Chapter 1: The Cancelled Text
The screen of my phone glared up at me from my rumpled comforter, a stark rectangle of light in the dim dorm room. It was past eleven, and the only other illumination came from my laptop, where a Euphoria episode I hadn’t actually been watching glitched on a silent loop. The air smelled like lavender body spray and the stale, sweet ghost of yesterday’s iced coffee.
My stomach was a tight knot of anticipation I hated myself for feeling.
When it finally buzzed, the vibration against the fabric was too loud.I snatched it up.Harry: Game ran late.Coach is pissed. Gonna crash at the frat.Rain check?Three dots.Then:
Harry: Sorry, Nix.
I stared at the two messages.The blue light washed out my skin.Rain check. Like we had tickets to a concert, not a predetermined, clandestine thing where he’d let himself into my room after midnight, spend an hour in my bed, and slip out before dawn. No goodnight, no good morning. Just a phantom warmth on the sheets and a hollowness under my ribs that took days to fade.This was the third rain check this month.
A hot, sharp pressure built behind my eyes.I swallowed it down, tasting bitterness.I threw my phone. It hit the fluffy rug beside Aria’s bed with a dull thud, harmless.
The door swung open. Aria Montgomery stood there, her arms laden with her art history textbook and a vending machine bag of chips. She took one look at my face, a face I hadn’t even managed to arrange into something neutral, and dumped everything on her desk.
“He canceled.”
It wasn’t a question.I didn’t answer. I just pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, making myself small in the corner of my bed.
Aria sat cross-legged on her rumpled sheets opposite mine, her dark, expressive eyeliner making her concern look more intense. “What did he say?”
“Game ran late.Coach is pissed.” My voice was flat. “The usual.”
“The usual is bullshit,” she said, softly.She hugged a pillow. “You know Spencer has a spreadsheet, right?Of his patterns. The frequency of cancellations directly correlates to weeks after a big win, when his social capital is highest and other options… present themselves.”
I let out a sound that was half laugh, half choke. “Of course she does.”
“She loves you.”
“I know.”
Silence stretched, filled by the distant bass of a party somewhere down the hall.I focused on the frayed edge of my quilt.
“What do you want, Nikki?” Aria asked.Not accusing.Just open.
I picked at the thread.“I want him to not be sorry. I want him to be here.”
“But he’s not.”
“No.”
My phone buzzed again on the floor.We both looked at it. A new, different buzz.A cascade of them.
“That’s the group chat,” Aria said.I didn’t move. With a sigh, she leaned over, grabbed it, and unlocked it—she knew my passcode, just like I knew hers.Her eyes scanned the screen. Her face went still, then carefully blank. It was that careful blankness that made my heart sink into my gut.“What?” I whispered.Wordlessly, she handed me the phone.
It was a photo from Hanna. Hanna, who was at The Vault, an exclusive club downtown her cousin could get into. The photo was dark, all strobe lights and sheened bodies, but Hanna’s flash had carved out two figures crystal clear. Harry, in that familiar gray henley I liked, his head thrown back laughing. And pressed against his side, her manicured hand on his chest, was Sofia Reyes.A sophomore influencer with a million TikTok followers and waist-length honey-blonde hair.
The caption underneath was just Hanna’s trademark knife-emoji.
Then another message from Hanna: He’s not sorry.He’s not tired.He’s just an asshole.
Spencer chimed in immediately: Pattern confirmed.See column G on the shared doc. I’m so sorry, Nikki.Emily: Do you want us to come home?My vision blurred. The photo wasn’t graphic.It wasn’t a kiss. It was just a girl touching him, and him letting her, smiling his easy, charming smile. The same smile he gave me when he was already halfway out the door.The ordinariness of it was the worst part. This wasn’t a secret he’d kept. This was just his life, moving on while I sat in the dark waiting for a text.The knot in my stomach dissolved, replaced by a spreading cold.
“Nikki,” Aria said, her voice firm. “Look at me.”
I dragged my gaze up.“You are not a rain check,” she said, her words deliberate, sharp as tiles. “You are not a backup plan for a Tuesday night. You are a first-choice, all-day-Sunday person. He just doesn’t have the vision to see it.”
The cold inside me ignited, fueled by a raw, choking humiliation.Hanna was typing again.
Hanna: Revenge glow-up starts now.We’re going to Sigma Beta’s party on Saturday. You’re going to look so fire he spontaneously combusts.I’m handling your outfit.
Spencer: I’ll manage logistics and blocking strategies.
Emily: I’ll be on crowd control.Aria reached over and squeezed my ankle.“We’ll be your wall.Your shield. Whatever you need.”
