The fallout
1680 Words
Word got out fast. By Monday morning, everyone at school knew. About the kiss. About us.
People stared. Whispers followed me through the halls. Lena was furious.
“You kissed him?” she hissed, dragging me into the girls’ bathroom between classes. “At the festival? In public?”
“It just… happened.”
“He’s not some misunderstood poet, Ava. He’s Jace Rivera. He smoked in the science lab, he keyed Mr. Dunlap’s car last month, and he skipped three weeks of school last semester!”
“Yeah,” I said, crossing my arms. “And he listens when I talk. He reads poetry. He drives me home in the rain.”
She blinked. “You’re falling for him.”
“I already did.”
Her silence said more than words.
10. Holding On, Letting Go
Jace was different around me. Not softer, exactly—he still had that edge, that dark gleam in his eyes—but he listened more. Smiled more. And when he touched me, it was with a gentleness that felt borrowed from another life.
One night, he showed up outside my window after midnight. I climbed down from the trellis like I was in a movie.
“Why are you here?” I whispered.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Didn’t want to be alone.”
We drove aimlessly through town, ending up at the abandoned train tracks where we sat on the hood of his Mustang, legs dangling over the edge.
“Sometimes I wish I could just disappear,” he said.
“You don’t have to disappear. You could stay. Start over.”
He looked at me like I’d offered him the moon. “No one’s ever wanted me to stay.”
“I do.”
He kissed me again. This time slower. Like he was afraid I’d vanish.
11. Crashing Down
But good things don’t last.
It started with a fight. He skipped our study session. I waited two hours in the library, texting, calling, nothing. The next day, I found him in the parking lot, leaning against his car, laughing with a girl I didn’t know. Her hand on his arm.
“You couldn’t even text me back?” I snapped.
He looked over, surprised. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Then what is it?”
He glanced at the girl—who backed off fast—and sighed. “I don’t do relationships. I told you that.”
“No,” I said. “You pretended you were someone different. But this is who you really are, isn’t it? Cold. Detached. Afraid.”
His jaw tightened. “You knew what this was.”
“I thought I did. I thought I saw the real you.”
He looked away. “You saw what you wanted to see.”
I walked away before he could stop me. And for the first time in weeks, I cried myself to sleep.
12. Silence
Days passed. No calls. No texts. Nothing.
I kept my head down, focused on my classes. I threw myself into everything—homework, student council, tutoring. But nothing filled the hole he’d left.
Lena tried to be supportive, but I could tell she was relieved. “It’s for the best,” she kept saying. “You need someone who sees your worth. Not someone who runs every time it gets hard.”
She wasn’t wrong.
But the silence hurt worse than the fight.
Because silence meant he didn’t care enough to fight back.
13. Letters
It was a week later when I found the note. Stuffed in my locker, folded twice, no name.
I knew his handwriting instantly.
Ava—
I don’t know how to be good at this. At us. I screw things up. I push people away because that’s easier than being left. But you made me feel something I haven’t felt in years—safe.
You scare me.
Not because you’re perfect. But because when you look at me, I start to believe I could be more than this.
I’m sorry.
—J.
I read it three times before I realized I was smiling through tears.
14. Reckless Hearts
I found him sitting behind the bleachers, smoking again. He looked up as I approached, startled.
“You came,” he said.
“I got your letter.”
He nodded, crushing the cigarette beneath his boot. “Didn’t think you’d read it.”
“I did.”
He stood. “I meant every word.”
“Then say it out loud.”
He stepped closer. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I was scared.”
“I was too.”
He brushed his fingers against my cheek. “I don’t want to run anymore.”
“Then stay.”
And he did.
He kissed me like he meant it. Like we were the only two people left in the world.
15. More Than Survival
Things didn’t magically become perfect. He still had a temper. I still worried about my future. But we tried. For each other.
He showed up to class. I taught him how to study. He read Wuthering Heights and called Heathcliff “a psycho,” but still wrote an essay that made Mr. Collins cry.
He took me to a concert in the city. I took him to dinner at my house, where he charmed my parents by talking about Jack Kerouac and fixing my dad’s broken porch light.
We were light and shadow, chaos and calm.
But together, we made something whole.
Winter crept in slowly. Snow dusted the rooftops, the sky grayed early, and Jace started showing up to school in a denim jacket over his usual black hoodie. I started keeping an extra pair of gloves in my bag—just in case he forgot his.
We had our rhythm now. Study dates at the coffee shop near the train station. Long drives through empty roads where we didn’t talk much, but everything was understood. I learned the scar on his hand came from a dirt bike crash when he was thirteen. He learned I used to write poems but stopped after my older sister called them “too intense.”
He encouraged me to start again. I encouraged him to forgive himself.
One night, sitting under the stars in the backseat of his car, he said, “I’ve never had a future before you.”
I took his hand. “Then let’s build one.”
But fate doesn’t always wait for us to be ready.
17. History Comes Calling
It happened on a Thursday.
I was in class when my phone buzzed. Three missed calls from Jace. A fourth from a number I didn’t recognize. I snuck out to check my messages.
The voicemail chilled me.
“Ava… it’s me. I messed up. I didn’t mean to. I—I’ll explain everything. Just… don’t hate me.”
By the time I got to the parking lot, the Mustang was gone.
Lena found me pacing by the flagpole thirty minutes later.
“He got in a fight,” she said, breathless. “Some guys from his old school. One of them was looking for him—something about an unpaid debt or whatever. The cops showed up.”
I couldn’t breathe. “Where is he?”
“Police station.”
I ran.
18. The Cell
It wasn’t like a movie. No shouting. No glass walls or handcuffs.
Just Jace, sitting on a bench in the corner of a cold, gray holding room, a bruise blooming across his cheekbone. His knuckles were raw. His eyes dull.
When he saw me, he didn’t smile.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I had to be.”
He looked away. “It was dumb. Some guy from before. I owed him a favor. He came to collect. I didn’t give him what he wanted.”
“What did he want?”
“A distraction. Me. Trouble. I said no.”
I knelt in front of him. “You’re not who you used to be, Jace.”
“You sure? Because sitting here, it feels like I am.”
“You stood up for yourself. That’s not weakness.”
His voice broke. “I’m scared I’ll lose you.”
I reached for his hand. “Then fight for me. But don’t fight me.”
19. Redemption, in Pieces
They let him go with a warning. No charges pressed—just a long, painful conversation with the principal, his probation officer, and the school counselor. He walked out with a cut lip and a bruise to his ego, but not his soul.
After that, something shifted. He started showing up early to school. Sat in the front row of English. Joined a community service project Lena dragged us both into—painting murals at a local youth shelter.
“Kids listen to him,” she whispered one afternoon, watching him help a group of ten-year-olds trace their names into a sunset scene. “He’s not what I thought.”
“He never was,” I said.
Jace didn’t become a saint overnight. He still swore too much. Still argued with authority. But he was trying. And I loved him for that. For the fight. For the cracks he let me see.
20. Promises
Spring came. The flowers bloomed. I got into Columbia University. Jace got accepted into a local technical college’s automotive program.
We sat on the bleachers behind the school one evening, the sky painted orange and gold.
“You’re really going,” he said.
I nodded. “And you’re staying.”
He gave me a sad smile. “Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
I leaned into him. “Or maybe it’s not forever. Just... a pause.”
He kissed the top of my head. “I want to be worthy of you.”
“You already are.”
“Promise me something?” he whispered.
“Anything.”
“Don’t forget me.”
I took his face in my hands. “I’ll never be able to.”
- Writer
