Chapter 12: Kiss Carousel
1250 Words
By the time I escaped the cafeteria, my nerves were shot clean through.
I didn’t run. Running would’ve drawn attention. Instead, I walked fast—too fast to be casual, too stiff to be confident—my tray abandoned somewhere behind me like a crime scene I refused to revisit. The hallway swallowed me whole, lockers slamming shut like judgment, voices ricocheting off tiled walls.
I could still feel it.
The hands.
The laughter.
The kissing.
It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t sweet. It was chaos dressed up as affection, like everyone had collectively decided my personal space was optional.
Over a week of this.
Over a week of slipping, tripping, spilling, bumping into things that should not have moved—and people who absolutely should have. A week of teachers sighing when they saw me. A week of whispers that stopped when I turned my head. A week of my name being spoken like a warning label.
I clutched my books tighter against my chest and turned the corner too sharply.
That was my mistake.
A group of juniors came barreling out of the science wing at the exact wrong moment. Someone shouted my name—my actual name—and suddenly the air shifted. I felt it before it happened, like static crackling before a storm.
“Ivy!”
A boy lunged forward, tripped over nothing, and face-planted at my feet. His momentum sent his friend crashing into a locker, which popped open and dumped a cascade of notebooks onto the floor. A girl shrieked—not hurt, just startled—and grabbed the nearest solid thing to steady herself.
That solid thing was me.
Her lips brushed my cheek.
The hallway went silent.
Then—
“No way.” “Did you see that?” “Is it, like… contagious?”
I stepped back so fast my heel caught on a loose tile. I windmilled, barely staying upright, heart hammering like it was trying to escape my ribcage.
“I didn’t—” I started, then stopped. Explaining never helped. Explaining only made it worse.
I shoved past them, cheeks burning, eyes stinging, when a voice cut clean through the noise.
“Ivy.”
Not shouted. Not amused.
Just firm.
Jasper.
He was leaning against the lockers like he’d been there the whole time, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Not scribbling. Not distracted. Watching.
For once, he didn’t move to catch anything.
He just stepped into the space beside me, solid and deliberate, like a barrier instead of a shield.
“That’s enough,” he said to the group, his voice calm but edged. “Everyone move.”
They listened.
That was new.
As the hallway started breathing again, I exhaled shakily and turned on him.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t say it.”
“Say what?”
“That it’s not my fault. Or that it’s funny. Or that it’ll pass.” My voice cracked despite my best efforts. “Because it’s been over a week, Jasper. A week. And I’m exhausted.”
He studied me for a moment, eyes flicking to the red mark blooming on my cheek where the girl had kissed me, then back to my face.
“I wasn’t going to say any of that,” he said.
“Then what?”
“That you’re handling this better than most people would.”
I laughed. It came out wrong. Sharp. Almost hysterical. “By becoming the school’s walking disaster zone?”
“By still showing up,” he replied. “By not hiding.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
“I did hide,” I snapped. “Last weekend. I stayed in my dorm. I skipped meals. I talked to a stupid hat like it could hear me.”
His mouth twitched. “Can it?”
“No,” I muttered. “And yet it feels responsible.”
Before he could respond, a shadow fell across us.
“Ivy.”
My stomach dropped.
The principal stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back, expression already tight with expectation. Like he’d walked into the aftermath of a mess he fully believed I’d made.
“Sir,” Jasper said smoothly, straightening.
“I was just on my way to class,” I said quickly, words tumbling over each other. “I didn’t mean to cause—”
He held up a hand. “I’ve been receiving reports.”
Of course he had.
“Multiple incidents,” he continued. “Disruptions. Accidents. Disturbances.”
I could practically hear the verdict forming.
Jasper shifted, not in front of me, but beside me—close enough that I felt the heat of him.
“With respect,” he said, “you’re assuming correlation means causation.”
The principal’s gaze flicked to him. “And you are?”
“Jasper Vale. Senior.” A beat. “I’ve been present for most of these ‘incidents.’”
“That’s exactly my concern.”
“Then you should know,” Jasper said evenly, “that Ivy isn’t initiating any of it.”
I stared at him.
He didn’t look at me. He kept his focus steady, unflinching.
“She reacts,” he went on. “She apologizes. She tries to leave. The chaos happens around her, not because of her.”
The principal’s eyes narrowed. “Yet she’s always at the center.”
“Because people keep pulling her there,” Jasper replied. “Literally.”
Silence stretched.
My pulse roared in my ears.
Finally, the principal sighed. “Ivy, I suggest you take the rest of the afternoon to collect yourself. We’ll discuss this later.”
Not detention.
Not punishment.
A warning.
“Yes, sir,” I said quietly.
He turned and walked away, already shaking his head.
The hallway felt emptier once he was gone.
I slumped against the lockers, knees weak. “That went… better than expected.”
Jasper glanced at me. “Low bar.”
I snorted despite myself.
For a moment, we just stood there. No chaos. No alarms. No accidental intimacy.
Then someone down the hall sneezed, and a poster peeled off the wall and fluttered to the floor.
We both froze.
It didn’t hit anyone.
Jasper raised an eyebrow. “Progress.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be known for this.”
“You won’t be.”
I looked at him then. Really looked.
“You’re very confident about that.”
He shrugged. “Things change.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we adapt.”
We started walking again, slower this time. Side by side.
No touching.
No tripping.
No kisses.
Just steps.
By the time we reached my classroom, my heart had finally stopped racing. I paused at the door, fingers brushing the edge of my book.
“Hey, Jasper?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For not… doing the same thing you always do.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re welcome. For the record, you don’t need saving.”
“I know,” I said. “But it helps not feeling alone.”
He nodded once, like that mattered.
As I slipped into class, the room buzzing with curiosity, I felt it again—that familiar prickle of inevitability.
My luck wasn’t done with me yet.
But for the first time all week, I wasn’t facing the Kiss Carousel alone.
- Writer
