Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
FRANKIE
Idon’t remember saying goodbye.
Not really.
One minute Archie’s hand was still warm against my cheek, his eyes doing that impossible thing where they looked both furious and gentle at the same time—and the next, I was sitting alone inside the car, air slamming back into my lungs like I’d been underwater too long.
He’d said he’d be right behind me, that he just needed to run home for a minute and change then he’d “be there in no time.” For this bizarre moment that seemed both trapped in amber and stuck in fast forward, I clung to his assurance.
I drove away still tasting coffee and confusion, running my thumb over the same spot on my lower lip like it could tell me what the hell just happened.
The road blurred by in soft streaks of morning light. I kept catching glimpses of violet hair in the rearview mirror and feeling like I was looking at a stranger. A stranger who made terrible choices and kissed people she maybe shouldn’t have—unless everything she’d been told was a lie.
And God, I wanted it to be a lie.
The steering wheel was slick against my palms. I rolled the window down just enough to let the wind hit my face, hoping it would clear my head.
It didn’t. My pulse was still stuttering, trying to decide if it belonged to the girl who used to follow the rules or the one who’d just let her best friend kiss her like the world was ending.
The worst part?
I kissed him back.
He wasn’t even the first of the guys I’d kissed now and—who was I anymore? Coop. Jake. My heart did a vicious squeeze at the memory of Jake and his reactions. Now Archie.
Archie.
Somewhere between panic and wanting, I’d stopped thinking and just… let go. I could still feel the shape of it—his breath, the tremor in his hands, the tiny, broken sound I’d made that wasn’t protest.
Now?
Now I was supposed to go to school like nothing happened.
“Totally fine,” I muttered to the empty car, forcing a humorless laugh. “Everything’s fine. Definitely not unraveling before first period.”
Traffic thinned as I hit the last stretch toward campus. The sun had started to climb higher, throwing gold through the windshield. It made everything look too bright, too ordinary. Like the world had the audacity to keep turning when mine had just cracked down the middle.
My phone buzzed against the console.
For one wild, stupid second, I thought it was Archie—maybe saying he was already on his way, maybe saying something I wasn’t ready to hear.
It wasn’t.
Mathieu:
Still picking me up?
My heart dropped so fast it made me dizzy.
Oh, God.
Mathieu.
I’d completely forgotten. Forgotten him, the plan, the promise. Forgotten everything except the chaos that was Archie’s mouth and Maddy’s words and my entire life flipping inside out.
A hot flush of guilt crawled up my neck. I glanced at the clock. We had time. I wasn’t that late. There was still another forty something minutes before the first bell. He’d probably been standing out there waiting like an idiot while I was busy losing every ounce of moral high ground I’d ever had.
“Shit.” I thumped the steering wheel once, hard. “Shit, shit, shit.”
I fumbled for my phone at the next red light, typing too fast.
Me:
On my way. So sorry. Got distracted.
It was the kind of excuse that could mean anything and did.
Mathieu:
No worries. I can grab a ride with Simon. See you soon?
Relief struck, almost too much relief. Where I’d been looking forward to seeing him before, today, I’d just—forgotten. Forgotten I was going to pick him up. Forgotten him.
Me:
Okay, sorry again!
Relief and shame hit at the same time—twin punches, one right after the other. He wasn’t mad. Of course he wasn’t. Mathieu never really got mad.
The light turned green before I could even process whether to tell him the truth. My stomach twisted with the kind of dread that wasn’t about traffic or tardiness but about the fact that I suddenly didn’t know who I was supposed to be for anyone anymore.
For Mathieu, I was supposed to be his girlfriend.
We weren’t “labeling” it. But we were dating.
Mostly. Though he didn’t want to ask me to go to homecoming.
Nor did he want me to ask him. So what did that make us now?
There was something both reliable and utterly unsettled at the same time. Were we casual? Serious? I didn’t know.
Then there were the guys. My best friends. They were all so different, yet so inextricably a part of my life. That part seemed utterly in flux now.
For Jake… I was a disappointment now. Maybe that was harsh.
But he’d been so angry. He’d also outed me to most of our class for being active with Mathieu.
