp shirt, easy confidence, the kind of gu
Zach’s POVThe days blurred into a careful, self-imposed exile. My isolation wasn’t a sudden decision, but it settled over me like dust on an unused shelf, gradual till it was complete.I changed my routines with quiet determination, mapping new paths across campus that avoided every familiar landmark. The quad at noon? Too open, too many eyes.The student center café where Damien used to surprise me with coffee? Skipped entirely. Even the library’s main floor, with its constant hum of life, became off-limits.
Zach’s POVSunlight filtered weakly through the thin dorm curtains, casting pale stripes across my bed. I woke slowly, the kind of heavy, disoriented awakening that followed too little sleep and too much chaos.My body felt like lead, with my muscles still aching from the breakdown.It took several long seconds for reality to settle in. The cumulative trauma pressed down like a physical weight on my chest.I lay there staring at the ceiling cracks I’d memorized over the semester, mind numb.Damien’s calm voice replaying: Peasants don’t win here. Everything crashed together in a numb fog. Like a dull, heavy acceptance.There was nothing I could do. That was my final verdict. Damien’s family held too much power. I had no real proof that would stand up against his influence. The fight felt impossible. So I had to choose survival instead.School. It was the only thing left within my control.I forced myself out of bed through mechanical movements and ended up in the shower.The hot water
Zach’s POVI was walking back from my last class of the day, the campus paths crowded with students rushing to evening plans when my phone buzzed in my pocket.Another unknown number again.I almost didn’t open it.Unknown: Time’s up, Zach. Your silence is no longer appreciated.I stopped dead in the middle of the path, students flowing around me like I wasn’t there. My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the phone.Back in my dorm, I paced the small room, mind racing.Then I pulled up Ryder’s contact, thumb hovering over the call button. The words were already forming on my screen: Damien’s the stalker. Help me.But I hesitated, lingering trust issues held me back like chains. Ryder had withheld critical information about Damien from the start, and his secrets had left me vulnerable.Then there was the passionate, complicated connection I’d barely survived, a fire that could still burn us both.I couldn’t involve Gigi anymore. She’d already risked too much in the past, and her fami
Zach’s POVThe decision to avoid Ryder started getting more difficult, my internal torment peaked like a storm that wouldn’t break. Every waking moment was a war between telling Ryder everything and handling this nightmare alone.Ryder had been circling closer, texts I ignored, near-misses on campus where his eyes would lock on mine with that raw, unresolved want. He knew something was wrong. And part of me, the exhausted, terrified part, wanted to run to him. To unload the laptop folder, Damien’s obsession, the threats. Ryder would protect me. He always tried to, in his messy, secretive way.But I held back, his secrets about Damien were the reason I was in this mess to begin with.Damien escalated two days later with a veiled threat on campus. I was cutting across the quad when my phone buzzed.I froze mid-step, scanning the area. No sign of him, but he made it clear that he was watching. I deleted the message with shaking fingers and changed directions, paranoia wrapping tighter ar
Zach’s POVThe photo burned in my hand like it had its own pulse.Ryder’s fingers in my hair.My grip on his chest.Our mouths fused like we were trying to devour each other.It looked so real I could almost taste him; salt, mint, and pure rage.My stomach flipped. “This isn’t real,” I said again,
Zach's POVHell NO! The rest of our course mates exited the class, leaving just us two. I didn't even wait for the last person to leave, I just ran to the professor and begged, begged as if my life depended on it. Which it did, especially my sanity.“Professor, please,” I started, my hands grippin
Zach's POVAfter that night, the quiet peaceful life I had envisioned for myself in college had crumbled to dust. Whispers of that night flooded every nook, cranny and hook.Headsplash, enemies with history.Gigi had given me an earful for my actions. Yeah, maybe I should've left immediately I bump
Zach's POVI was just about to let something cruel slip out from my mouth, something sharp and loud enough to wipe that damn smirk off Ryder’s face, but Ellis grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.“Not worth it,” he muttered under his breath, steering me through the crowd like I was a balloon about t







