Chapter 8
JADE
I slam the bathroom door and turn the shower on so hot it steam-fogs the mirror in seconds.
I get in anyway.
I scrub my skin like I’m trying to erase whatever just happened in the backyard.
His face.
His voice.
The way he said stop running, Jade.
I hate him.
No—
I hate that he still affects me.
I hate that my heart jumped the second I saw him.
I hate that his scent, his stupid cologne, is still in my head.
I hate that I’m not over him.
Worst of all—
I hate that I still want him.
My chest tightens and the heat of the water doesn’t stop the shaking.
Everything in me is just… mixed now.
Rage, desire, humiliation, longing—all tangled so tight I can’t tell one from the other.
By the time I shut the water off, I’m shaking hard enough I have to grab the counter to steady myself.
I towel off, put on leggings and a worn hoodie Irene loaned me, and blow out a long breath.
My phone flashes on the nightstand.
Tristan has been blowing it up.
Ten missed calls.
Eight texts.
Homegirl answer your damn phone
Jade come onnnnn
Did you DIE???
ok RUDE.
I roll my eyes and hit call back.
He picks up on the first ring.
“YO, homegirl, you’ve been dissing me!”
I sit on the bed, still trembling a little. “Yeah, well… some date you were at homecoming.”
He grunts. “You’re the one who ran off like Cinderella.”
A snort escapes me—harsh. “Cinderella leaves a slipper. I left in ashes and came back the villain.”
“You are hardly a villain, Jade.” His tone shifts, softer but still Tristan-sarcastic. “You’re, like… anti-hero maybe. Very Harley Quinn vibes right now.”
I shake my head. “Shut up.”
“Anyway,” he says, “let’s meet for lunch. My treat.”
“I can’t,” I say. “I have an appointment.”
“With who?”
I inhale.
“A shrink.”
There’s a beat of startled silence.
Then I bark, “If you tell anyone, I’ll cut you. I swear to , Tristan.”
“Whoa, hey, relax, Lara Croft.” He laughs. “Your secrets are safe with me. I don’t need the smoke from your new era.”
I rub the heel of my hand over my eyes.
“Fine,” he says, “after your appointment. Text me when you’re done. My publicist is in town anyway—she wants to see if we can prep a narrative cleanup before the semester implodes.”
My stomach twists.
“A narrative cleanup?”
“Yeah,” he says cheerfully. “You know—spin control. Damage mitigation. All the fun PR shit that says ‘we didn’t bully the scholarship girl, it was all a big misunderstanding.’”
He pauses. “Come on, Jade. Meet me. Let us help you.”
I swallow.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Maybe.”
We hang up.
I stare at the ceiling for a long moment, letting everything settle into a cold, hard knot in my chest.
A therapist.
A PR cleanup.
Lunch with Tristan.
Royal Oaks waiting for me like a battlefield.
I breathe out.
Fine.
If this is war—
I’m ready to fight.
I park behind the bakery on Thames Street, in a slushy little staff lot that smells like burnt sugar and fryer oil. It's discreet enough. No one notices a dented Corolla tucked between a bakery van and a rusty old Subaru with Bernie stickers and a cracked rear windshield.
The sleet hits sideways as soon as I get out—ice like needles slapping my face. I pull my hood tighter and trudge past the back door of the bakery where the heat from inside steams the windows. It smells like cinnamon rolls and soup. Warmth and comfort I don’t feel entitled to today.
The therapy office is in an old brick building with iron window grates and a buzzer that doesn’t work the first three times. I jab the button harder. Finally, a low buzz and the door clicks open.
Third floor. No elevator. Of course.
By the time I get to the top, my hands are numb. My boots are soaked through and I can’t feel my toes. I sit on a fake pleather couch that squeaks every time I shift and watch a couple of sad fish swim in a bowl like they’re just waiting for someone to forget to feed them.
The room smells faintly like vanilla and old paper. Bookshelves full of psychology volumes and dog-eared novels line the walls. There are wads of crumpled paper in the wastebasket, like someone was trying to write a book or rewrite a life.
I glance everywhere but at the therapist.
She's maybe in her late forties. Fit in that no-nonsense, Pilates-at-6AM kind of way.
Thin, angular face. Not wearing a wedding ring.
Dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans like she could switch to berating a startup team or a teenage daughter with the same tone.
If she wanted to be mean, I feel like she could do it with devastating precision.
She doesn’t talk first. Just watches me over the rim of her glasses, pen already moving over her yellow legal pad.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
That damn clock on the wall is the only sound in the room besides her pen scratching across the page.
