Chapter 8
1139 Words
Keira POV
“My phone is off.”
I said it twice before it felt real.
The screen was black. Battery dead. No calls, no texts, no group chat blowing up with Lila’s video on repeat.
Nothing but silence.
And silence was worse.
I sat on the curb behind the old gym, knees pulled up, hoodie pulled low.
The air smelled like wet concrete and dust.
No one came back here after third period.
That’s why I picked it.
“Keira.”
I didn’t turn.
I knew that voice.
Kaden stopped in front of me, breathing hard like he’d run the whole way from the parking lot.
His hair was a mess, shirt untucked.
He looked furious.
And scared.
“You left,” he said.
“Without a word.”
“I posted a message,” I said.
“It said I’m not coming back.”
“That’s not a message. That’s a goodbye.”
I finally looked up at him.
“Maybe it is.”
He crouched in front of me, blocking the sun.
“Don’t do this, Keira. Don’t let her win.”
“Lila already won,” I said.
“Everyone saw the video. Everyone thinks I’m sleeping with my stepbrother.”
“That video doesn’t show anything,” he said.
“It shows thirty seconds of us arguing.”
“Argue like that in front of the whole school and see what they think.”
Kaden ran a hand through his hair.
“Fine. It looks bad. But we can fix it. We explain. We show them it’s nothing.”
“How?” I asked.
“Post our private conversations? Tell them about Mom and your dad getting married? That’ll make it better?”
He flinched.
“No.”
“Exactly.”
A group of sophomores walked past on the path, phones out, heads down.
One of them glanced over, saw me, and whispered to her friend.
They didn’t stop.
They didn’t need to.
I hated it.
I hated feeling like I was the main character in a story I didn’t write.
“Go home, Kaden,” I said.
“Before someone gets a picture of us talking back here.”
“I’m not leaving you here alone,” he said.
“Why not? You always leave.”
That hit him.
I saw it in his face.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said quietly.
“After Mom left, I thought if I stayed away from people, it wouldn’t hurt as much.”
I swallowed.
“That’s not an excuse.”
“I know,” he said.
“But it’s the truth.”
We sat there for a minute.
No one spoke.
The only sound was the wind through the broken fence.
“You’re shaking,” he said finally.
“I’m cold.”
“Liar.”
I pulled the hood tighter.
“Go away, Kaden.”
He didn’t move.
“Not until you tell me what you’re really thinking.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m thinking that if I go back in there, I’ll slap Lila.
And then I’ll get expelled.
And then Mom will know, and she’ll think I ruined everything.”
Kaden was quiet.
Then: “So don’t go back in there.”
I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“Skip the rest of the day,” he said.
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere she can’t find us.”
I stared at him.
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack,” he said.
It was stupid.
Reckless.
Exactly the kind of thing that would make this worse.
I stood up anyway.
---
The old service road behind the school was empty.
Kaden’s car sat under the shade of a dying oak, dusty and quiet.
“Get in,” he said, unlocking it.
I hesitated.
“If Mom finds out—”
“Mom won’t find out,” he said.
“Not if we don’t get caught.”
I got in.
The drive was short.
Ten minutes out of town, past the old train tracks, to a place I’d only heard about.
The quarry.
It had been closed for years.
Now it was just water and rock and silence.
Kaden parked at the edge and killed the engine.
“No phones,” he said, pulling his out and tossing it on the dash.
“Deal?”
I pulled mine out too.
Dead.
I tossed it beside his.
We sat on the hood, legs swinging over the edge.
Below us, the water was still and dark.
For the first time all day, I could breathe.
“So,” Kaden said.
“What now?”
“Now we figure out how to prove Lila’s lying,” I said.
“How?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted.
“But I’m not letting her make me quit.”
Kaden nodded, like he’d been waiting for me to say that.
“Good.”
We sat in silence again.
It wasn’t awkward this time.
It was… okay.
“Why do you hate me so much?” he asked suddenly.
I looked at him.
“I don’t hate you.”
“You act like it.”
“Because if I don’t, people talk,” I said.
“And if people talk, it gets messy.”
“Messier than this?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
He sighed.
“Keira, I’m not trying to ruin you.
I’m trying to keep you from getting hurt.”
“By keeping me away from you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Because if you get close to me, Lila will use it.
And she’s good at that.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I know.”
“So what do we do?” he asked.
“We fight back,” I said.
“For real this time.
No more pretending.”
Kaden smiled, small and tired.
“About time.”
My phone buzzed on the dash.
Both of them.
Vibrating against the plastic, lighting up with notifications.
Kaden glanced at it.
“Probably Lila.”
“Probably,” I said.
I didn’t pick it up.
Neither did he.
For now, out here, it felt like none of it mattered.
No video.
No rumors.
No Lila.
Just us and the water and the quiet.
That’s when I saw the figure at the bottom of the path.
“Someone’s coming,” I said.
Kaden sat up fast.
He followed my gaze.
A person.
Hood up, face hidden.
Walking straight toward us.
“Keira,” Kaden said, voice low.
“Get in the car.”
I didn’t move.
The figure stopped ten feet away.
Pulled the hood down.
Mia.
She looked between us, then at the phones on the dash.
Her eyes narrowed.
“You two are so screwed,” she said.
- Writer
