Chapter 28
ETHAN
Iwake to sunlight filtering through unfamiliar curtains and Piper’s hair tickling my nose. She’s pressed against me, soft and warm, one leg tangled between mine. Last night comes flooding back—the movies, the laughter, the way she came apart in my hands whispering my name.
I should feel content. Happy. Instead, there’s this restless energy humming under my skin.
“Morning,” I murmur, kissing the top of her head.
“Mmm. Too early.”
“Want coffee?”
“Want sleep.” But she's smiling against my skin.
I stretch, noticing her notebook beside my phone. It's open, covered in her neat handwriting. Game design notes? I lean over to look closer, curious what she's working on.
The words hit me like ice water.
“Violet particle effects.” “Tower destruction sequence.” “Six hours to heartbreak.”
My chest tightens.
No.
No way.
But I'm already reading more. There—“shock doesn't equal catharsis” and “earn your devastation.” The exact fucking words from ButterBoi69's critique. The one that's been eating at me for days.
“This is about Fault Line.”
She sits up abruptly, sheet clutched to her chest. “Ethan—”
“You're ButterBoi69.” The words taste bitter. “You reviewed my game. You tore it apart.”
My mind is racing, calculating. Twenty percent of my grade. That review—that fucking 2 out of 5—brought my average down to a B-minus. In my best class. The one that's supposed to prove I'm not wasting my life.
“I can explain—”
“'Manipulative.' 'A slap in the face to anyone who invested their time.'” I'm quoting from memory now, her written words burned into my brain. “That was you.”
Dad's voice echoes in my head: “When this all falls apart, you'll come crawling back. Hardware store's always hiring.”
The hardware store. Ten-hour shifts selling screws and pretending I'm grateful for the opportunity. That's what her review might have just condemned me to.
“That's not all I said—”
“You gave me two stars, Piper. TWO.” My hands are shaking. “Do you know what that did to my average? I needed to maintain at least a B+ for the scholarship board to take me seriously. For studios to even look at my portfolio.”
She's gone pale. Good. Maybe she's finally understanding.
“When did you figure it out?” My voice cracks. “Before or after we fucked?”
She flinches. I want her to flinch. I want her to hurt like I'm hurting.
“Ethan, please—”
“When, Piper?”
She pulls the sheet tighter, looking small and guilty. “The night of the party.”
The night of the party. Before I helped her reclaim her bench. Before I told her about my dad, about the hardware store, about how much I needed this to work. Before I specifically said I needed honesty after Paige.
“So when I told you about my game, about how much the reviews mattered, you knew. When I explained that my dad was watching my grades through the portal, waiting for me to fail, you knew.” My voice is rising.
“When I said the review made me doubt everything, made me wonder if maybe I should just give up and go work at the fucking hardware store, you knew.”
“I didn't know how to tell you!”
“Bullshit.” The word explodes out of me. “There were so many opportunities, Pip. So fucking many.”
I'm yanking on my jeans, can't stand being naked in front of her. Vulnerable. Exposed. Just like I was with Paige.
“I was scared—”
“Of what?” The words come out strangled. My chest feels exactly like it did that night at the party when I saw Paige grinding against Brody. That same sick, hollow feeling. Like the floor's disappearing beneath me. “Scared I'd find out you think I'm wasting my time like everyone else?”
“That's not—”
My hands are shaking. Actually shaking. I have to grip the dresser to steady myself. “Except you're worse because you made me believe you were different.”
“I do believe in you!”
“No, you don't.” The room is spinning slightly. I'm having trouble breathing. “You wrote that my game was manipulative. Unearned. A waste of six hours. You picked it apart piece by piece, just like—”
I have to stop. The parallel is too perfect, too cruel. Paige picking apart our relationship with her friends while telling me she loved me. Piper picking apart my game while telling me she believed in me.
“That's not what I think—”
“It's what you wrote. In detail. With examples.” My shirt is halfway on and I realize I'm struggling with it because my hands won't stop trembling. This is pathetic. I'm pathetic. “God, I'm such an idiot. I did it again.”
“Did what again?”
