Chapter 1: The Library Betrayal
The library’s oldest wing smelled like dust and dead flowers, a scent that got stuck in the back of my throat. I was supposed to be researching Romantic poets, but my notes were just swirls of ink. Harry’s hand was on my knee under the massive oak table, his thumb tracing lazy circles that made concentration impossible.
“This place is a tomb,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. His fingers slid higher, pushing at the hem of my denim skirt. “Let’s find a better one.”
“Harry, someone will see,” I mumbled, but I was already closing my notebook. My protest was weak, a habit. His smile, all white teeth and green eyes, always unraveled me.
He laced his fingers with mine and pulled me up, leading me deeper into the maze. We passed rows of books no one had touched in decades, their spines crumbling. The single bulb at the end of the aisle flickered, throwing our long, dancing shadows against the shelves. It felt like we were the only people left in the world.
He backed me against the cold metal of a shelf labelled ‘MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE.’ The chill seeped through my thin sweater. He kissed me, deep and hungry, his tongue in my mouth, his hands cradling my face. I sank into it, into him, the papers in my bag forgotten.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he growled, his mouth moving to my neck, sucking hard. A mark. A claim. My head thunked back against the shelves. “About you. About how fucking perfect you feel.”
His hands were everywhere, pulling my sweater up, palming my breast over my lace bra. His calloused thumb rubbed my nipple to a stiff peak. I gasped, the sound too loud in the silent library.
“Shhh,” he murmured, but he was the one being loud. His breathing was already ragged. He shoved my skirt up around my waist, his fingers hooking into the sides of my cotton panties. “Need to feel you. Now.”
He was always like this—impatient, consuming. It usually thrilled me. Made me feel wanted. Needed. Tonight, a tiny, sharp worry pricked my haze. He was rough, fumbling. His other hand was already working on his belt buckle, the metallic clink echoing.
“Harry, wait,” I breathed, but he swallowed the words with another kiss.
“Can’t wait. You’re too fucking much.” He yanked my panties down to my thighs. The cold air hit my wet skin, and I shuddered. He bit my lower lip, a sting of pleasure-pain. “Look at you. So goddamn ready for me.”
He spit into his hand, a crude, swift motion, and slicked himself. I felt the blunt, hot pressure of him against me. He wasn’t asking. He was taking. And a part of me, the part that loved his desperation, arched to meet him.
He pushed inside with one hard, deep stroke. I cried out, my fingers scrambling against the shelves for purchase. The metal rattled.
“Yeah, that’s it. Take it,” he grunted into my neck, his hips setting a brutal, immediate rhythm. Each thrust jarred me against the shelves. It was raw, almost angry. His fingers dug into the flesh of my hips, sure to leave bruises.
I tried to match him, wrapping one leg around his waist, but I was off-balance, pinned. The pleasure was a thick, building wave, forced by the sheer relentless friction. He grabbed a handful of my hair, the blue and purple strands wrapping around his fingers, and pulled my head back to expose my throat.
“You’re mine,” he panted, his thrusts becoming frantic, uneven. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I whimpered, the words a vibration against his lips.
His control was slipping. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face a mask of tense ecstasy. He was close. I could feel the tight coil in my own belly about to snap, built from the sheer physicality of it, the taboo of where we were.
“Fuck, yeah… just like that,” he moaned, his pace punishing. His mouth was slack against my jaw. “So fucking tight for me…”
I held on, nails biting into his shoulders through his t-shirt, chasing my own end in the storm of him.
Then he groaned, a raw, guttural sound that wasn’t my name.
“Kendall… fuck, yes!”
The world didn’t just stop. It shattered.
My entire body went rigid. The building pleasure evaporated, replaced by a cold so profound it felt like my organs had turned to ice. He was still moving, still buried deep inside me, his fingers now clumsily trying to find my clit. His phone, in his front pocket, buzzed violently against my stomach.
A notification. A voice message.
He didn’t stop. He was lost, his hips still pumping, chasing his finish.
The phone buzzed again. And with a final, brutal thrust, he stilled, a long, shuddering groan leaving him as he spilled inside me. He collapsed against me, heavy, panting, his sweat soaking my sweater.