I looked at their messages, these brilliant, fierce girls who mapped out battles for me because they saw I was lost in the war with myself. The cold fire spread to my limbs, burning away the ache, leaving something harder in its place.I picked up my phone. My thumbs flew over the screen.Me: Don’t come home.
I took a deep, shuddering breath that felt like my first real one all night.Me: I’m fine. And we’re going to that party.
I looked at Aria, my eyes dry now, hot.
“I don’t want him back,” I said, and the words surprised me with their truth.“I just want him to see what he walked away from. I want him to look.”
Aria’s mouth curved into a slow, fierce smile. “Then let’s make sure he can’t look away.”
The next three days passed in a blur of conditioned fury. I threw myself into my media ethics paper, the words sharp and precise where my feelings were a tangled mess. I avoided the rec center, the main quad, anywhere his orbit might intersect with mine.My phone was silent. No follow-up text from Harry, no “hey, how are you,” just the vast, echoing proof of my own stupidity.My friends were a militant operation.
Hana arrived Friday night with a garment bag draped over her arm like it contained state secrets.She unzipped it with a flourish. It wasn’t the little black dress I’d expected. It was deep emerald, a slip of crushed velvet that felt like cool water against my skin.The back plunged.The hem hit mid-thigh. It was the color of envy, of money, of something old and powerful.
“You’ll wear your hair down, those purple curls wild. No tame buns,” Hanna instructed, applying a perfect wing of liquid eyeliner to my lid with the steady hand of a surgeon.“We’re not hiding. We’re announcing.”
Spencer, perched on my desk chair, scanned a digital map on her tablet.“Sigma Beta’s house is a split-level. Main dance floor in the basement, kitchen and main chill area on first, rooftop deck accessible only via the back staircase from the second-floor hall.That staircase is the choke point. Emily will be stationed at the base of the stairs to the roof. If he tries to follow you up, she’ll block.”
“And if he gets pushy?” I asked, my voice sounding foreign to me, lower.
“Then Zabdiel De Jesús will have a word,” Aria said from her bed, sketching angrily in her pad. “Christopher Vélez told Spencer that their whole crew is going.They think Harry’s a clown. They’ve got your back.”
I knew of them. The International Club—not a formal thing, just a loose collective of guys from the global business program who moved with a kind of effortless, untouchable cool. They were background characters in my story with Harry, existing at the edges of parties, speaking in a mix of Spanish and English, always looking mildly amused by the fraternity machismo. The fact that they knew my name, knew the situation, sent a strange thrill through me. This wasn’t just girl-world gossip anymore.This had scale.
Saturday night, in our dorm room thick with the smell of hairspray and ambition, I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. The girl who stared back was all sharp angles and simmering intensity. The dress clung and gleamed.My hair was a violent purple cloud.I looked like a weapon.
“He’s not going to know what hit him,” Hanna murmured, satisfied.
Spencer adjusted the thin silver chain on my neck.“Remember, you hold the power.You don’t go to him. You let the scene come to you.We’ve choreographed the space. He’ll have to navigate through us.”
The Sigma Beta house pulsed like a dying star, bass thumping through the foundation into the cracked sidewalk.Bodies spilled out onto the porch, red cups held aloft. The air was ripe with spilled beer and cheap cologne.My squad moved as a unit. Hanna first, a blaze of glossy confidence, clearing a path. Spencer, a cool presence in a classic blazer, her eyes scanning the terrain.Emily and Aria flanked me, a buffer of steady solidarity.
We breached the front door.The heat was immediate, a wall of sound and sweat. Strobe lights cut through the haze, illuminating flashes of grinding couples, shouted conversations, a guy vomiting delicately into a potted plant.It took less than sixty seconds to find him.
Harry was holding court near the keg, surrounded by his teammates.Liam was there, looking earnest and slightly uncomfortable. Niall was laughing at something, his head thrown back. Louis was smirking, elbowing Zayn, who just stared into his drink, a silent statue. And Harry—his arm was slung around the shoulders of the influencer from the photo, Sofia. She was preening, touching his wrist.Then he saw me.His laugh died mid-syllable. His green eyes widened, then narrowed, tracking me from the doorway, across the room, as we beelined for the stairs to the basement dance floor.His gaze was a physical touch, a hot brand across my skin. I felt it.I didn’t acknowledge it.
I let my lips curve, just a little, at something Aria said. I threw my head back and laughed, the sound lost in the music but the gesture clear.Carefree.Untouchable.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him disentangle himself from Sofia.The basement was a throbbing cave of bodies. We claimed a spot near a pillar, a strategic column of relative space. Hanna immediately started dancing, pulling me into the movement.The music was all consuming. For a moment, I just let it swallow the panic, the hurt, the plotting.I moved, and it felt good.
