Chapter 10
LEO
Jade’s video plays in my head all damn day.
Her voice.
Her fire.
That new edge in her eyes.
I watch it once, twice, twenty times—and every time something inside me twists harder.
I’m proud.
I’m terrified.
I’m so fucking in love with her it feels like my ribs are cracking open.
But I’m also furious.
Because she’s out there fighting alone, turning the world upside down, while I’m stuck here pretending everything’s normal.
Dinner is its usual torture. Crystal glasses. Silverware lined like surgical instruments. My mother in pearls so tight around her throat I swear she’s strangling herself for fashion.
We sit.
We eat.
We pretend.
Until Mom sighs loudly into her napkin.
“Well,” she says, “Jade Bryan is the talk of the entire town.”
My fork hits the plate.
Of course she’s talking about Jade. Of course she is. They’re all talking about Jade.
“Everywhere I went today,” she continues, “the country club, the PTA brunch, the charity board meeting… it’s Jade, Jade, Jade. Everyone wants to know if she’s your ex-girlfriend.”
I swallow hard. My dad glances at me over the rim of his wine glass.
I force myself to ask, “What are they saying?”
Mom waves a manicured hand. “Well, I won’t lie—they’re impressed. Very impressed.”
Something fierce lights up in my chest.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Now you know what I saw in her.”
She raises a brow.
“She’s got qualities those girls will never have,” I add. “Integrity. Grace under fire. Grit. She’s real. She turned down six figures today, Mom. Clearly she wasn’t after my money.”
Mom scoffs. “Honey, you know what we have. We’re worth nine figures.”
I mutter under my breath, “Nine figures, my ass.”
Dad coughs to cover a laugh.
Mom narrows her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to get back with that girl.”
I look at my plate.
Push the food around.
“She wouldn’t have me now, Mom. She can do better. She should do better than the boy who caved to his mother.”
Her jaw tightens.
I keep going.
“I lost her. I lost the girl.”
Her voice turns cold. “Leo, this will pass. She’ll be a moment. A trend. The ‘it girl’ for a week. Then she’ll fade, and all of this will settle. Nobility, old money, family lines—these things last generations. Don’t forget that.”
I stare at her.
Fuck, she has no idea.
“She’s not fading,” I say. “Not anytime soon.”
Mom opens her mouth, but I beat her to it.
“The View called,” I say flatly. “They want her as a guest. Dateline too. Tristan’s PR team is drowning in interview requests.
Jade Bryan’s not just an ‘it girl.’ She’s becoming a name.
A big one. She has the best attorneys who smell blood in the water.
She might nit settle but she will be pressing criminal charges. ”
Mom’s pearl necklace actually creaks as she stiffens. “They won’t find anything. You know how investigations work around here, Leo.”
“She’ll be a household name,” I add. “Maybe even global. And she has Tristan Vale’s attorney team. I think they will find out who slimed her.”
Dad whistles low under his breath. “Damn.”
Mom looks like she might faint.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like defending her feelings.
Because Jade deserves this.
Jade deserves everything.
But the worst part?
The part chewing at my insides like broken glass?
I’m not the one by her side for any of it.
She did all this without me.
And she might never need me again.
The next morning, I wake up like I didn’t sleep at all.
Technically I did. My phone says four hours. My body says zero. My brain sure as hell says zero.
The first thing I see is my screen.
Paused on her face.
Jade. Wind in her hair, that leather jacket, eyes locked on the camera like she’s daring the world to look away from her.
I press play again.
“You don’t have to be silent anymore. I’m speaking for you.”
Every time she says it, something in my chest pulls tight and refuses to let go.
I should stop watching.
I don’t.
I shower. Brush my teeth. Put on the uniform. Tie my tie. I do it all on autopilot, replaying her voice, her words, the way she looked like she was built from steel and lightning.
She turned down six figures.
I still can’t get over that.
Most people at Royal Oaks throw their daddy’s credit card at anything with a logo on it. She had a real shot at safety money, at never worrying about tuition again, and she said no because it was dirty.
Because it was hush money.
I stare at myself in the mirror.
Dark circles. Jaw clenched. Eyes that look like I’m about to start a fight or cry or both.
“I don’t deserve you,” I tell my reflection.
He doesn’t argue.
I grab my keys, my bag, and the world’s fakest sense of composure, then head out.
The drive to school is short and too long at the same time.
Newport in late November looks like a bad postcard. Cold sky, bare trees, old mansions flexing on everyone for no reason.
Every red light feels like a personal attack.
At the second light, my phone buzzes in the cupholder. I glance down.
