Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
JADE
It was the last week of October.
The kind where everything smelled like cinnamon and cold wind and possibility.
Royal Oaks looked like a brochure for East Coast prep: red leaves, brown boots, boys in Patagonia vests tossing footballs between classes.
I should’ve been loving it.
Instead, I was studying like hell for midterms, nursing turf burn on both knees, and pretending I didn’t hear the whispers in the girls’ locker room.
“She’s only here because of a pity scholarship.”
“Leo’s just slumming it for the thrill.”
“She’ll be gone by spring.”
They weren’t original, but they still landed like darts.
And yet…
Leo kept showing up.
He’d bring me espresso shots in glass bottles wrapped in paper towels so they didn’t burn my hands. Let me steal his hoodie when I had 7AM training. Walked me to class like I was royalty and he was the secret weapon assigned to protect me.
“You’re not letting them get to you, are you?” he asked one afternoon, pulling me between the stacks in the old library where no one dared spy.
“Define ‘get to me,’” I murmured into his chest.
He kissed the top of my head and muttered, “I want to steal you away.”
I laughed. “To where?”
“Anywhere.” Then, as if a switch flipped, he leaned back, caught my eyes, and said, “Actually—how about Nantucket?”
“What?”
“Just for the weekend. It’s almost Halloween. The team doesn’t play until Tuesday. You’re off after Friday’s game. We’ll take the boat, hide out at the dockhouse. You tell your aunt you’re crashing at Shani’s. No one will even know.”
My heartbeat kicked.
“Leo…”
“No cameras. No masks. No prep school bullshit. Just us. You and me and a long weekend pretending we’re normal.”
I bit my lip. “You sure?”
“Jade.” His voice dropped low, sincere. “You’re the only real thing in my life. Yeah. I’m sure.”
I didn’t say yes right away.
I let the idea float in the air between us.
But in my chest, something softened—like maybe, just maybe, I’d found a place I could exhale.
That night, I texted Shani: Cover for me?
She replied with a devil emoji and: Do you even have to ask?
By the time Friday rolled around, I’d packed a small duffel, tied my long locks into a braid, and slipped on the softest hoodie I owned—Leo’s, obviously.
When he picked me up at the edge of campus, he looked like a dream in a black beanie and Henley, smile easy, hair slightly messy.
The crisp air bit our cheeks.
His fingers laced with mine.
“You ready to disappear with me?” he asked as we walked toward the ferry.
I nodded, heart full.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Somewhere between the fake cobwebs and the pulsing bass line, I forgot who I was supposed to be.
That was the point, right?
Lose yourself for a night. Hide in plain sight. Slip on a mask and pretend none of it matters.
The party was somewhere off in the woods, in a crumbling old carriage house that some Harvard legacy’s cousin rented for the weekend. Tristan got the invite through someone’s brother. Shani convinced me to go despite my nerves and general self-doubt.
“We need to exorcise the prep school demons,” she said, sliding a sequined devil horn headband into my weekend bag. “Go have fun and don’t worry about the haters.”
I wore a black lace mask and a flowy black dress that dipped low in the back. My hair was curled wild. Eyes smoky. No heels—just boots. Because even on a night of fantasy, I needed solid ground.
The music was loud and vintage, like something out of The Lost Boys. Strobe lights flashed through fake fog. People danced with abandon, drinks in hand, costumes ranging from iconic to slutty to somewhere in between.
And then I saw him.
Leo. He had slipped away to a bathroom to surprise me with his costume choice.
He wore a black masquerade mask, sharp-cut and shadowed, like something out of a gothic dream. His eyes found mine across the room, and my pulse stuttered. I didn’t need to hear his voice to know it was him. My body recognized him instantly.
He made his way over, slow and sure.
“You look like trouble,” he murmured.
I raised an eyebrow. “You look like regret.”
He smiled, dark and crooked. “Then why are you still staring?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
Instead, I took his hand and led him into the shadows.
Down a side hall lined with jack-o-lanterns and flickering lanterns, I backed into the wall, heart pounding. He followed, stopping just a breath away.
I reached up, fingers slipping into his hair as I pulled him down to me.
Our kiss wasn’t gentle—it was fire and memory and hunger. His hands on my waist, mine tangled in his jacket. The world blurred around us, every thought stripped away until there was only heat, and breath, and want.
“No one knows who we are tonight,” he whispered against my throat.
“Then let’s be no one,” I said back.
We danced later, under antique chandeliers and clouds of fog, laughing like ghosts. He spun me, pulled me close, kissed me again in a corner no one else cared to notice.
For a few stolen hours, we didn’t belong to Royal Oaks. We weren’t caught in old stories and new pain. We were just Leo and Jade, wrapped in shadows and secrets.
And after the party, we didn’t go home.
We boarded his boat in Nantucket—just the two of us, a weekend away from it all. Aunt Susan thought I was with Shani. Shani covered like a champ.
We made breakfast barefoot in the galley. Read books curled up under fleece blankets. I wore one of his sweatshirts and nothing else.
At night, we made love slow, the ocean rocking gently beneath us.
He kissed my scars like they didn’t scare him.
Held me like I wasn’t a ticking bomb.
I wanted to stay in that bubble forever. But I knew we couldn’t.
Still, that weekend was ours.
Our secret.
Our stolen fairytale.
Our masquerade.