The silence after was deafening, broken only by our ragged breaths. His. Mine. The buzz felt like it had scarred my skin.
Slowly, he pulled out. The wet, hot aftermath trickled down my thigh. He tucked himself away, zipped his jeans, not looking at me. He pulled his phone from his pocket, a soft, fond smile touching his lips as he looked at the screen.
He tapped the voice message. Held it to his ear.
A woman’s voice, husky and intimate, filled the space between the dusty shelves. “Harry… I can’t stop thinking about your tongue.”
The words hung in the parchment-scented air. I was still pinned against the shelf, my skirt around my waist, my underwear a damp tangle at my knees. The cold metal leeched all the warmth from my body.
He finally looked at me. Saw my face. The fond smile faded, replaced by a flicker of panic, then a mask of casual confusion.
“Nikki?” he said, as if he’d just found me there. As if he hadn’t been inside me seconds ago. As if he hadn’t called me by another woman’s name.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I just stared at the phone in his hand, the device that held the voice that had just ended everything.
The silence was a physical thing, thick and choking, like the dust from the shelves had poured down my throat.
Harry’s green eyes darted from my face to the phone and back. The panic solidified into a defensive, practiced calm. He slipped the phone into his pocket, as if hiding the evidence could erase the words.
“Nikki, come on,” he said, his voice low, trying to sound reasonable. He reached for me, his fingers brushing my arm.
I flinched. The touch burned.
“Don’t,” I whispered. The word scraped out of me.
I pushed away from the shelf, my legs trembling, fighting to pull my panties up over my hips. The fabric was soaked, a cold, shameful reminder. My skirt fell back into place with a soft swish. Every movement felt robotic, distant.
“It’s nothing,” he said, running a hand through his tousled curls. A gesture I used to find adorable. Now it just looked like he was adjusting a mask. “Kendall’s just… she’s a friend from the frat. She sends stupid shit like that to everyone. It’s a joke.”
I finally looked at him. Really looked. At the sweat on his temple, at his kiss-swollen lips, at the faint red mark my nail had left on his neck. I saw the ghost of his climax still relaxing his features. And I saw the lie, smooth and ready, sitting behind his eyes.
“You came,” I said, my voice unnervingly flat. “You came saying her name.”
He had the audacity to look annoyed, like I was making a scene over a technicality. “Baby, I was in the moment. It doesn’t mean anything. You know you’re the one I’m with. You felt how much I wanted you.” He stepped closer again, his scent—sweat, cologne, sex—enveloping me. It made my stomach turn. “That was incredible. You’re incredible.”
He was trying to rewrite history. To use the heat of what we’d just done as a blanket to smother what he’d said. To make my body’s betrayal the whole story.
My phone, deep in my bag on the floor, buzzed. Then buzzed again. A lifeline.
I bent down, my movements stiff, and dug it out. Two texts from Lena, my roommate.
Where are you? Study sesh died. Bring wine.
Seriously. Emergency wine levels.
I stared at the screen, the cheerful letters a stark contrast to the crumbling world inside this aisle.
“You’re not listening to me,” Harry said, a edge of impatience in his voice now.
“I heard you,” I said, shoving my notebook and pens into my bag. The slam of the zipper was loud and final. “You said her name. You let her voice message play while you were still… while you were…”
I couldn’t say it. The image was too vivid, too vile. Him pulsing inside me, his mind clearly somewhere else, with someone else.
“It was a mistake,” he insisted, blocking my path to the end of the aisle. His charm was gone, replaced by a frustrated stubbornness. “You’re really going to blow this up? Over a name?”
The absurdity of it hit me like a slap. I was blowing it up. Not him. Not the fact that another woman was thinking about his tongue while his tongue was in my mouth.
“Get out of my way, Harry.”
“No. Not until you calm down and talk to me.”
He put his hands on my shoulders. They were the same hands that had been gripping my hips, pulling my hair, touching me everywhere just minutes ago. Now they felt like restraints.
A cold, clear fury cracked through the numbness.
