Page 64 of Freestyle
I see only the cruel bullies I’ve come to know.
I slip into the woods, unmarked, unmasked, and wholly untouchable.
Then the real game begins.
The letter came like a dare, a black envelope with a gold wax seal. Just one line of cursive that looked too careful, to be honest.
I should’ve thrown it in the trash.
But I didn’t.
Because some part of me was curious, reckless, angry, and needed to know what game they were playing now, needed to end it myself.
I don’t believe the theatrics. I don’t believe the soft wax or the poetic threat disguised as an invitation. I know Nix, I know Gray. I know what it looks like when boys like them decide you’re beneath them, and I know what it feels like when they decide you’re no longer beneath them, but worth breaking just to see if you’ll shatter the same way twice.
So I came.
Not for belonging, not for their promises of power or protection or whatever twisted offering they think they’re making.
I came because if they think I’m still that girl they could humiliate and walk away from, they’re already wrong. I’ve drawn my strength and I’m ready to use it.
By the time this night ends, they’ll wish I never opened that letter.
I slip between the trees, shadows wrapping around me like a second skin, but it’s not the green-masked seekers I fear.
It’s the one who doesn’t play by rules.
Alberto.
I don’t know if he’s here tonight. I told myself he wouldn’t be, that there’s no way he could slip into a ritual this controlled, this sacred.
The notes say otherwise.
“I like you when you bleed for me.”
“I’ll find you, even in the dark.”
Each one tucked where he shouldn’t have access; my dorm, the Quad, my pocket.
Ishowed up tonight because I won’t live life curled around fear. But still, every snapped twig, every flicker outside my periphery makes something coil tight in my gut.
The irony isn’t lost on me—surrounded by predators wearing masks, and he’s the only one whose face I can’t stop seeing.
So I move.
Silent.
Controlled.
But inside?Part of me is listening for footsteps that don’t belong to the game.
The forest thickens around me, branches low like they’re trying to catch my hair, underbrush crunching beneath my boots despite how careful I try to be. There’s laughter in the distance. Footsteps. Masks flashing between trees like the glint of knives.
I keep moving.
Every instinct says turn back, but I don’t. Not because I’m brave, but because I’m done letting fear drive.
Then I see them.
