All Chapters of MINE TO BULLY : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

*Jace's POV*By the third week of summer, Jace's friends had stopped asking if he was okay and started asking what was wrong with him instead, which felt like a smaller question but somehow landed heavier."You've been weird for weeks," Mason said, sprawled across Jace's couch with a controller in his hand, not even looking up from the screen. "Like, weirder than normal-weird. Actual weird.""I'm fine.""You've said that every day for a month.""Because it's true every day for a month."Mason paused the game and turned to look at him properly, which was somehow worse than the teasing. "You barely eat. You canceled on the lake trip. You keep staring out your window like you're waiting for a package."Jace didn't answer that, mostly because there wasn't a version of the truth he could say out loud without it sounding insane.*I keep waiting for a light to come on in a bedroom across the street.**I think about a fat kid I spent three years humiliating and I can't stop.**I think I might

*Jace's POV* College move-in day always looked the same at Ashford ..... parents crying in parking lots, freshmen hauling boxes up dorm stairs, upperclassmen pretending they weren't watching to see who'd changed over the break. Jace leaned against his truck in the student lot, sunglasses on, watching Mason argue with a campus parking attendant about a permit that clearly wasn't valid. "Dude, just move the truck," Tyler said, laughing. "I'm not moving it. I paid for a spot." "You paid for a spot at the wrong dorm." "That's a technicality." Jace tuned it out, half-listening, half still somewhere else entirely .... the way he'd been most of the summer if he was honest with himself. A group of girls walked past, and one of them, a sophomore named Reagan he vaguely recognized from a party last spring, gave him a slow once-over and a smile that used to mean something. "Ryland." She stopped walking. "You look good for someone who apparently broke a guy's jaw over summer." "Word tr

*Ezra's POV*I was still shoving books into my locker when someone leaned against the one next to it like they owned it."You're the transfer."I looked over. Tall, dark hair, an easy smile that didn't look like it was trying to prove anything. "Depends who's asking.""Daniel." He held out a hand. "Soccer team. Everyone's been talking about you since yesterday, you know that?""I noticed.""You noticed and you're this calm about it?" He laughed, shaking my hand anyway. "Most people would be freaking out by now. You've got half the school's attention and you're just... standing here. Unbothered.""Most people didn't spend three years being the school joke before this." It came out easy, before I could catch it, like it didn't cost anything to say to a stranger. Maybe it didn't. He hadn't been there for any of it.Daniel didn't flinch. He actually looked at me a second longer than he needed to, like he was recalculating something. "Whoever did that to you was an idiot.""You don't even

*Jace's POV*I woke up to a ceiling I didn't recognize and a headache that felt like something had crawled inside my skull and started construction.For a second I just lay there, blinking, trying to piece together where I was. Not my room. My ceiling didn't have that water stain shaped like a lopsided heart. My sheets didn't smell like this .... something clean, unfamiliar, faintly like laundry detergent I didn't own.Then it hit me. All of it. Fast enough that I sat straight up, which was a mistake, because my head immediately punished me for it.Ezra's room.I was in Ezra's room. In Ezra's bed. Fully dressed, thankfully, shoes kicked off somewhere near the door, my memory of last night arriving in pieces that clicked together whether I wanted them to or not — the club, the booth, Daniel's mouth near Ezra's ear, the way Ezra had laughed at whatever he'd said. The drink I never finished. Walking out. Climbing a trellis I had no business climbing, drunk, because some part of my brain

*Jace's POV*"What the hell."Ezra stepped back from Daniel fast, though not far enough for my liking. "Jace. What are you doing up here?""What am I....?" I laughed, short and humorless. "You disappear all day and this is what you're doing?""That's none of your business.""Right. Because you don't know me. That's still the line?"Daniel glanced between us, clearly missing half the context. "Is somebody going to explain what's happening?""No," Ezra said, at the same time I said, "Yeah, actually.""Jace.""He kissed you.""That's really not....""I watched him do it." My voice bounced off the concrete, louder than I meant it. "Two nights ago you kissed me back. Now you're up here with him like it never happened."Daniel's face changed fast. "Wait. What?""Nothing happened," Ezra said."Nothing happened," I repeated. "That's the story you're going with?""You were drunk. You climbed through my window. I let you sleep it off. That's it.""You kissed me back.""That doesn't matter right