“Take your hands off me.” My voice was low, steady, and it stopped him. He dropped his hands. “We’re done talking. We’re done.”
I pushed past him, my shoulder knocking against his. I didn’t look back. I walked fast, my heels clicking on the marble, echoing through the silent stacks. I focused on the rhythm of my steps, on the growing patch of chilly dampness on my inner thigh, on the burn in my eyes that I refused to let turn into tears.
I could hear him following. “Nikki, for fuck’s sake. Don’t be like this. You’re being dramatic.”
I hit the heavy oak door of the old wing and pushed out into the brighter, modern lobby. The fluorescent lights were a brutal shock. Students sat at computers, brows furrowed in normal, un-shattered concentration. A normal night. I felt like a ghost moving through them.
He caught up to me at the main exit, grabbing my elbow. “Stop walking away from me.”
I yanked my arm free and turned on him. The fury was white-hot now, sharpening my vision. “What do you want, Harry? You want me to thank you? To tell you it’s okay you called me another woman’s name while you fucked me against a bookshelf? To be cool about the fact that you’re clearly fucking her, or wanting to, or whatever the hell that was?”
A few heads turned. He shifted, his jaw tight, eyes glancing around at the growing audience. “Keep your voice down,” he hissed.
“Or what?” I laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “You’ll fuck me again to shut me up?”
He recoiled. Good.
“It’s not like that with Kendall,” he said, dropping his voice to a tense murmur. “She’s complicated. Her family knows my family. It’s… it’s just messing around. It doesn’t mean shit. You’re my girlfriend.”
The confirmation, even wrapped in a weak excuse, was a fresh wound. “Was,” I corrected him. “I was your girlfriend. Not anymore.”
I turned and shoved the door open, the cool night air hitting my face. I inhaled it like it was medicine.
“Nikki!” he called after me, but his voice was fainter. He wasn’t following onto the quad. Image control. Can’t be seen chasing a hysterical girl. Frat president, soccer star, Harry Styles didn’t chase. He let them come to him.
I walked. I didn’t know where. Just away. The wetness between my legs had gone cold. My body felt used, hollowed out. Every nerve ending that had been alight with pleasure was now screaming with violation. The memory of his weight, his thrusts, his groan—it was all now poisoned, spliced with that voice, that name.
Kendall.
Fuck, yes.
I can’t stop thinking about your tongue.
I reached the shadowy edge of the frat row. The houses were loud, booming with music and laughter. His house, Delta Tau, was at the end. Lights blazed from every window. I could see silhouettes of people dancing, cups in hands.
I stopped under a large oak tree, its branches shielding me from the streetlights. I leaned against the rough bark, finally letting the shaking take over. A sob ripped its way up my throat, raw and painful. I slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle it. I wouldn’t cry here. Not where he might see.
But the tears came anyway, hot and silent, carving paths through my makeup. I sank down onto the damp grass, hugged my knees to my chest, and let the silent shuddering take me. The smell of crushed grass and distant beer filled my nose. From his house, I heard a roar of laughter. A girl’s delighted squeal.
I pulled out my phone. My finger hovered over Lena’s contact. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I couldn’t form the words.
Instead, my thumb, moving on a terrible, masochistic instinct, opened Instagram. I didn’t search for her. She was there, in my suggestions. A verified account.
Kendall Jenner.
The profile picture was a artful, moody black-and-white shot. She was stunning, of course. All sleek lines and effortless cool. I tapped on it. My heart was a frozen rock in my chest.
The most recent post was from three hours ago. A selfie in a dim, stylish bathroom mirror. Her lips were glossy and parted. The caption was a single emoji: a fire.
And the first comment, from harrystyles, was a wink.
The screen blurred. The wink emoji seemed to pulse, a little digital smirk that shot a bolt of pure, undiluted fury straight through my nausea.
He’d just been inside me. He’d just finished. And then he’d winked at her.
A door slammed on the Delta Tau porch. I flinched, shrinking back into the shadows. Two guys stumbled out, laughing. One of them was Liam, solid and reliable. The other was Niall, his blonde hair bright under the porch light. They were heading toward the library.