He’d apologized but what was between us had shifted dramatically.
I’d always thought of us as being the ones who pushed each other, to be better, to be blunt, to be ourselves.
The question was who were we to each other now?
For Bubba… I was still his friend, but he wanted me to be more. A possibility. How had he put it? Don’t just limit myself to one guy? He’d also asked me to homecoming. Jake had too, but Jake was pretty sure I wouldn’t want him to take me after everything.
A dull thud began to pound behind my eyes.
For Coop… Coop had been my best friend the longest. I couldn’t remember a time in my life that he hadn’t been a part of it.
Nor did I want to imagine one without him.
If anything, the summer apart from them had hurt.
As angry as I was with all four of them for the choices they’d made for me, I had missed them.
Throw in the weekend’s posts regarding their summer of debauchery and Coop’s own confessions—I couldn’t focus on that. Just that single beat of memory made my stomach twist painfully and hurt my heart so damn much. I didn’t understand their choices.
Any of them.
I couldn’t pretend that I did.
Not understanding certainly didn’t keep you from kissing Archie, did it?
The snide little voice sounded a little like Rachel. But for all the shit she might give me, Rachel had come through this past weekend. She’d been there for me every damn minute and even managed to make me laugh when all I’d wanted to do was cry.
Still, who I was for all of them, including Rachel, was so damn different. But for Archie? Who I was for him… I didn’t know. He wanted me and if I’d had any doubts, the way he’d kissed me had erased them.
The worst part of all of it was I should feel a hell of a lot more guilt and shame than I did. I felt bad about forgetting to pick Mathieu up, not for kissing Archie.
What the hell did that say about me?
By the time the school lot came into view, I had no answers for any of it. Not about Maddy. Not about Mr. Standish. Not about the guys or Mathieu.
I pulled into my usual spot and sat there with the engine still running, both hands on the wheel. The coffee smell still lingered, sweet and bitter all at once. I wanted to rewind—to five minutes ago, hell to five months ago, to before any of this had happened.
But there was no rewinding. Only forward. As I sat there, staring at the school while my engine rumbled and the a/c kept me from sweating to death, the parking lot steadily filled with people who had no idea the world had just tilted off its axis.
I exhaled slowly, turned off the ignition, and whispered to no one, “You’re fine. Just act fine.”
Then I grabbed my backpack, checked the mirror one last time—blonde and violet, guilt and confusion—and stepped out into the day that was going to ruin everything.
The hallway hum hit like it always did—lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking, someone’s laughter echoing too loud for how early it was. Usually it was a sound that grounded me. Today it scraped nerves that already felt flayed raw.
I kept my head down, eyes fixed on the floor tiles I’d walked a thousand times before, like if I just kept moving I’d remember how to be the version of myself that fit here. The one who knew where to sit, what to say, how to smile at the right people in the right way.
Backpack strap cutting into my shoulder, I made my way to the cafeteria. The smell of burnt toast and syrup hit before I even cleared the doors. Sometimes that scent made me hungry—okay, most of the time it did—but today, it just turned my stomach.
Jake and Bubba were already at our usual table in the back corner, two half-empty orange juice bottles between them, arguing about something with the focused intensity that followed them off the practice field. Flickers of images from the videos I’d seen danced across my mind’s eye.
Shoving them away as Jake spotted me, I tried to summon up a normal smile. What was normal? No clue. For the most part, Jake actually looked a little relieved. The pockets of conversation around me bottomed out abruptly as I passed and then restarted behind me.
Yeah, that was subtle.
Bubba’s head followed his line of sight, and when he saw me, his whole face lit up. “Hey,” he said as I got close. “You decided to grace us with your presence!” It came out a bit harsh, but the way he waved it off suggested it wasn’t intentional.
His reaction seemed a bit over the top, but I hadn’t actually answered any of their messages over the weekend. So, maybe the fault was with me. I tried for a smile again. It probably looked more like a grimace. “Morning,” I said, sliding my bag down next to the chair across from them.
“You okay?” Jake leaned forward abruptly, pale blue eyes narrowing slightly. “You look—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I warned, dropping into the chair. My voice came out way lighter than I felt, a flimsy kind of humor I didn’t even believe.
