I FELL FOR THE WRONG GIRL

Chapter 3: Cracks

Ivy’s POV

By the time orientation ended, my name was already moving through the campus like smoke.

People looked at me when I walked past. Some whispered while others openly stared. A girl in the bathroom asked if I was “the one who talked back to Ava.” I didn’t answer. I just washed my hands and left.

Tessa stayed close to me the entire time, like she was afraid someone might push me. Chloe kept checking her phone and muttering under her breath.

“She’s going to make an example out of you,” Chloe said as we walked back toward the residence hall. “That’s what she does.”

I tried to ignore the tight feeling in my chest. “I don’t regret what I said.”

Tessa glanced at me. “Regret and consequences aren’t the same thing.”

My phone buzzed again. Another message from the unknown number.

“Still feeling brave?”

I locked the screen without replying. The anger from earlier was still there, but underneath it something else had started to grow.

I hated that Ava had gotten under my skin so quickly. I hated that I kept replaying the way she looked at me when I challenged her. Like I was interesting, like I was a problem she wanted to solve slowly.

We reached the dorm. Chloe went straight to the shower. Tessa sat on her bed and watched me.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

It was the truth. Part of me was still furious at how Ava had treated that boy. Another part of me felt unsettled in a way I didn’t have words for yet.

I needed air.

“I’m going for a walk,” I told Tessa.

She looked like she wanted to stop me, but she only nodded. “Stay where there are people.”

The sun had already started to drop by the time I stepped outside. Most students were heading to dinner or back to their rooms. I walked without a real destination, just trying to clear my head.

The texts, the staring.

I ended up near the older academic building on the far side of campus. It was quieter here and empty. The brick walls were faded, and the side entrance looked like it hadn’t been used in years. I was about to turn back when I heard it.

A song.

It was soft at first, almost distant, leaking from a phone speaker. The melody was slow and familiar in a way that made the hair on my arms rise even though I had never heard it before.

Then I heard a second sound , a short, choked breath, like someone trying not to make noise.

I followed it.

Around the corner, hidden by a concrete pillar, Ava was sitting on the ground with her back against the wall. Her knees were pulled up tightly to her chest.

One hand was pressed hard over her ear. The other was clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. Her phone lay beside her, screen still glowing, the song continuing to play in a low, relentless loop.

She was shaking.

I stopped walking.

This didn’t look like the girl from the courtyard. This didn’t look like the person who had stared down an entire crowd without blinking. This looked like someone trying to hold herself together and failing.

Another wave of the song rose from the phone. Ava flinched hard, like the sound had hit her physically and for the first time , I saw her crying. She pressed both hands over her ears now, breathing too fast, eyes squeezed shut. Her shoulders trembled.

I didn’t think.

I stepped closer and stood in front of her.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “Ava.”

Her eyes flew open. For a second she looked pure panicked, almost lost. Then she recognized me and something ugly flashed across her face.

“Get away from me.”

“You’re having a panic attack.”

“I said get away.”

I didn’t move. “Give me the phone.”

She stared at me like I had lost my mind. When she didn’t react, I reached for it myself. She tried to stop me, but her hands were still trembling too hard. I turned the volume all the way down and then silenced the phone completely before shoving it into my back pocket.

The sudden absence of the song seemed to hit her. Her breathing stayed uneven, but the worst of the shaking slowed. She dragged in a rough breath, then another.

Her hands lowered slowly from her ears, though they still trembled in her lap.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

She let out a short, bitter laugh. “I don’t need your help.”

“You looked like you did.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Ava’s expression changed completely. The vulnerability disappeared, replaced by something sharp and cold. She pushed herself up so fast I had to lean back. When she spoke again, her voice was harsh.

“You think because you saw me for five seconds that you know something?”

I stood as well. “I think you’re allowed to be human.”

“Don’t.” She stepped closer, eyes bright with anger. “Don’t you dare look at me like that. I don’t need pity from some transfer who doesn’t know when to shut up.”

“It isn’t pity.”

“Then what is it?” She was almost in my face now. “You hate me, remember? You made that very clear in front of half the campus. So why are you still standing here?”

I didn’t have a clean answer. I only knew that walking away while she was still shaking felt wrong. The memory of her shaking from that song sat heavy in my chest.

“I don’t like bullies,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave someone on the ground.”

Something in her face cracked, then hardened again just as fast.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Then tell me why a song does that to you.”

For a moment I thought she might actually answer. Her mouth opened, then closed. The anger in her eyes flickered with something that looked almost like fear. Instead she shoved past me hard enough that my shoulder hit the wall.

“Stay out of my business, Ivy.” My name sounded like a warning this time. “Next time you see me like that, walk the other way. I mean it.”

She didn’t look back as she left.

I stood there for a long time after she was gone, her phone still silent in my pocket, the ghost of that song replaying in my head.

I had come out here angry at her and I was leaving with something much more complicated sitting in my chest.

The girl who had looked at me in the courtyard like I was nothing had just fallen apart in front of me. And the worst part is the part that scared me more than her threats and I already knew I wouldn’t be able to stay away.

I pulled her phone out of my pocket and stared at the dark screen. Part of me wanted to throw it into the nearest trash can. Another part of me, wanted to understand what that song had done to her.

I slipped it back into my pocket and started walking toward the dorm.

The sun had almost set. The path lights were flickering on one by one. Students passed me in small groups, laughing, talking about dinner plans and weekend parties. None of them knew what I had just seen.

None of them knew that the most feared girl on campus had been shaking on the ground behind an old building, drowning in a song I didn’t recognize.

I didn’t know what it meant yet.

I only knew that something had shifted.

And for the first time since I arrived at Westbridge, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to shift back.