My heart seized. I couldn’t let them see me like this—mascara likely streaked, clothes disheveled, smelling of sex and despair. I pressed myself against the rough tree bark, holding my breath.
“I’m telling you, man, I’m starving. They cannot call that mystery meat a burger,” Niall’s cheerful voice carried on the cool air.
“Focus, Horan. We’re retrieving our president, who’s probably getting a different kind of protein in the stacks,” Liam replied, his tone dry. “He blew off the pre-game meeting. Coach will have his head.”
“Harry’s got his priorities, I suppose,” Niall chuckled, but it sounded forced. “Hope Nikki’s alright. She seemed quiet at lunch.”
Their footsteps faded. The mention of my name, the casual concern in Niall’s voice, was a fresh ache. These were my friends, too. Or I’d thought they were. They were his first. Frat brothers. Teammates. The loyalty was built in.
I had to move. I pushed myself up, legs stiff, and cut across the dark quad toward my dorm. The wind picked up, cutting through my thin sweater, making me feel even more exposed. Every familiar path felt alien.
The lobby of Hawthorne Hall was brightly lit and empty. The elevator ride to the third floor was a silent, humming torture. I stared at my reflection in the metallic doors—a pale, distorted ghost with wild hair.
The door to 3B was ajar, the sound of some reality TV show spilling into the hallway. I pushed it open.
“Oh thank God, the wine librar— Nikki?”
Lena, Hanna, and Aria were sprawled on our mismatched couches. Aria had her sketchbook on her lap, purple streaks in her hair catching the lamplight. Hanna was meticulously painting her nails a vicious shade of crimson. Lena paused the TV, the sudden silence ringing.
Three pairs of eyes took me in. The cheerful expectation on their faces dissolved into concern, then into a slow-dawning alarm.
“What happened?” Aria asked, her voice low. She closed her sketchbook.
I just stood there, my bag sliding from my shoulder to thump on the floor. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. A violent tremor ran through me.
Hanna was up in an instant, crossing the room. She didn’t hug me. She took my face in her hands, her eyes scanning mine. “Did someone hurt you?”
The directness, the protective fire in her blue eyes, broke the dam.
“Harry,” I choked out.
Aria cursed, a sharp, succinct word. Lena muted the TV entirely.
“What did he do?” Lena’s voice was calm, but her hands were clenched into fists on her knees.
The story spilled out in broken, ugly fragments. The library. The rushed, rough sex against the shelves. The way he’d felt distracted, mechanical. I couldn’t say the name at first. I just said, “He… he said someone else’s name. When he… finished.”
The room went cold with their shared, silent rage.
“Who?” Aria’s question was a blade.
“Kendall. Kendall Jenner.” Saying it aloud made it real in a new, terrible way. “He got a voice message from her right after. He played it. She said…” I swallowed, the words ash. “She said she couldn’t stop thinking about his tongue.”
Hanna’s grip on my face tightened. “That slimy, cheating fuck.”
“And then I saw… on Instagram…” I fumbled for my phone, hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped it. I found the post, thrust it toward them.
They huddled around. The collective inhale was sharp. The photo. The fire emoji. The comment. harrystyles: 😉
“Public,” Lena whispered, her analytical mind already working. “He’s not even hiding it. This is a message. To her. To everyone.”
“He’s humiliating you,” Aria snarled. She snatched the phone, her thumb jabbing at the screen. “Let’s see this bitch.” She went to Kendall’s followers, found Harry, clicked. His profile was public, too. “Look. Look at his likes.”
We crowded around. Scrolling back through the last week, every other like was on a Kendall Jenner photo. A selfie in a car. A shot of her at some art gallery. A picture of a sunset with a caption about ‘moods.’ Each one had his digital stamp of approval.
A fresh, dizzying wave of betrayal hit me. This wasn’t a mistake. It was a pattern. A conversation happening right in front of me, in the open, and I’d been too stupid, too blindsided by his focused attention when he was with me, to see it.
“How long?” My voice was a ghost of itself.
“Does it matter?” Hanna said, but her eyes were soft with pity. “It’s done. He’s done.”
