جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 38

Mia's pov I spent two full days after the gathering doing nothing but existing in the quietest, smallest version of myself I could manage, curtains drawn, phone mostly silenced, my mother bringing me tea I didn't drink and sitting with me in a silence she seemed to understand better than I understood it myself.It was Priya who finally pulled me out of it, showing up on the third morning with a look on her face that told me she wasn't leaving until I got out of bed."Okay," she said, sitting on the edge of my mattress. "You've had your two days. I'm not saying you don't deserve more, but I also know you, and I know if I let you keep marinating in this you're going to talk yourself into believing everything he said was somehow true.""It felt true when he said it.""It wasn't true. None of it was true, Mia, and some sick, twisted part of me almost respects whoever got inside his head enough to make him say something that specific and that cruel, because it wasn't random. That was aime

Nate's pov I hadn't planned on bringing up Claire at all. I ran into Bianca Torres at the dining hall, both of us grabbing coffee before an early class, and it was pure accident that the conversation drifted toward her, some offhand comment about how everyone seemed to be leaning on each other more than usual lately, given everything with Eli and Mia and Jordan's mom."Claire's been a rock through all of it, honestly," Bianca said, stirring cream into her cup. "I don't know how Eli would've handled the last few weeks without her checking in on him constantly.""Yeah, she's been around a lot." I said it evenly, no particular weight behind it, though something about the words sat differently in my chest than they had a few weeks ago."You two close? I feel like I never really see you and her together.""Not especially. I know her mostly through Eli." I hesitated, then figured I might as well ask, since the opening was right there and I'd been curious about it since the day she'd first

Mia's pov Colton Ward met me at a table near the back of the student union, already scrolling through his phone before I'd even sat down, which struck me as either impressively proactive or a little unsettling, given that I'd texted him less than an hour ago."So you're trying to find footage from Danny's party back in January," he said, not looking up. "Priya's friend mentioned you needed help with something like that.""Yeah. I know it's a long shot. I just heard you were filming a lot that night.""Oh, I filmed basically the whole thing. I was trying to build up my page back then, thought party content was going to be my whole brand." He said it without any embarrassment, like this was simply a fact about himself he'd made peace with. "Didn't really pan out, but I never delete old footage. You never know when something's going to be useful for a compilation later.""That's actually perfect for what I need.""What exactly are you looking for?"I hesitated, unsure how much to actual

Nate's pov I found Bianca again a week later, this time on purpose, catching her after her Thursday lecture let out and walking with her toward the parking lot under the excuse of needing directions to a building I'd walked past a hundred times."You're a terrible liar, you know," she said, once we were a few steps clear of the crowd. "You know exactly where the chem building is.""Caught.""So what's actually going on? You've been weird since we talked last week."I hesitated, weighing how much to actually say, and decided on something close to the truth without handing her the full shape of what I was circling. "I've just been thinking about the whole leak thing from back in January. The post about Mia. Trying to piece together how it actually spread, since it still comes up sometimes and I realized I never really understood the timeline of it.""That's a random thing to be thinking about months later.""Yeah, I know. Humor me."She shrugged, unbothered, clearly not suspicious of t