Then I saw Christopher Vélez.He was leaning against the opposite wall, talking to Joel Pimentel. His eyes met mine, and a slow, knowing smile spread across his face. He pushed off the wall and began moving through the crowd, not toward me directly, but on a tangent that brought him into my sphere.
He didn’t ask.He just slid into the space near me, his movements fluid and confident. He leaned in, his breath warm against my ear. His cologne was clean, like expensive soap and night air.
“He’s watching,” Christopher murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the noise.“His drink is sweating all over his hand.”
I turned my head slightly. Our faces were close.From across the room, it would look intimate. “Good,” I breathed back.Christopher’s smile widened. He started to dance with me, a respectful distance but with an undeniable heat.His hands hovered near my waist, his body matching the rhythm. He was all suggestion and charm, a perfect prop. “Let’s give him a show, then.”
I caught a glimpse over Christopher’s shoulder. Harry was at the edge of the dance floor now, Liam’s hand on his arm, holding him back. Harry’s face was tight, his jaw a hard line.He was glaring at Christopher’s back.A different kind of warmth spread through me. Not desire, but power.Sweet, cold power.
Christopher leaned in again, his lips brushing my ear. “He looks like he’s about to get a red card.”
I laughed, a real one this time, and let my hand rest on Christopher’s shoulder. Harry took a step forward.
And Zabdiel De Jesús materialized, a tall, calm sentinel, placing himself casually in Harry sigh line of sight.He didn’t look at Harry. He just started talking to Joel, a wall of relaxed, imposing presence.Harry stopped.The music swelled.The lights flashed. Christopher whispered something in Spanish,
The lights flashed. Christopher whispered something in Spanish, his voice a low, intimate rasp against the pulse of the music. "Él no es digno de tu enojo, sólo de tu olvido."
He is not worthy of your anger, only your forgetting.A shiver, sharp and electric, raced down my spine. He didn’t know I understood. My abuela’s voice, wrapping me in a blanket and scolding my mother for not teaching me more, echoed in the split-second before I reacted. I let my eyes meet his, a flicker of understanding passing through my haze of performance. I didn’t reply in Spanish. I just smiled, a slow, secret thing, and gave the barest nod.The acknowledgment changed something between us.His playful smirk softened into something more genuine, more dangerous. He saw me, not just the prop in a revenge plot.
Across the room, Harry saw it too.He saw the shiver, the smile, the unspoken communication.His control snapped.
He shook off Liam’s hand and pushed through the crowd, Louis right behind him with a predator’s grin. Zabdiel didn’t move to block him directly—that would have been too obvious, too confrontational. Instead, he and Joel simply shifted, their shoulders closing ranks with Christopher’s back, creating a solid wall of insouciant masculinity. Harry had to veer around them, his progress suddenly clumsy and aggressive.
He reached me just as the song bled into a slower, deeper beat.His hand closed around my wrist. His touch was hot, familiar, and it sent a bolt of pure fury through me.“Nikki. We need to talk.”
Christopher’s hand, which had been hovering near my waist, didn’t move. He just looked at Harry’s grip on my wrist, then up at Harry’s face, one eyebrow arched.
“She’s dancing,” Christopher said, his voice calm and clear over the synth bass.
“Back off, Vélez. This isn’t your business.” Harry’s green eyes were dark, the charming veneer stripped away, leaving raw, panicked entitlement.I wrenched my wrist free. The emerald velvet felt like armor. “He’s right,” I said, my voice cutting through the thrum.“You’re interrupting.”
Harry flinched like I’d slapped him. He was used to my sharp tongue, but never directed at him like this, cold and final. “Nix, come on.One conversation. Five minutes.”
Spencer materialized then, slipping between two dancers, her phone in hand like a baton. “Nikki, Aria’s feeling overwhelmed on the rooftop.She needs you.” The lie was delivered with clinical efficiency.
I didn’t break eye contact with Harry.“You heard her. My friend needs me.”
I turned my back on him.It was the simplest, most devastating move. I felt the weight of his stare between my shoulder blades. Christopher fell into step beside me, his hand now a gentle, guiding pressure on the small of my back as Spencer led the way. Zabdiel and Joel flanked us, a casual, moving perimeter.We ascended the stairs from the basement, leaving the choking heat below. The main floor was barely better, a shifting maze of drunken greetings and spilled drinks. Emily was posted at the bottom of the narrow back staircase that led to the second-floor hall and the rooftop access, just as planned. She saw us coming, saw Harry and Louis pushing through after us, and stepped forward.
“Stairs are clogged,” Emily said, her voice firm, planting her feet. “Give it a minute.”
Harry tried to shoulder past her. Emily, a rock-climbing enthusiast, didn’t budge.“I said wait.”
Louis laughed, a sharp, jarring sound. “Since when do you work security, Fields?”