I stumbled to the tiny bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I heaved. Nothing came up but acid and grief. I knelt on the cold tile, sweating and shivering. The memory of the library was now a layered horror: the physical sensation of him, the sound of his pleasure, and now this new lens—he was probably thinking of her. Comparing me to her. Wishing I was her.
Her body would be different. Long, lean, a model’s body. Not soft and curved like mine. He’d always said he loved my curves, that I felt like a woman. Were they just lines? Had his hands been on her that afternoon, before he met me at the library? Had he tasted her?
I vomited again, a painful dry heave.
There was a soft knock. “Niks? Can I come in?” It was Aria.
I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Yeah.”
She slipped in, closed the lid of the toilet, and sat on it. She didn’t touch me. She just handed me a damp washcloth. “Wipe your face.”
I did. The cool cloth was a small relief. I sat back against the bathtub, hugging my knees again. The small room felt like the only safe space left.
“We’re going to burn him to the ground,” Aria said quietly. Her hazel eyes were hard as flint. “But first, you need to feel this. Don’t let him cheapen it by pretending it’s nothing. You got fucked and disrespected in one move. That’s fucking savage.”
Her crude, honest summary cut through the haze. She was right. This wasn’t a simple breakup. It was a violation.
“What do I do?” The question was pathetic.
“You don’t do anything tonight. You stay here. You let us get shit-faced and plot his horrific demise. Tomorrow…” She leaned forward. “Tomorrow, you hold your head up. You go to your classes. You see him, and you look right through him like he’s a ghost. He doesn’t get your tears, Nikki. He doesn’t get one more fucking thing from you.”
There was another knock. Hanna pushed the door open, holding my phone. Her face was pale. “Nikki. It’s him. He’s calling. For the sixth time.”
The phone buzzed in her hand, the screen lighting up with his name and a picture of us from Homecoming, smiling, his arm around me. A relic from a dead world.
“Give it to me,” I said.
Aria and Hanna exchanged a look. Hanna handed it over.
The buzzing was a live wire in my palm. I looked at his face, at my own smiling, trusting face beside him. I felt nothing. A hollow, echoing nothing.
I swiped to answer. I put it on speaker.
“Nikki, Jesus, finally.” His voice was a mix of relief and irritation. “Where are you? We need to talk. You’re overreacting.”
I took a breath. My voice didn’t shake. “There’s nothing to talk about, Harry.”
“Don’t be like that. I fucked up, okay? I said a name. It was a stupid mistake. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” He was using his ‘reasonable’ voice, the one he used in debate class. “Come over. Let me see you. Let me make it up to you.”
The audacity was breathtaking. Let me make it up to you. As if this was a forgotten anniversary, not a soul-crushing betrayal.
“Are you with Kendall?” I asked, the question flat.
A pause. A telling, loaded pause. “What? No. Of course not. She’s just a friend.”
“Do you fuck all your friends, Harry?” My tone was pure ice. “Do you come inside them and then wink at their Instagram posts?”
Silence. A different silence now. The mask was slipping. I could hear the anger brewing underneath. “You’re being a bitch, you know that? A jealous, psycho bitch. Checking my fucking likes? That’s pathetic.”
And there it was. The real him. The charming veneer cracked, showing the rotten core.
“Go to hell,” I whispered.
“You’re nothing without me, Nikki,” he spat, his voice low and venomous. “You were a nobody before I picked you. You’ll be a nobody again. Remember that.”
The line went dead.
The silence in the bathroom was absolute. The words hung in the air, toxic and settling into my pores. You were a nobody before I picked you.
Hanna’s hand flew to her mouth. Aria looked like she wanted to murder someone with her bare hands.
I looked at the phone. I looked at my reflection in the dark mirror over the sink—the flushed skin, the bruised-looking eyes, the hair he’d pulled.
Then I did the only thing that felt right. I stood up, walked to the window, opened it, and threw my phone as hard as I could into the night. We heard a distant, satisfying crunch as it hit the pavement three stories below.
I turned back to my friends. The hollow feeling was filling with something new, something dark and solid and sharp.
“Get the wine,” I said. “And tell me everything you know about Kendall Jenner.”