Invisible To Her Bully (Jessa and Noah) novel Chapter 201

Chapter 201

Noah

I found out how bad it was in third period.

Not from Jessa. Not from Mariah.

From Reyes, who slid into the seat next to me like he was delivering breaking news.

“Dude,” he said, lowering his voice, “what’s this crap about Jessa paying you to date her?”

I just stared at him.

“…What?”

He held up his phone. “It’s all over Snap. And TikTok. And apparently half the girls in junior year group chats are having a field day with it.”

My stomach dropped.

“They’re saying she paid you,” he continued, grimacing. “Like it’s some kind of… arrangement.”

I felt my jaw lock.

“That’s not funny,” I said.

“I know. I told them that. But you know how it is–once the drama train leaves the station, it doesn’t stop.”

I didn’t hear the rest of class.

I just sat there, watching the clock, thinking about Jessa walking through the halls while people whispered that kind of garbage about her.

By the time the bell rang, I was already on my feet.

I didn’t even know where I was going at first–just moving, trying to burn off the anger before I did something that got me suspended.

That’s

en Jackson found me.

He was coming out of the opposite hallway, and one look at my face told him something was wrong.

“What happened?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to answer-

And before I could, a girl walked past us and said to her friend, not quietly:

“Still can’t believe she had to pay him. That’s just sad.”

Jackson stopped.

Like he hit an invisible wall.

He turned slowly. “What did you just say?”

The girls froze.

One of them stammered, “N–nothing.”

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“No,” Jackson said, his voice low and dangerous. “Say it again.”

They didn’t.

They walked away fast.

Jackson looked at me. “What the hell was that?”

I told him.

Every word of it.

His face changed as I talked. The disbelief turned into anger. Then something darker.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he said.

“Jackson-”

“Are you serious?” he snapped. “That’s the rumor now?”

He ran a hand through his hair and laughed, but there was nothing amused about it. “I swear to God, it’s always the same. It’s always some bored, miserable girls who can’t stand it when someone else is happy.”

He started pacing.

“They can’t just let it be. They have to make it ugly. They have to make it dramatic. They have to turn it into some soap opera because their own lives are boring as hell.”

I watched him, half worried he was about to explode in the hallway.

“It’s always girls,” he went on, voice sharp. “Not all of them, but enough. They live for this crap. They start it, they spread it, and then they sit back and act innocent while it burns everything down.”

“They’re saying it’s all over social media,” I said.

“That makes it worse,” he snapped. “Because now it’s not just whispers. Now it’s public humiliation.”

He stopped pacing and looked at me, eyes hard.

“Did anyone say this to her face?”

“Not like… directly,” I said. “But they’re not exactly subtle.”

His jaw clenched.

“I’m going to kill someone.”

“Jackson-”

“No. Don’t ‘Jackson‘ me,” he said. “This is my sister.”

He took a breath, trying to get control.

“You know what the sickest part is?” he said. “They don’t even think it’s a lie because it fits their stupid little story.”

“What story?” I asked, even though I already knew.

“That girls like her don’t get guys like you unless there’s a catch,” he said bitterly. “So they make one up.”

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That hit.

Hard.

He shook his head. “She spent years getting torn apart by people like that. And now that she’s finally happy, they decide it must be fake.”

I swallowed.

“I don’t care what anyone says about me,” I said. “But dragging her into it like this-

“I know,” he said quietly. “That’s the part that makes me want to break things.”

We stood there for a second, the hallway buzzing around us like we were in the middle of a storm.

Then Jackson straightened.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what’s not going to happen.”

“What?”

“You’re not going to pull away from her because of this,” he said. “You’re not going to get weird or distant or start ‘protecting‘ her by disappearing.”

I blinked. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“Good,” he said. “Because that’s exactly what these idiots want.”

He pointed at me. “You stay exactly where you are. You make it obvious. You don’t give them an inch.”

I nodded.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

“Good,” he repeated. “Because I swear, if this hurts her-”

“It won’t,” I said. “I won’t let it.”

He studied me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

“Okay,” he said. “Then let them talk.”

By the time practice rolled around, my anger had settled into something heavier.

More focused.

The locker room was loud, but I barely noticed.

A couple guys looked at me like they wanted to ask something.

Nobody did.

Good.

On the field, I played harder than I had all season.

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