Chapter 32
Gio
The first rays of a weak, winter sun slice through the blinds, painting dusty stripes across the floor of my dorm room.
The air is stale, thick with the scent of my own sweat and the lingering ghost of Zoe's perfume from where she'd pressed against me last night.
We won. The headline is flipped, the narrative is ours, and the room is silent.
All I feel is the cold, hard weight of my phone in my hand.
I've been awake for hours, watching the digital world burn.
The article is everywhere, shared and retweeted into infinity.
At first, it was a rush. Seeing the comments shift from *Gio Rossi is a predator* to *What is Briarcliff hiding?
* was a fucking drug. I drank it in, a validation so sweet it almost burned.
But the high didn't last. The internet, I'm quickly learning, is a hydra.
Cut off one head of bullshit, and two more grow in its place, uglier and more venomous than the last.
I tap open a thread on a local sports forum I know is a cesspool of rival fans. My eyes scan the text, my stomach already tightening.
Rossi's a punk. Always has been. Thinks he can buy his way out of anything. Bet daddy's lawyers earned their keep on this one. Disgrace to the program.
I grit my teeth, my thumb scrolling faster. This is noise. I've heard worse from my own father. But then I see it. A new comment, flagged with a dozen angry emojis.
You're all missing the point. It's about the ice queen pulling his strings. What's her name? Zoe Barnes. The designer chick.
My blood runs cold. I tap on her name. My screen fills with a picture of Zoe from the university's design department website. She's looking at the camera, her expression neutral, intelligent. The woman looks like an artist. They've turned her into a target.
Total smoke show, I'll give her that. But you know she's loving this.
Probably planned the whole thing. Gets her rocks off on the power trip.
She's a clout chaser, plain and simple. Saw a meal ticket and when he fucked up, she engineered a comeback to make herself look good.
Smart, but cold as ice. Ice queen is right.
You know she's the one who told him to go to that party in the first place.
Probably gets off on watching him beg. Bitch is psycho.
A wave of nausea rolls through me, hot and acidic.
I throw my legs over the side of the bed, the phone feeling like a burning coal in my hand.
Psycho. Clout chaser. They're dragging her through the mud, using words that are designed to degrade, to strip a woman of her power and intelligence and reduce her to a manipulative cunt.
And it's my fault. Every single vile syllable is because of me.
Because I was too arrogant, too scared, too much of a fucking coward to handle my own shit without her.
I stand up, pacing the length of the small room, my bare feet silent on the cheap carpet.
I want to throw my phone against the wall.
I want to find every single one of these anonymous usernames and drag them out into the light.
I'm powerless. The one thing I've always been able to use—my name, my money—is gone.
All I have is this impotent, raging helplessness.
I sink back onto the edge of my bed, my head in my hands.
The image of her last night flashes in my mind.
The way she stood in the middle of that chaotic war room, calm and focused, her mind a razor-sharp weapon while the rest of us were just blunt instruments.
She was trying to keep me from drowning.
She built a shield around me with her own two hands, and now they're calling her a monster for it.
The sickness in my gut twists into something harder, something sharper. It's colder. More deliberate. It's the primal, territorial instinct of a wolf whose mate has been threatened by a pack of snarling, toothless cowards.
I pick up the phone again, my thumb hovering over the screen.
I want to call her. I need to hear her voice, to know she's okay.
But what would I say? Sorry a bunch of incel fucks are calling you a psycho on the internet because I'm a disappointment?
The words would be useless. An apology for a crime I can't begin to atone for.
No. Words are cheap. She told me that herself.
My mind races back to last night, to the hallway outside the bathroom.
I saw the win, the victory, and I thought it was a reset button.
I was an idiot. The article amplified the consequences.
And the first consequence is this: she is now collateral damage in a war that started with me.
The thought solidifies in my chest, heavy and absolute.
I'll be a fucking firewall. I'll be the barrier between her and the filth.
When she sees the article, when she sees the metrics, she won't see this.
I'll make sure of it. I'll take every single poisoned word, every misogynistic insult, and I'll let it hit me.
I'll absorb it. It's the least I can do. It's a start.
The phone drops onto the desk screen-down, as if hiding it can contain the poison. The anger is focused now. It has a purpose. It’s a vow. I’ll protect her from this. I’ll protect her from everything. Even if the thing she needs protecting from most is me.
At the window, the quiet campus stretches out below. The sun is higher now, the day beginning. Somewhere out there, Zoe is waking up. She’s probably already thinking about the next step, the next move. She’s better than the noise. But I am. And from now on, the noise is my problem.