“Fell for someone who was laughing at me behind my back.” The words taste like bile.
“At least Paige had the decency to cheat obviously. You just... sat there. Watching me spiral about the review, knowing you wrote it, probably thinking how dramatic I was being about your totally justified criticism.”
She's crying now, silent tears sliding down her face, and it reminds me so much of Paige's tears when I confronted her. The same guilty, caught expression.
“I trusted you, Piper.” My voice cracks completely. “I trusted you with everything. My dad, my fears, my—”
I have to turn away because I'm about to cry and I refuse to cry in front of her. Not when she's the one who lied.
“Every day you didn't tell me feels like a choice. Like you chose protecting yourself over trusting me.” The words are coming out broken now. “You had so many chances—fuck, even last night when I told you about Professor Long, about how scared I was.”
“I know—”
“Do you remember what I said about Paige?
About how the worst part wasn't the cheating but everyone knowing except me?” I'm gripping the doorframe now because my legs feel weak.
“You did the exact same thing. You knew this huge thing about us, about my work, and you just..
. kept it to yourself. Let me look like an idiot who didn't know the truth about his own relationship.”
“That's not what happened—”
“Then what happened, Piper? Because from where I'm standing, you're just another person who thought I was too stupid to handle the truth.”
“Stop saying that about yourself—”
“Why? It's clearly what you think. What everyone thinks.” My chest is so tight I can barely breathe. “No wonder Miles chose Harper.”
The words come out before I can stop them, born from the same cruel place that made Paige tell me I was “just a placeholder.”
She gasps like I've physically hit her, and immediately I want to take it back. But I can't stop now.
“You can't even be honest with someone who actually wants you. Maybe he saw what I was too stupid to see—that you're so broken you'll sabotage anything good rather than risk being real.”
“You're right,” she whispers, and the defeat in her voice makes my stomach turn.
She's not fighting back. Not defending herself. Just... accepting it. Like I've confirmed her worst fear about herself.
For a second, the anger cracks and I see what I'm doing. I'm being my father. I'm being Paige. I'm taking someone's insecurity and using it as a weapon.
But the hurt is sitting in my chest like a physical weight, making it hard to breathe, and I can't stop.
“I need to go.” I grab my phone with shaking hands, can't look at her anymore. “I need space to think.”
“What about tutoring?”
Even now she's thinking about assignments. About grades. About everything except the fact that she just destroyed us.
“I'll figure it out.” I head for the door, my body moving on autopilot because if I stop moving, I'll collapse. “I just... I can't do this right now.”
“I'm sorry,” she whispers.
“Yeah.” I pause at the door, finally look back at her. She's curled into herself, looking exactly as broken as I feel. “So am I.”
I close the door and immediately have to brace myself against the hallway wall. My legs give out and I slide down to sit, head between my knees, trying to breathe through what is definitely a panic attack.
Because it happened again. I let someone in, gave them everything, and they kept secrets that mattered. They looked at me and decided I wasn't worth the truth.
The worst part is that for a moment there, I became exactly what I hate. I became cruel. I used her deepest insecurity against her just like Paige used mine against me.
But I can't go back in there. Can't fix it. Because right now, all I can feel is the familiar ache of being betrayed by someone I loved.
And the ninety-four percent compatibility feels like the universe's cruelest joke yet.
I barely make it to my car before my legs give out. I collapse into the driver’s seat, hands shaking so badly I can’t get the key in the ignition.
The panic hits in waves. My chest feels crushed, like someone’s standing on it. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. All I can see is Piper’s face when I said those things. The way she just... accepted it.
No wonder Miles chose Harper.
What the fuck did I just do?
My phone buzzes. I fumble for it, hoping—
But it’s just Discord. A notification from the game dev channel. Someone else reviewing my game. Calling it brilliant.
I throw the phone into the passenger seat and finally lose it. Sobbing like I haven’t since the night I found out about Paige. Ugly, body-shaking sobs that feel like they’re tearing me apart.
Because I know the truth that I couldn’t admit in there.
Piper’s nothing like Paige.
Paige lied because she didn’t care.
Piper lied because she cared too much.
And I just destroyed her for it.