Chapter 18
LEO
The rink downtown is packed, lit up like a snow globe somebody shook too hard.
Fairy lights strung between lampposts.
Christmas music echoing off brick buildings.
Kids slipping, tourists laughing, everyone wrapped in red scarves and holiday cheer.
I am none of those things.
I’m standing at the edge of the ice with my hands shoved in my pockets, breath fogging out like smoke, watching couples skate hand-in-hand.
I should have stayed home.
Except I can’t sleep.
Can’t think.
Can’t breathe without thinking of her.
And now?
She’s not just Jade anymore.
She’s Jade Bryan: global icon.
I scroll TikTok, and every other video is:
“Jade Bryan said THIS about bullying and wow—”
“Future First Lady vibes??”
“NetfIix docuseries??? YES.”
My chest squeezes until my ribs ache.
I lost my girl.
And she became someone the world looks up to.
And I’m stuck here on this rink like a ghost haunting my own life.
Tristan skates up beside me, way too good for someone who usually only skates when bribed.
He bumps my shoulder.
“Bro. Snap out of the existential crisis. You look like you’re about to skate into traffic.”
“There’s no traffic on ice,” I mutter.
“You’d find a way,” he says.
Tristan looks annoyingly cheerful tonight. Xavier’s behind him, holding two hot chocolates like a judgmental mother hen.
They’ve been babysitting me all week.
Xavier hands me one. “Drink. You look cold and depressed.”
“I am cold and depressed.”
“Good,” he says. “Use it.”
“For what?”
“To win her back,” Tristan says.
My heart clenches at her name. “She’s not even answering my texts.”
“Because you’re texting like a man having a breakdown,” Tristan says. “You gotta romance her, Romeo.”
I glare. “Do not call me Romeo.”
“Then stop acting like a tragic Shakespeare simp.”
I take a slow sip before I can snap his neck.
A ripple goes through the rink—the kind of ripple that says someone important entered.
Nadia. Bianca. Vivian.
Great.
The Coven is here.
They come gliding in wearing matching coats, perfect hair, perfect smiles that strain at the edges. The panic underneath is almost visible.
They’re whispering urgently, heads bent together like villains in a Disney movie who just found out the princess survived.
I skate over to the railing where I can hear them.
Nadia hisses, “She wasn’t supposed to become a global icon.”
Vivian wrings her mittens. “Netflix? A documentary? About her?”
Bianca looks physically ill. “We created a martyr. We made her famous.”
Vivian’s eyes dart around. “What do we do?”
“Damage control,” Bianca snaps. “Spin it. Say we supported her. That we’re victims too.”
I step forward.
Their heads whip toward me.
“You’re not victims,” I say flatly. “You’re guilty.”
Nadia opens her mouth, but I hold up a hand.
“I know everything. The receipts. The hush-money attempts. The threats to the housekeeper.”
I lean in.
“And you should be terrified.”
Their faces go pale. They skate away like they’re wearing carrying last year’s Birken.
Good.
For once, they can feel something close to what she felt.
Xavier skates up beside me, voice low.
“My dad’s guy got the files. Everything Mindy promised. Audio. Receipts. Dates. Cash drop locations. It's airtight. The police interviewed them it’s all recorded. All we need is the DA to bite and say there is a case.”
My pulse kicks hard.
“We’re going to burn them,” I whisper.
Tristan nods. “And then we’re going to rebuild it into the stage Jade Bryan deserves.”
I don't respond.
My eyes are locked on the ice.
On the empty space where she should be.
Later, after skating, the whole senior crowd migrates to a private rooftop party overlooking the harbor. Expensive heaters, glass walls, fake fur blankets, twinkling string lights—classic Newport wealth on display.
I feel sick in all of it.
Every girl who wronged her is here.
Every guy who never defended her is here.
And Jade?
She’s in Boston blowing up the internet while I’m standing under golden fairy lights pretending I’m okay.
Tristan claps me on the back. “Alright, Holt. Let’s strategize.”
“You strategize. I’m done.”
“No, you’re not.”
He grips my shoulders.
“Romance her, Romeo.”
I grit my teeth. “Stop saying Romeo.”
“I’ll stop calling you Romeo when you stop losing your Juliet.”
“I HAVE NOT LOST HER.”
Tristan raises a brow.
“Really? Because her Boston vlog? Half a million shares. Coaches want her. PR wants her. Netflix wants her. The world wants her.”
He leans in, voice lowering.
“And she’s starting to realize she doesn’t need you.”
That kills something inside me.
He sees it, softens.
“Leo… you need a grand gesture. A real one. Not flowers, not begging, not chasing her into locker rooms. Something that proves you’re the guy she thought you were.”
“And what is that?” I ask quietly.
Tristan smiles slowly.
