Chapter 4: Exposed
911 Words
Colt's eyes did something I didn't expect.
For just a second — barely a blink — they lit up.
Not with worry. Not with guilt. With something sharper than both of those things. Something that looked a lot like
want.
He wanted me to say yes.
I saw it move across his face before he could pull his mask back on, and what replaced it was almost worse — this
careful, practiced version of concern, his brows pulling together, voice dropping soft.
"Hey. If something's going on, Nora — you can tell me. Whatever you need, I'm here. We'll figure it out together."
The words were perfectly calibrated. Gentle. Reasonable. The kind of thing a good boyfriend would say.
I thought about the voice on the phone yesterday morning. If Nora's out of the running for Caldwell, Brianna's in.
That was the point. Exactly.
My stomach turned.
"Don't," I said.
He blinked. "What?"
I stepped forward and put both hands flat against his chest and pushed. Not hard enough to move him much — he
was built like a wall — but hard enough to make the point.
"Don't touch me. Don't talk to me. Stay away from me, Colt."
I didn't wait for a response. I turned and walked straight through the clinic's front doors and didn't look back once.
* * * * * * * *
Outside, the spring air was cool against my face.
I stood on the Health Center steps for a moment, folder pressed against my chest, and let myself breathe.
The results were straightforward: no pregnancy, no infections, elevated stress markers, some residual effects from the Plan B. The doctor had given me a long, measured look when she handed me the paperwork.
Be more careful next time.
There wouldn't be a next time. Not with Colt. Not with anyone for a good long while.
What stayed with me as I walked back toward the quad wasn't the cramps or the paperwork or even the look on
Colt's face when he thought I might be pregnant — though that image was burned in pretty well. What stayed with
me was how different he'd been outside the Lakeview house last night. The way his whole body language changed around Brianna. The way his voice dropped soft when he pushed that paper bag into her hands.
He'd never once looked at me like that.
Not even close.
The magnolia trees along Harmon's main walk were dropping petals, white against the brick path. I'd walked this
stretch a hundred times with Colt over the past eight months. Two weeks ago, he'd plucked one of those blossoms off a low branch and tucked it behind my ear with that easy grin of his.
Nothing out here comes close, he'd said.
I kept walking and didn't slow down.
Four more days.
* * * * * * * *
By the time I reached the dorm, I could feel it — that low-grade awareness of being watched. Conversations that stopped half a second too late. Eyes that slid away when I looked up. I'd spent enough time on stage to know when a room was performing normalcy at me.
I swiped into the building and barely made it through the door before Eve nearly collided with me in the hallway, phone first.
"Nora." Her voice was tight. "You need to see this right now."
She held the screen out. I took it.
The Harmon U social app. My name in the feed. And photos — explicit, graphic, spreading through the comments
like a brush fire.
For one cold second, my brain went somewhere terrible. Had Colt—
I made myself look closer.
The edits were sloppy. Wrong proportions, obvious seams, lighting that didn't match. And I have a small birthmark
on my left thigh that I've had since I was twelve. Not one of these images showed it.
"They're fake," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "None of them are real."
Eve exhaled. "I know. I know that. But Nora—"
"People won't care that they're fake." I finished the sentence for her. I'd already gotten there. "They'll share them
anyway."
"The comments are—" She stopped. "They're really bad."
I handed her phone back and picked up mine.
"Okay."
"Okay?" She stared at me. "What does okay mean?"
"It means I'm calling campus security first, then the non-emergency police line." I was already scrolling for the
number. "Whoever posted these didn't just cross a line. This is criminal harassment. Defamation at minimum. I'm not stomaching this the way I stomached the locker room jokes."
Eve sat down on the edge of her bed and watched me dial, something between relief and awe on her face.
I wasn't shaking. I thought I would be, but I wasn't.
I had a pretty clear idea who was behind this — or at least who had the motive and the social reach to make
something like this spread this fast. I didn't have proof yet. But I would.
Four more days at Harmon. That was all I needed.
I could burn this down on my way out.
The campus security line rang twice before someone picked up. I opened my mouth to speak—
The door flew open.
Fiona stumbled in, out of breath, one hand gripping the doorframe. "Nora—" She paused to inhale. "Your boyfriend.
He's outside the dining hall. There's a fight."
- Writer
