Rise of Ember Quin

9

The afternoon turns to a pale gray, the kind of light that doesn’t belong to any hour. Ember sits cross-legged on Rae’s carpet, phone in her lap, a growing perimeter of printouts and post-its fanning around her. Rae has gone full detective: every DM, every Snap, every group text containing the words “Ember” or “party” has been screenshotted, highlighted, and, in one case, annotated with three exclamation points and a drawing of Jackson’s head on a cockroach.

Ember’s hands move automatically, flipping through the pages, but her brain lags behind. She feels like she’s reading an obituary in slow motion.

“Look at this,” Rae says, stabbing at a printout. “He started the rumor on Thursday. Before the party even happened.”

Ember stares at the text:

idk man she’s just been super needy lately, like won’t give me space. hope she’s not coming tomorrow lol

The timestamp is two days before everything went sideways.

“Asshole,” Rae says, low and dangerous.

Ember shrugs, voice small. “He always said I was intense.”

Rae throws a pillow at the wall. “He’s intense! He once drove to my house at 2am because I posted a meme he didn’t get. He’s literally the president of Intense Town.”

A memory surfaces: Jackson texting at midnight, wanting to “talk about something important,” then showing up at Ember’s window to argue about a tweet he thought was about him. At the time, she thought it was passionate. Now it feels like a red flag the size of Nebraska.

She scrolls, sees another message, this time to a mutual friend:

Ember’s just a lot sometimes. idk how to deal. trying my best.

A lot. A lot. The phrase pings off the inside of her skull.

“I can’t believe he said all this behind my back,” Ember says. She means to sound angry, but it comes out more like awe.

Rae moves closer, her knees brushing Ember’s. “You can be angry, you know. You don’t have to just take it.”

Ember tries, but anger doesn’t come. Instead, it’s like her insides are packed with wet towels, heavy and useless. “I just—I thought if I tried hard enough, it would be different. If I was better, or easier.”

Rae’s face softens. “Easier for who?”

Ember picks at the corner of a printout. “For him. For everyone.”

She sifts through the screenshots, each one a grain of sand in the hourglass. Here is Jackson telling people she “freaked out” at the party. Here is him joking about her “overreacting.” Here is him liking a comment calling her “queen of drama.”

Rae snorts. “He’s projecting.”

Ember says nothing. She feels like she’s been peeled open, her insides rearranged and left for inspection.

“Remember when he hated that green sweater?” she asks, voice thin.

Rae makes a face. “The one that made your eyes look like laser beams? Yeah.”

Ember nods. “He said it was too loud. After that, I only wore it when he wasn’t around.”

Rae’s silence is a lead weight. Ember flips another page.

“I dropped friends, too,” Ember says, the admission barely audible. “Because he said they talked s**t about him. I stopped sitting with anyone but him at lunch. Remember? Even when you begged me not to.”

Rae’s face is unreadable, but her hand reaches out, squeezes Ember’s wrist. Ember can feel the pulse there, steady and real.

“And the art thing?” Rae prompts, gently.

Ember’s throat closes around the memory. “He said it was pointless. That I should focus on real stuff, not drawing. So I quit art club.”

Rae’s grip tightens. “That was your favorite.”

Ember nods. “I know.”

A silence. Rae lets it breathe.

Ember runs her hands over the papers, the plastic screen of her phone. “I disappeared into being his girlfriend,” she says finally, voice a hoarse whisper. “Like, there wasn’t even any Ember left.”

Rae makes a noise, half sob, half growl. “He’s not worth it. He never was.”

Ember blinks, and her eyes sting. “I know that now. But it still hurts.”

Rae pulls her in, both arms wrapped tight, chin on Ember’s shoulder. “That’s because you’re a real person, Em. He’s a mannequin with wifi.”

For the first time all day, Ember laughs. It’s brittle and short, but it’s laughter.

Rae leans back, looking her dead in the eyes. “You’re not invisible. You were never invisible. He just made you think you had to hide.”

Ember nods, lets the words sink in. Her phone vibrates with a new message. She checks it. It’s another group chat, a meme about her, her name in the caption, but this time Rae grabs the phone and tosses it behind her.

“Nope,” Rae says. “Not today.”

Ember leans into Rae’s shoulder, feeling the solidity of it, the warmth. She’s tired—so tired—but there’s a clarity growing in the fatigue, a sense that maybe she isn’t the villain of the story after all.

She looks at the pile of evidence around them, the forensic record of the past year. She sees, for the first time, that the version of herself she lost wasn’t gone—just buried.

She sits up a little straighter, breathes in deep, and lets herself believe, if only for a second, that the way forward doesn’t have to be the way back.