“You figure it out. Because she’s worth figuring it out for.”
I stare out over the icy harbor lights, cold wind slicing across my face.
He’s right.
She’s worth everything.
And I’m running out of time.
So I pull out my phone.
Not to text her.
Not to beg her.
Not to stalk her page.
But to make a call.
A call to the one person who can help me pull off something big enough, brave enough, insane enough—
to win her back in a way worthy of who she is now.
My dad picks up on the first ring.
And I say the words that will change everything:
“Dad… I need your help. For Jade.”
The after-party is still raging when I bail.
Tristan throws me a look.
“Bro. Seriously? You’re skipping? The king never skips.”
“Not tonight,” I mutter.
Xavier shrugs. “Let him go. He’s got that ‘I’m about to do something dramatic and emotionally responsible’ stare.”
Mindy sips her cider. “Gross. Men with emotional growth. Ew.”
I crack a smile, but it doesn’t reach my chest.
I leave them in the glittering rooftop chaos and walk down to the harbor, where winter wind slices off the water like a blade.
I text my dad and decide to meet him in the Yacht Club cigar room.
He motions me over not caring I’m just eighteen. He hands me a scotch.
“She won’t text me back. Let me guess,” I mutter. “I’m doing everything wrong.”
“Of course you are,” he snorts. “You’re eighteen.”
I roll my eyes.
He continues.
“You’re begging. Calling. Chasing. Trying to reason your way back into her heart. That never works.”
“What do I do, then?”
He nods toward the tall shelves lining the lounge walls.
“When we get home, remind me to show you the books from your great-grandfather. Love letters he wrote during the war. Beautiful cursive. Real emotion. He poured his soul into those letters.”
I blink. “Why?”
“Because when he returned, he wasn’t the same man. The war broke him in ways she didn’t understand. But she waited for him because she knew the man he was underneath it all.”
Silence.
The fire pops.
My dad lowers his voice.
“Be a man a woman waits for, Leo. Be a man she feels safe coming home to.”
He taps his chest.
“That means here. Not just here—”
He flicks a finger at my bicep—
“but here.”
I sit back, throat tight.
“Be her shelter,” he says. “Her harbor in the storm. The place where she breathes easier, not harder.”
He lets that settle.
“And Leo?” He lifts his bourbon.
“Romance doesn’t hurt.”
I huff a laugh. “That sounds like something Tristan would say.”
“Tristan,” he murmurs, “is right more often than anyone gives him credit for.”
I look at the fire again.
For the first time, I see a path forward.
Not through force.
Not through desperation.
Not through obsession.
Through heart.
Through proof.
Through effort worthy of the girl who’s becoming impossible to ignore.
My dad leans back in his leather chair. “So. What’s the plan?”
I exhale slowly.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But I know it has to be big. And real. And honest. And… risky.”
His eyes glint.
“Good. Risk means you care.”
I stand.
He stands too.
We shake hands—firm, new understanding settling between us.
As I turn to leave, he calls after me:
“Leo—don’t try to win her back as the boy she loved. Become the man she deserves.”
I nod once.
The night is knife-cold.
That late-November coastal cold that slices clean through a jacket and settles in your bones.
I don’t even remember deciding to drive here.
One minute I’m leaving the yacht club, my father’s words echoing in my skull—
be her harbor, be her shelter, be the man she waits for—
and the next, I’m winding up the familiar road toward the cliffs.
The place where everything began.
Where she laughed into my chest.
Where she told me her dreams.
Where she kissed me like I was worth something.
The ocean is black and restless below.
I park.
I kill the engine.
I sit there, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles hurt.
Then I pull out my phone.
And I start watching her.
Jade Bryan.
My Jade.
Except she’s not mine now.
She’s… everywhere.
Her Boston vlog.
Her Cape vlog.
Her therapy honesty.
Her hope.
Her grit.
Her words hitting people in their bruised, lonely places.
Millions of likes.
Comments exploding.
Duets.
Reaction videos.
College coaches sliding into her messages.
Strangers calling her brave, inspiring, iconic.
And then the thing that destroys me:
A clip of her laughing by the skating rink bonfire.
Free.
Light.
Alive.
Without me.
My throat closes.
I replay it again.
And again.
And again.
Until something clicks.
Until an idea hits me so hard my breath leaves my body.
A love letter.
But not an old-school paper one.
Not ink and cursive and envelopes.
A modern one.
A digital one.
Something raw, public, undeniable.
If she’s rewriting her story online…
If she’s reclaiming her voice in front of the whole damn world…
Then maybe the only way to reach her heart
is to match her.
Not copy her.
Not outdo her.
Not overshadow her.
But speak her language.
Let the world see what she means to me.
Let the world see the truth she won’t let herself believe.
I hit Tristan’s contact.