Group chat: TRI X LEO
Tristan:
bro they put her clip on local news last night
Xavier:
my mom said “this girl is a problem. in a good way”
Tristan again:
thanksgiving weekend she’s going to explode
like tv-interview explode
I type with one hand…
yeah
i know
I flick the radio on to drown out my thoughts.
No luck.
Jade’s voice is bigger than any song.
I’m strong. I don’t break under pressure… Coaches, I’m your girl.
I actually have to pull over for a second on the side of the road just to breathe.
Because part of me is proud as hell.
Part of me is sick with jealousy.
And all of me is in love with her in a way that feels less like a feeling and more like a chronic condition.
Thanksgiving is three days away.
Something in my gut says that’s when everything is going to snap.
The Royal Oaks parking lot is already packed by the time I pull in. SUVs, hybrids, sports cars — all lined up like a dealership for rich kids.
Phones are out everywhere.
Everyone is watching something on their screens, showing it to someone else. I don’t even need to guess what it is.
As I get out of my car, I catch my name in the wind.
“…Leo’s ex…”
“…that video…”
“…she called out the whole system…”
“…turned down six figures…”
I slam my door a little too hard.
Steady. Breathe. Walk.
Inside, the halls are buzzing like a live wire.
Girls huddled together whispering.
Guys pretending not to care but clearly scrolling Jade’s social profile on their phones.
Teachers watching everything with that wary, controlled expression that says “legal is breathing down my neck.”
And then there’s her.
First period, end of the main hallway, just outside the student lounge.
Jade.
She sees me.
Of course she does.
Her gaze slides over, lands on me for half a second. It’s like looking into a bonfire.
My steps falter for one beat. Just one.
Her expression doesn’t change. Not a millimeter. No smile. No softening. No flinch.
Then she looks right past me like I’m just another student.
I feel that.
Like a knife.
I keep walking, muscles tight, eyes forward. The smell of her shampoo — something warm and clean and sharp — hits me as I pass. Shani stops talking mid-sentence. Tristan goes quiet. Everyone feels the tension.
We don’t say a word.
But everything in the air screams.
Classes are just noise after that.
Teachers talk. I write nothing.
We open textbooks. I see none of the words.
In AP History, Jade sits two rows in front of me, a little to the right. Her profile is all I can see for fifty minutes.
She never turns around.
At one point, someone’s phone lights up with a news segment autoplaying on mute. I catch the image of Jade outside the lawyer’s office, talking into the camera.
The teacher glares and tells them to put it away.
They don’t, not really. They just tilt it so it’s hidden behind a textbook.
I already know every frame.
When the bell rings, we stand at the same time. For one second, we’re side by side in the aisle.
Her arm brushes mine.
Just that.
Static.
She moves away like nothing happened.
At lunch, things are worse.
She walks into the cafeteria like a bomb in slow motion.
Once upon a time, she sat with me.
My table. My orbit.
The king and his queen cliché everyone expected.
Now?
She walks straight past the table where I sit with X, Tristan, and a few of the guys. Doesn’t glance over. Doesn’t hesitate.
She sits at a table closer to the center, right under the skylight. Shani next to her, Mindy across from her, a couple of other girls who used to pretend they didn’t know her name now leaning in like she’s the sun.
Her phone’s on the table. It doesn’t stop lighting up.
Tristan watches all this, pops a fry in his mouth, and says, “Damn. Look at your girl.”
“She’s not my girl,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s the fucking problem.”
X leans back, folding his arms. “You need to see this as an opportunity.”
I glare at him. “An opportunity for what?”
“Look around,” he says. “The whole school’s split. The old guard—” he nods toward Bianca’s table, where Bianca, Nadia, Rosalie, and Vivian are huddled with tight faces “—and the new wave. And she’s the center of it.”
Bianca’s watching Jade with open hatred, nails digging into her plastic water bottle. Nadia is whispering furiously in her ear. Vivian looks like she wants to be anywhere else but stuck between two sinking ships.
“They’re scared,” X says. “They’ve never been scared before.”
“And Jade?” Tristan adds. “She’s glowing. This is… honestly, kind of hot. We need to talk later. No shoes, no cameras. We fucked up.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “What?”
“After lunch. The quad.”
“I overheard a couple of guys from the hockey team? Already talking about asking Jade to the Winter Gala.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
X nods. “The transfer from BC High too. And that tall forward from the JV basketball team. Oh, and one of the senior debate captains. Nerd, but like, tall nerd.”
I feel my whole body go numb and hot at the same time.