“Since tonight,” Emily said, her eyes on Harry. “Back up.You’re causing a scene.”
He was.People were staring. Liam caught up, breathing hard.“Har, man, not here. Let it go for tonight.”
“She’s with them?” Harry spat, glaring at the retreating form of Christopher, who was now at the top of the stairs, holding a door open for me. The sight seemed to enrage him further.Upstairs, the hallway was quieter, carpet sticky with unknown spills. Christopher held the door to the rooftop open. “You good?” he asked, his earlier playfulness gone, replaced by a watchful seriousness.
“I’m good.” I stepped past him, my friends flowing out into the cool night air behind me.The rooftop was crowded but less frenetic. String lights buzzed overhead, and the city skyline glittered in the distance. Aria was by the ledge, not overwhelmed at all, but watching the door with wide eyes. She rushed over as soon as she saw me.“What happened?”
“He grabbed my wrist. I left him on the dance floor with Emily as a bouncer.”
Hanna let out a low whistle.“Perfect. The photo’s already circulating.” She wiggled her phone. A blurry but unmistakable picture of Christopher whispering in my ear, my head tilted back in a laugh, with Harry’s furious face visible in the background.“Caption: ‘Vibe shift.’”
The cold night air tasted clean. I walked to the ledge, gripping the cool metal, my knuckles white. The performance adrenaline was leaching away, leaving a shaky hollow behind.The door to the roof banged open again.
It wasn’t Harry. It was Liam, alone, hands up in surrender as my entire squad and the International Club guys tensed. “I come in peace,” he said, his warm hazel eyes finding mine.“Just… five seconds, Nikki. Please.”
Spencer looked at me.I nodded.Liam approached the ledge, standing a respectful foot away. He didn’t look at me, just out at the skyline. “He’s an idiot,” he said quietly. “A colossal, world-class idiot.”
“I know.”
“He knows it too, right now.He’s down there losing his damn mind. Louis is feeding it, because Louis’s an agent of chaos.Zayn just left. Niall’s trying to get him to do shots to calm down.” He finally glanced at me. “I’m not making excuses for him.What he’s done… the canceling, her… it’s shitty. You didn’t deserve any of it.”
I waited.He sighed, rubbing his neck. “I just need to say… the way he is with you, it’s the only time he’s not performing.Even when it’s messed up. It’s the only real thing he’s got. And he’s about to torch it completely because he’s scared of it.”
The words hit a dormant, pathetic place inside me.I steeled myself against them. “His real thing shouldn’t leave me feeling like this, Liam.”
“No,” he agreed, his voice thick.“It shouldn’t.” He pushed off the ledge. “I’ll get him home.Tonight’s done.” He started to walk away, then turned. “For what it’s worth… you look like you’re made of fire tonight. It’s a good look on you.”
He disappeared back through the door.
The group slowly exhaled, the collective tension easing.Christopher leaned against the ledge next to me. “You want us to leave you alone?” he asked.
I looked at my friends—Aria’s steady gaze, Hanna’s triumphant smirk, Spencer’s analytical calm, Emily’s protective solidity. I looked at Christopher, Joel, Zabdiel, who had weaponized their cool on my behalf without asking for a thing.
“No,” I said. The hollow inside wasn’t gone, but it was filling with something else, something warmer and more solid. “I think I want to go back downstairs.”
Hanna’s grin was feral. “Yes.”
“The calculus has changed,” Spencer said, tapping her phone.“His status is diminished. Your control of the space is absolute.”
We moved as a unit again, but the mission had transformed.It wasn’t just about making Harry see anymore. It was about me seeing myself through their eyes, reflected in the stunned, appreciative, and wary looks we got as we descended back into the heart of the party.The basement felt different. The music was the same, the heat was the same, but the atmosphere had shifted. People glanced from me to where Harry stood, isolated now near the keg, Louis talking at him, his face a storm cloud. Then their eyes would slide to Christopher, who stayed near our group, a quiet, unwavering presence.
I danced. Not for him, not for the photo, but for the simple, savage joy of moving in a body that felt powerful again. The emerald velvet was slick with sweat, my purple curls were a wild crown, and for the first time in months, I felt whole in my own skin.Harry watched the entire time.He watched Christopher hand me a water bottle. He watched Zabdiel laugh at something Aria said. He watched as I became the undeniable center of a gravity he could no longer touch.The song ended. There was a momentary lull in the noise, just the ringing in my ears and the heavy thump of the next track beginning. In that second, my eyes met Harry’s across the smoky room.No charming smile, no pleading look. Just a raw, unraveling hunger and a dawning, devastating understanding.He saw it. He finally saw what he walked away from.And he saw that I was already walking away from him.
I turned, smiling at something Hanna shouted, and let the music swallow me whole.