All Chapters of The Girl He Never Knew : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

NOAH'S POVMarcus told me.Not because Marcus was a gossip. No, Marcus was the least gossip person on this entire roster, the man communicated in single syllables and meaningful silences and the occasional nod that somehow conveyed a full paragraph. But he found me after Thursday's practice, waited until everyone else had cleared out, and said: "Your media girl was in the film room with Jax for two hours today."Then he walked away. That was the whole conversation. The thing about Jax was this—he was good. Genuinely, infuriatingly good, the kind of player who made everything look easy because for him it mostly was. And he knew it. Jax Rivera had been aware of his own magnetism since roughly the age of fourteen and had spent every year since then working with it like a tool. Smooth, funny, the first one to make a new person feel welcome in any room. He was exactly the kind of person Elena would get good material from.I wasn't bothered by it. I want to be clear about that. I changed ou

NOAH'S POVI knew she was going to be there.That was the thing I kept coming back to afterward — I had known, and I had gone anyway, and everything that followed was a consequence of that decision that I was going to have to live with for however long it took the memory of her face to stop doing what it was currently doing inside my chest.The end of semester media showcase was mandatory. Dr. Reyes had sent the team an official request through the athletics department, which meant Coach had made it non-negotiable, which meant forty-five minutes in the main hall watching student journalists present their mid-project coverage to a room full of faculty, sponsors, and anyone else the department had decided mattered enough to invite.I sat in the third row with Ethan on my left and Marcus on my right and told myself I was fine.She presented fifth.She walked to the front of the room in dark jeans and a simple white shirt with her hair down and her recorder in her hand and she looked like

NOAH'S POVIt started raining at nine forty-seven.I know the exact time because I was on the court running free throws when the first crack of thunder hit, and I checked my phone out of habit, and the weather app said severe storm warning until 2AM in the cheerful way weather apps delivered bad news. I kept shooting.The thing about storms at Ridgewood was that they came in from the mountain pass to the north and they arrived fast and they arrived with no warning drizzle. One minute the sky was clear and the next the whole world was water and thunder. I'd been caught in one before so I knew better than to think about that.I shot until my arm ached and then I shot some more. My phone buzzed at ten twenty-three.Ethan: Seen Elena? She left the library twenty mins ago and she's not answering her phone. Storm's getting really bad.I stood at the free throw line and read the message twice. I was out the gym door in forty seconds.I had no jacket. The cold hit immediately and completely

NOAH’S POVI was halfway through taping my left ankle when the first phone chimed then a second. Within ten seconds, the room was a symphony of digital alerts. Jax was standing by the equipment rack. He looked at his screen, his face draining of colour until he looked like he’d been carved from chalk. He didn't say a word. He just walked over and dropped his phone into my lap.I didn't have to scroll. The headline from The Ridgewood Insider was already screaming at me in bold, black-and-white malice.BLIND ITEM: The Wreckage of a Golden Boy.Which star Raven is flying on clipped wings? Word is that a certain 'Captain' didn't just earn his stripes on the court. Years ago, a midnight drive in a certain canyon ended in a wreckage that was bought. A girl took the fall, a career was saved, and the truth was buried under a six-figure 'donation.' But ghosts have a way of digging themselves up. Tic-toc, Noah. The clock is striking twelve.My vision tunneled and the air in the room turned into

NOAH'S POV I wasn't looking for a book. I was looking for the reason my life was currently a heap of smoldering ash. I found her in the corner of the law section, tucked between two shelves of leather-bound records. She was sitting on the floor, her back against the mahogany, a single desk lamp casting a harsh light over her. She looked up when my boots hit the carpet, and for a second, the world just stopped turning. I walked into her space, my height cutting off the light until she was looking up at me from the dark. "Noah," she breathed. I reached out, my hand slamming against the bookshelf above her head. The sound was a violent crack in the silence of the library. I leaned down, my face inches from hers, my breath hitching in a way that had nothing to do with the walk up the stairs. "You think you can hide back here?" I rasped, my voice a jagged edge. "You think if you stay in the dark long enough, I’ll forget that you’re the one set to ruin me?" "I'm not here to ru