Page 101 of Rules, Roses, and Rivals
“Frankie—” Coop hesitated. “If you want to talk. Or yell. Or, like, rage-eat pudding cups again…”
I managed half a smile. “I’ll find you.”
Lunch was a blur. Rachel had claimed us a table near the courtyard windows. Bubba sat beside her, unusually quiet. Mathieu had an arm draped casually across the back of my chair, trying to make me feel grounded, present. It almost worked.
Until Archie appeared, perfectly pressed and slightly rumpled, as if he’d just stepped out of a courtroom or a Calvin Klein ad. Probably both.
He set a plastic coffee cup down in front of me. “Iced mocha. Your Tuesday order.”
I blinked at him. “You’re bribing me with caffeine now?”
“Not bribing,” he said. “Strategically fortifying. You’re about to hate the rest of your day.”
I stared at him. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
Archie sat across from me, elbows resting lightly on the table, all mock-casual confidence. But his eyes were sharp. Watching.
“Don’t worry about Jake,” he said, voice quiet but sure. “If Derek’s family tries to press charges, I’ll get a lawyer.”
I blinked again. “What?”
“Just in case,” he said, sipping his espresso like we were discussing weekend plans and notactual legal consequences.
I didn’t have the energy to thank him or tell him he was insane. All I could feel was the slowly mounting pressure behind my ribs—like I was being squeezed from the inside out by things that hadn’t even happened yet.
By the time the bell rang, I could barely taste the mocha anymore.
AP European History was tucked away in one of the quiet upstairs classrooms—windowed, vaulted ceilings, the kind of space that always smelled like old paper and stressed-out dreams.
It was also empty.
Just me.
Jake wasn’t there.
His chair sat pushed back, one leg uneven on the floor. His notebook wasn’t in its usual spot. The desk was too clean, too still.
He wasgone.
Suddenly the silence felt brutal.
This class had always been our weird neutral zone. The place where we didn’t have to perform for anyone else. We just read, scribbled in margins, argued about revolutions and dead kings, passed notes like no one was watching. Because Mr. G trusted us.
Now it felt hollow.
Like every unspoken thing between us had followed him out the door, and I was left behind in the echo.
I sat down anyway.
Opened my book and stared at the same paragraph about the Habsburg dynasty for twenty minutes without reading a single word.
When the bell rang, I jumped.
I hadn’t written anything. I hadn’t moved.
I just sat there in the ghost of what we used to be, feeling the weight of it settle deeper into my stomach.
We were gone.