“I have good days,” I say finally, shrugging like it doesn’t matter. “Some days I kind of feel... badass, I guess. I wake up and remember who I am. Or who I used to be.”
She scribbles.
I glance at her. “What are you writing?”
No answer. Just a tiny pursing of her lips. A head tilt. Keep talking, her body language says.
“I have bad days too,” I admit, voice quieter. “More of those, honestly. Some days I feel like I'm still in that damn bathroom stall, you know? Still covered in slime and everyone’s laughing.”
More writing. Her pen must be running out of ink.
“I hate that I let it get to me. That I let them get to me. That I walked away from everything.”
Still nothing.
“I’m angry,” I snap. “I’m jaded. Isn’t that ironic? My actual name is the punchline.”
Silence. Except for the pen. And the clock.
I stare at her hands. Manicured. Strong. A silver bracelet, nothing flashy. No wedding ring. I wonder if she’s ever been in love. If she lost it. If she lost someone. If she burned down her own life once, or if she just makes a living analyzing the wreckage of other people’s.
And I realize I’m thinking more about her than myself.
Maybe because it’s easier than feeling my own mess today.
Maybe because looking inward is still too raw.
Maybe because I’m not ready to admit that I still think about him.
That the warmth of his hands is something I miss when mine go cold.
The therapist finally speaks.
“Let’s assume I don’t think about you at all,” she says, pen hovering, calm as can be. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Ohio?”
She says it like a question, like it’s some place on a map instead of the crater where my life used to be.
I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you knew nothing about me?”
She shrugs. “Your parents did have to sign the intake form.”
Of course they did.
I sigh and lean back, arms crossed, still refusing to meet her eyes. My gaze lands on the edge of a chipped bookshelf and a cracked spine of something about trauma resilience.
“Ohio feels like a lifetime ago,” I say, almost to myself. “Like I was another girl. Someone I barely recognize now.”
I clear my throat and keep going, because if I don’t, I’ll stop and never start again.
“She was this… girl who just got good grades, played travel soccer, trained her heart out. She believed in things. Believed hard work and being a good person would get you somewhere. Maybe not the top, but far enough. You know, with a little luck and some late-night studying, you make it.”
My voice cracks.
“That was before.”
The therapist doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t nod. She just waits.
“Before someone decided I was funny.” My voice sharpens. “Before they deepfaked my face on topless girls. Made fake OnlyFans accounts. Made me a joke. A meme. A hashtag.”
I’m gripping the couch now.
“It wasn’t funny,” I whisper. “Not when I walked into school and people wouldn’t look at me. Or worse—only looked at me. Like I was what they said. Like I deserved it.”
I swallow hard, blinking away the fog in my eyes.
“It really wasn’t funny when I woke up one night to hear my mom sobbing behind her bedroom door. When I realized they didn’t have the money to fight the school board, the press, the platforms. We were just... powerless. Watching everything crumble while people laughed online and moved on.”
I finally glance up at the therapist. Her eyes are on me now—not judging, just steady. But she’s not writing. Her hands are folded on her lap.
“That wasn’t funny at all,” I finish, my voice flat. Hollow.
The silence that follows is heavier than the one before.
And for the first time since walking in, I think maybe—just maybe—this isn’t a complete waste of time.
“I didn’t even want to come here,” I murmur, still looking at anything but her. “Rhode Island wasn’t the plan. It was just... the escape route.”
I rub my palms together. The skin’s dry from the cold, the heat in the building not quite cutting through the chill I’ve carried for months.
“After Ohio, after the scandal, the school board circus, the cops brushing it off like teen drama... My aunt offered me an out. My parents took it before I could even pack a bag. They said it was ‘a fresh start.’” I scoff quietly.
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to anyone.
Not that I had anyone left worth saying goodbye to. ”
My voice trails off as the sound of the ticking clock seems to get louder. And louder.
Then I hear the therapist gently close her notebook.
I blink. “Wait, that’s it?”
She offers a nod. “That’s our hour.”
I sit there a second, weirdly disoriented. Like I just woke up from something.
The sleet outside is still pelting sideways.
I can hear it spitting against the tall windows.
That bitter, gray New England cold you don’t quite ever get used to.
I wonder if she notices I haven’t stopped fidgeting since I sat down.
If she sees how tightly I’m wrapped in my hoodie despite the heat turned on.
She stands, and I do too, awkward and slow.
And that’s when it hits me.
She barely said a thing. No advice. No opinions. No sympathetic gasps or fake reassurance. She just let me talk. Let the words fall out, untangled and ugly. And it was… freeing.