He lifted his hands in mock surrender but didn’t stop watching me. Jake never did subtle well. His attention had a way of pressing against your skin until you either confessed or snapped.
“Archie’s running late,” Bubba warned me like I wasn’t aware. Which, to be fair, was unusual for Archie.
Jake shot a glare toward the entrance to the cafeteria. “He’s never late.”
The reminder landed like a physical thing.
I looked down at the table, at the condensation ring from someone’s water bottle had spread against the old wood like a stain.
Archie wasn’t here because he was changing.
Because he’d met me early. Because Maddy said that Mr. Standish was my father.
A fact that Archie not only disputed, he denied on every level.
Genetically, he was right about blue and green eyes.
And because, to prove his point, we’d kissed and the world had tilted and I was the only one who seemed to notice.
“Probably a long line at Starbucks,” I offered, maybe it was too quickly because despite the various conversations and pointing going on around us, Jake focused on me.
Before I could scramble for another excuse, however, he tilted his head, studying me. “Wait. Did you forget Coop?”
The question hit like cold water. My stomach dropped. “What?”
Jake frowned, confusion flickering into something like disbelief.
“Coop. Six foot one-ish, not bad looking, blond hair, goofy smile, and your best friend since you were five.” He made it sound like a recitation.
“He lives a few doors down from you at the apartments. Typically hitches a ride with you because he doesn’t have a car. ”
I had forgotten Coop. Not that he existed, but that he might need a ride. Of course he needed a ride. I was his ride, but I hadn’t really thought about that after he came by the day before…
Bubba elbowed Jake hard enough to make him oomph out a harsh breath. “Ignore him, Frankie. Archie said he’d be late because he was swinging by to grab Coop.”
Jake scowled. “I was just—”
“Nothing,” Bubba cut in, his tone easy but firm and the look he gave Jake wasn’t friendly. “Let’s stop giving Frankie shit, she’s actually talking to us.”
Looking away first, Jake muttered something under his breath. The tension eased, but the heartsick feeling didn’t go away. If anything, it seemed even worse. I was talking to them.
But I wasn’t really thinking about their fallout and what they’d—something icy cold splashed me, jerking me back to the present. Laughter exploded through a silence so jagged it left slices behind. Across from me, Bubba and Jake were both on their feet—and soaking wet.
The scent of bad ice and a little too much chlorine made my nose itch. Eyes hard and expression grim, Jake turned his anger on the two girls from the cheer squad who’d upended the huge bucket over both of them.
More raucous laughter tittered out and there was more than one phone in hand.
“You—” Jake started, but Bubba gripped his biceps.
“Let it go,” he said in a low voice that didn’t carry past us. I barely heard it.
The look of shock that Jake sent toward Bubba was enough to make me wince. As for the cheerleaders, they looked pretty wrecked for being the ones to douse the guys.
“Miss Camden. Miss Ryan.” The vice principal’s voice rang across the suddenly less festive cafeteria as she marched across the room, heels clicking. “My office. Now.”
“Rhys. Benton.” Coach was not even two steps behind the vice principal. “Let’s go…”
“We didn’t do anything,” Jake started, but another hard look from Bubba shut him up. “Fuck me,” Jake muttered, then slanted a look at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah—are you okay?” Bubba doublechecked, giving me a once over. I was damp, and there were droplets of water on my face, but I’d missed most of the mess.
I nodded, but Coach whistled before I could say anything else and that earned another scowl from Jake. “We’ll be back,” he said, clearly pissed, as they grabbed their bags and went.
As they left, someone from the janitorial staff headed over to mop up the water and I just sat there, waiting for… something. Around me the cafeteria noise swelled once again.
My brain wouldn’t stop replaying the kiss. The way Archie’s voice had gone rough when he said you’re not my sister, the way I hadn’t pulled away.
Someone dropped a tray. Someone else shouted across the room. People were already posting new messages and images. My phone vibrated in my pocket, but I didn’t pull it out.
The whole world sat skewed, tilted unsteadily. Nothing was the same. Nothing. And me? I was sitting here pretending I hadn’t just detonated the only piece of normal I had left.