“I can explain.”

The words leave his mouth before my brain has finished processing what I’m seeing. That white plastic face grins up at me from the carpet, empty eye holes gaping like accusations.

He was there, inside that mask, inside that room, inside me.

Bile rises hot and acidic in my throat.

Every tender moment from this morning curdles into poison—his palm against my hip, his laugh vibrating against my back, the way he looked at me.

All of it was built on a lie so massive I can’t see its edges.

“Serena, please.” His voice sounds underwater, muffled by blood rushing through my ears. “Just let me explain what happened.”

“You.” The words scrape out like gravel against raw skin. “It was you.”

“Yes, but it’s not what you—”

“You took my virginity.” I watch his face crumble, watch confirmation write itself across his features in real time. “You knew exactly who I was, and you let me think I was with someone else!”

My voice breaks, shattering into pieces I can’t reassemble. The sheet I’m clutching smells like him, like us, and the scent turns my stomach violently.

“I didn’t plan it.” He reaches for me, and I recoil like his touch might actually burn through my skin. “I saw you with Lucas, followed because I was jealous, and then you took my hand and—”

“And you just went along with it?” Hysteria claws at my throat, sharp and desperate. “You let me believe I was with someone else the entire time we were in that room?”

“You thought you were with Lucas!” The words explode out of him, defensive and raw. “You wanted him, not me. What was I supposed to do, correct you mid-seduction?”

“Yes!” I’m screaming now, fury scorching through every syllable until my throat burns. “That’s exactly what a decent human being would do, Caleb!”

“I’m not a decent human being.” His jaw tightens, tendons standing out like cables beneath his skin. “I’ve never claimed to be.”

The morning light catches the mask on the floor, making that frozen scream gleam obscenely white against the dark carpet.

“And the message?” I watch his face for the flicker of guilt I know will come. “The photo someone sent to my phone last week?”

His expression shifts into resignation that makes my blood run cold. The bottom drops out of my stomach before he even opens his mouth to confirm what I already know.

“That was me.” He says it flatly, like ripping off a bandage soaked in something infected. “I sent it.”

The admission lands like a sledgehammer to my sternum, driving all the air from my lungs in one brutal exhale.

“You photographed me without my consent and then used it to threaten me?”

“It wasn’t a threat, it was—” He drags both hands through his hair, knuckles going white with the force of his grip. “I was trying to make you stay away from Lucas. I panicked.”

“By blackmailing me?” The laugh that tears out of me sounds unhinged. “That was your brilliant plan?”

“You kept spending time with him, and I couldn’t just tell you the truth without—”

“Without what? Admitting you’d already violated every boundary that exists between two people?”

His silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating as summer humidity.

I stare at the boy I let into my body twice now, cataloging the stranger who’s been hiding underneath the familiar surface all along.

The warnings about Lucas, the jealousy at breakfast, the desperate confessions whispered against my skin while I thought we were finally being honest—all of it was manipulation layered on manipulation.

“Lucas isn’t who you think he is.” He says it urgently, stepping closer. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time.”

“Oh, this should be good.” I fold my arms across my chest, goosebumps rising on my bare skin despite the warmth of the room. “Please, enlighten me about who Lucas is.”

“He’s dangerous, Serena. There are things about him you don’t know.”

“Things you conveniently couldn’t mention until after you’d slept with me twice and gotten caught in your own web of lies?”

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