Chapter 18 #3
That night, the edit lands in my messages.
It’s not long.
Two minutes, maybe.
The video opens on me sitting on my bed. No music. No filters.
Just me.
Looking a little wrecked.
“I’m Leo,” I say in the video. “Most of you know me as the guy who hurt Jade Bryan.”
Cut to a slow pan of the hallway portraits, my parents’ faces, cold and perfect in oil paint.
“I was born with everything. Money. Houses. Cars. The ability to make problems disappear with a check.”
Cut to my hands on the piano I never learned to play.
“But the things that matter? I didn’t have those. I didn’t have a mom who had time to sit and help with homework. I had tutors. I didn’t have dinner around a loud table. I had formal meals where no one talked about anything that mattered.”
Back to my face.
“That doesn’t excuse anything I did. It just… explains why I was so good at being selfish.”
The video cuts to me staring out the window.
“I hurt Jade. I broke her heart. I listened to fear and privilege instead of love and courage. I chose my mother’s approval over the girl who actually saw me.”
My voice in the video goes softer.
“I watched what they did to her at homecoming. I watched her get slimed and humiliated. And I didn’t protect her the way I should have.”
Cut: my hand clasped, knuckles white.
“I’m not the victim in this story. She is.”
“All I can do now is own it. Learn from it. Become someone better. The kind of man who deserves the kind of woman Jade is.”
The video ends with me looking straight at the camera, eyes red but steady.
“If you hate me, I get it. I probably would too. But I’m trying to be better than the boy who broke her.”
Fade to black.
Text on screen:
“Do better. Be better.”
Lane added minimal hashtags when she sends me the preview.
I type more.
#DoBetter #ForJade #NoExcuses #Accountability #RoyalOaks #LeoHolt
My thumb hovers over “Post.”
I think of my dad.
Be the man she can come home to.
I hit it.
The video goes live.
It doesn’t take long.
Within minutes:
· Comments flood in.
· Likes start jumping.
· Shares spike.
Some of it is vicious: “Too late, rich boy.”
Some wary: “At least he’s owning it.”
Some surprisingly soft: “This is what accountability looks like.”
Lane texts:
Lane: We lit the match. Now we watch the fire.
Tristan:
Tris: YOU DID IT ROMEO. THE GIRLS IN MY DMS ARE CRYING.
Xavier:
X: You look like shit on camera. Good. Makes you human.
I sit on the floor of my room, back against the bed, watching the numbers climb.
100k views.
200k.
500k.
A million.
My heart races. My palms sweat.
But underneath all the noise…
There’s still one more thing I have to say.
To her.
“Ready for phase two?” Lane calls on FaceTime.
I nod.
“It’s time,” she says. “The softly devastating romantic bomb.”
“Is that your professional term?” I ask.
“Yes.”
She grins.
“Now that people see you’re not hiding from what you did, it’s okay to show them who you are when you’re in love.”
I swallow.
We decide to keep this one simple.
No mansion. No portraits. No piano.
Just the cliffs.
Where she and I began.
I go back at midnight.
The sky is clear.
Stars scattered overhead.
The wind is still brutal, but the air feels cleaner somehow.
I prop the phone up against a rock, angle it so the dark ocean is behind me, the sky wide above.
No team. No mic. No lighting.
Just me.
The little red dot starts blinking.
“Hey,” I say, a shaky smile pulling at my mouth. “It’s me again. Leo.”
I suck in a breath.
“This… isn’t for everyone,” I say. “This one is for one person.”
I look right into the camera.
“For you, Jade.”
My chest hurts saying her name like that.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever watch this. I don’t know if you should. But I need to say it anyway.”
The wind tugs my hair, the sound of waves mixing with my voice.
“People think they know our story,” I say. “Scholarship girl. Golden boy. Rich school. Poor girl. Bullying. Scandals. Headlines.”
I shake my head.
“They don’t know the real story. The one that started right here. On these cliffs. With a boy who thought he was a king and a girl who refused to bow.”
I can almost see her beside me. Hair whipping in the wind, laughing at me.
“Jade,” I say, voice breaking, “you changed everything.”
My throat closes. I push through.
“You told me no one is born better than anyone else. That crowns should be earned, not inherited. That love is action, not just words.”
A tear slides down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away.
“You made me want to be more than my last name. More than my money. More than what this place expects of me.”
I glance at the ocean.
“And then I let you down. Over and over.”
Back to the camera.
“I can’t undo what they did to you. I can’t take away the slime. The laughter. The nights you cried yourself to sleep because of my world.”
My voice drops.
“But I can promise I will spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you believed I could be. Even if you never take me back.”
My chest feels like it’s on fire.
“I’m not asking you for forgiveness,” I say. “You don’t owe me that. I’m not asking you to love me again.”
I swallow.
“I’m just… telling you, and the world, that I love you. Still. Maybe always.”
The words hang there, vulnerable and bare.
“I’ll be here,” I say softly, “no matter what you choose. Whether I’m part of your story or just a chapter you outgrew.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“You’re not just my queen, Gitanilla. You’re the girl who taught me what love actually is.”
I lean forward and whisper, just loud enough for the mic to catch:
“And yeah. I’m still chasing you. But this time, I’m chasing you by chasing the best version of myself.”
I reach out and end the recording.
I sit there, heart pounding.
Then I upload.
Caption:
“Some stories belong to the world. Some belong to one person. This is for her.”
Hashtags:
#ForJade #MyTruth #LeoHolt #Gitanilla #ModernLoveLetter #CliffConfession #DoBetterBeBetter
I hesitate for one second.
Then I hit post.
The internet doesn’t just react.
It erupts.
My phone starts glitching from the notifications.
First it’s just a few comments:
“I’m crying.”
“He really went to the cliffs.”
“This is some movie shit.”
Then the reposts start.
Clips of me confessing.
Edits of Jade’s speeches crossfaded with my video.
Side-by-side TikToks: her talking about pain & healing, me talking about failing & loving her.
#ForJade starts trending.
Then #Gitanilla.
Then #LeoHolt.
Then “He Loves Her” starts showing up in different languages.
Lane sends me a screenshot.
“You’re trending above a Marvel movie trailer,” she texts. “Congratulations, idiot. You’ve become the internet’s tragic lover boy.”
Tristan calls screaming.
“brO. YOU’VE brOKEN EVERY GIRL’S HEART ON PLANET EARTH. THEY ALL WANT YOU AND THEY ALL WANT YOU WITH HER.”
Xavier just texts:
“Well. No going back now.”
But none of it matters.
Not really.
Because all I care about is one girl.
One screen.
One pair of eyes somewhere out there.
Jade’s phone.
And when the views hit ten million…
I know for a fact that someone, somewhere, is tagging her nonstop.
And eventually, inevitably—
she’s going to see it.