Faye
The computer lab hums, a sterile glow from rows of monitors casting stark shadows across the linoleum, the air thick with the buzz of cooling fans and the humid breath of New Orleans seeping through a cracked window, carrying a faint jasmine scent. My heart thunders, a relentless drumbeat, as I clutch my phone, the grainy high school photos—You’re nothing scrawled in red—searing my mind, their metadata pointing to this lab, to Jude.
Yesterday’s dorm room confession from Ezra, his raw regret for mocking my shyness in high school, for joining the taunts about my thrift-store clothes and quiet nature, lingers like a bruise. His admission that he tried to stop the crueler lies—about my mom’s job, my dad’s supposed debts—softens my distrust, but the sting of Jude’s betrayal, confirmed by