Staying here isn’t an option. The four walls of my dorm room feel like a shrink-wrapped box, suffocating me with the scent of my own failure. The phone on my desk is a black mirror reflecting every mistake I’ve ever made. I have to move.
Hoodie on, then a pair of sweats, my movements jerky, automated. Shoes don’t matter. I just need out. I leave my room without bothering to lock the door behind me and take the stairs down to the empty lobby. The early morning air is sharp and cold, a welcome shock against my skin.
Across the main quad, frost-damp grass sinks slightly underfoot. I’m heading away from the athletic complex, away from the arena, the frat houses, the gym—all the places that define my world, all the places that feel tainted now. The residential side of campus waits ahead. North Hall.
Her dorm number is burned into memory. 312.
I know it from the nights I walked her back, from the time I brought her a coffee before an 8 a.m. final, from the dozen small moments that now feel like artifacts from a different life.
Back then, coming here felt like a conquest, a step into her world on my terms. Now, it feels like a pilgrimage to a sentencing.
The lobby of North Hall smells like floor cleaner and stale microwave popcorn.
I ignore the front desk, my long legs eating up the distance to the stairwell.
I take the steps two at a time, the echo of my own breathing loud in the concrete silence.
The third-floor hallway is quiet, lined with identical doors, each one a closed-off universe I have no right to enter.
I stop in front of 312. My heart is a frantic, panicked drum against my ribs.
I raise a hand to knock, but it freezes, hovering an inch from the wood.
What am I even doing? She told me we were done.
She walked away from the victory party. Showing up here is the definition of crossing a line.
But the images from my phone flash in my mind—psycho, clout chaser, ice queen.
This is about drawing a new one. A line around her. And I'm the only one standing guard.
I knock. Three sharp, decisive raps. The sound is too loud in the silence, an announcement of my intrusion. I wait, my entire body coiled with tension. I hear a faint shuffle from inside, the click of a lock turning. The door swings open.
And there she is. She's wearing an old university sweatshirt that's too big for her, her hair is pulled back in a messy bun, and she looks like she hasn't slept. Her eyes are sharp, intelligent, and currently looking at me like I'm a cockroach that just crawled out of the drain.
"What are you doing here, Gio?" Her voice is flat, devoid of any emotion except a deep, bone-weary annoyance.
"I need to talk to you."
"We talked. I won. You're free."
"The article made it worse. For you," I say, shaking my head, my voice rougher than I intend. I take a half-step forward, crowding her threshold, not letting her shut the door. Her brow furrows, a flicker of genuine confusion breaking through her composure.
"What are you talking about?"
"They're talking about you, Zoe," I say, the words tasting like poison. "Online. They're saying horrible things. And I'm going to be the barrier between you and the filth."
She stares at me, and for a second, the ice cracks. I see a flicker of fear, but it's gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a wall of cold disbelief. "You don't get to protect me, Gio."
"The hell I don't," I bite out, the frustration and guilt I've been stewing in all morning finally boiling over.
"This is my mess. And I will be the one to clean it up.
" I force myself to take a step back, giving her space but making it clear I'm not leaving.
"I'm not leaving until we talk. About this. "
She hesitates, her hand still on the doorknob.
Her eyes flick past me, down the empty hallway, as if weighing her options.
Finally, with a sigh that seems to carry the weight of the world, she steps out into the hall and pulls the door shut behind her, creating a barrier between her and her sanctuary.
"Fine," she says, her voice clipped and sharp as shattered glass. "Talk."
The single word is a gift I don't deserve.
I take a breath, the air catching in my throat.
"I'm sorry," I start, and the words feel pathetic, inadequate.
"I'm sorry for the party. I'm sorry for Brielle.
I'm sorry for being an arrogant, selfish prick who thought he could get away with it.
But that's not the real reason I'm here.
" I force myself to meet her gaze, to let her see the raw, ugly truth in my eyes.
"After you left last night, I started reading the comments.
About me. I can handle the hate. But then. .. they started talking about you."
My voice cracks, and I have to look down at the scuffed linoleum floor.
"They called you an ice queen. A clout chaser.
A psycho. They said you engineered the whole thing, that you get off on the power.
" I look back up, my own shame burning a hole in my chest. "I did that to you, Zoe.
I put you in the crosshairs. I was so busy trying to clear my name that I didn't even think about what it would do to yours.
You built a shield around me, and they're calling you a monster for it.
I'm going to absorb every single shitty thing they say about you so you never have to see it.
It's my penance. I needed you to know that I see what I did. And I'm sorry."
The words hang in the air between us, my confession, my vow. All I can do now is wait for her verdict.