CHAPTER 8- Lia's Game
1142 Words
Rumors at Edenvale were not whispers—they were predators. They slithered under doors, curled through hallways, and grew fangs the moment someone gave them fuel. And lately, Lia was the spark, the match, the whole wildfire.
Ever since Ryan had defended Ami before the Ethics Committee, Lia’s social media glowed with public virtue. Her posts were immaculate: quotes about loyalty, soft-lit photos of her serving punch at the alumni gala, captions about “protecting our community.” Her smile said I am grace, but her words breathed I am the one who really knows what’s best.
Ryan saw through every layer of the performance—and the truth unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
He was cutting across the quad when Lia stepped into his path. Silk, perfume, and carefully crafted exhaustion. Even her messy hair was curated.
“Ryan,” she murmured, soft as a confession. “Can we talk?”
He stopped. Kayla’s warning—be careful—echoed like a pulse in the back of his mind. But under the caution, something familiar twisted inside him. Lia had always been capable of stirring that—tenderness, memory, the dangerous ache of what almost was.
“What do you want, Lia?” he asked, voice low.
She held his gaze, then let her smile fall in a way that looked painfully genuine. “I’m worried about you. Your father’s reaction, the campus turning on you…it’s cruel. I didn’t want any of it.” Her voice trembled. “Let me help.”
His jaw tightened. “Why? Because you love the drama? Or because you still think you own me?”
Her flinch was real. “Because I know what it’s like to be a trophy. To be seen as a position, not a person. I thought being powerful meant being safe.” She swallowed hard. “It doesn’t.”
For one crackling moment, he saw her—stripped of the crown, stripped of the cruelty—just a girl terrified of slipping out of relevance.
“Lia…” he began.
She stepped closer, voice dropping. “Let me stand with you publicly. Let me guide the narrative. Let me protect you.” Her fingers grazed his arm—light, burning. “In private, I won’t pretend. But publicly? I can be the shield they won’t give you.”
He thought of his father’s cold disappointment. Sponsors and cameras. Life sculpted into headlines.
Then he thought of Ami: fragile but brave, kneeling alone in the chapel, refusing to let shame define her.
He stepped back. “No.”
Lia froze. The softness vanished like it had never existed.
“You don’t get to say no,” she whispered.
“I do,” Ryan answered, steady. “And I won’t use people as props.”
Lia’s smile turned brittle. “Nobility doesn’t save anyone. It only feeds the wolves.”
He didn’t argue. He simply walked away, her voice clinging to him like a bruise.
---
Lia adapted quickly—like she always did.
She messaged a student columnist, her concern dripping in just enough poison. She posted photos of herself at a community outreach event, face glowing with repentant grace. But beneath the strategy lived something she never fed the public: a hollow ache. Because late at night, when the lights in Davenport House faded low, she replayed the chapel moment—Ryan looking at Ami with a softness she’d never earned.
That memory scared her. It made her sharp. And sharp people made sharp moves.
---
Ami felt the weight of silence more than any rumor.
The Ethics Committee “delay” stretched into days. Faculty avoided eye contact. Students stared. Whispered. Judged.
At night, she drew until her fingers cramped—lines becoming prayers, shadows becoming petitions. One sketch lingered: two hands reaching but not touching.
Her DAISY internship—a tutoring program—became her refuge. Children were honest. They didn’t measure her worth through gossip. Little Naomi tugged on her sleeve and asked about “the pretty lady in the chapel.”
Ami laughed, soft and uncertain. For a moment, she felt steady again.
But the rest of campus kept closing around her. Administrators urged “discretion.” Emails asked for “clarification.” Her world shrank into corners and shadowed hallways.
One afternoon on the riverwalk, she felt Ryan before she saw him. Tired eyes. Hood up. Breath visible in the cool air.
“You came,” she said.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about that drawing,” he replied.
“You saw it?”
“I see you,” he said simply.
Something inside her trembled.
“You should avoid Lia,” she whispered.
“I know.” His jaw flexed. “But she’s lonely.”
“So am I,” Ami said. “But I don’t weaponize it.”
His eyes softened. “Some truths ruin us. Some truths free us first.”
She didn’t take his hand—but when he took hers, she didn’t pull away.
---
Lia made her next move at the fundraiser gala.
Crystal chandeliers. Too much perfume. Faces polished by old money and new ambition.
Ami arrived quietly, in a soft dress that didn’t seek attention—but drew it anyway. Ryan saw her first. His breath caught.
Lia saw her second. Her smile sharpened.
She intercepted Ami with social grace dipped in venom. “You look lovely,” Lia purred.
“Thank you,” Ami replied, composed even in exhaustion.
“It’s brave of you to attend,” Lia continued.
“I didn’t come to be brave,” Ami said softly. “I came to be present.”
Lia’s smile tightened. “How noble.”
The words rang across the ballroom, and heads turned. Cameras too.
Ami’s stomach flipped. Public pity was heavier than shame.
Ryan stepped forward. “Stop,” he said—firm, final.
Lia’s gaze cut like ice. “Careful, Ryan.”
He ignored her, offering Ami his hand. Ami accepted—not rescued, but recognized.
Whispers ignited like kindling. The rumor mill shifted gears.
Lia watched them walk toward the center of the ballroom—hand in hand. Her face remained perfect, but something in her eyes fractured.
Not jealousy. Not hurt.
Something darker.
Something calculating.
And as the music swelled, she turned away, her mind already threading new pieces into place.
Because if tonight had taught her anything…it was that the real battle had just begun.
And Lia never lost a battle.
Not willingly.
Not gently.
Not ever.
What no one in that ballroom knew—not Ami, not Ryan—was that Lia had already set something in motion. Something irreversible. Something that would shatter the fragile peace between them all.
And before the week was over, one of them would face a choice that would change everything.
- Writer
