[Maddie’s POV]

Getting ready for a floor party shouldn’t require forty minutes of contouring. But Maddie has standards to maintain.

I blend the highlighter along my cheekbone, building the illusion of effortless beauty one brush stroke at a time. The outfit took longer—a silk blouse I found at Goodwill and altered myself, paired with jeans that cost more than my weekly meal budget.

Nobody will know the blouse was three dollars.

That’s the entire point.

In the mirror, Maddie Reyes looks back at me. Untouchable. Perfect. Exactly who I built myself to be after middle school tore the original version apart.

I don’t think about that girl anymore. She was weak, and weakness gets you destroyed.

I definitely don’t think about Emily getting ready on the other side of the room.

I don’t notice how she pulls on a simple gray top that somehow looks better than anything I spent hours curating. I don’t watch her reflection in my mirror, cataloging the way fabric skims her shoulders.

And I for sure don’t look at how her always sleeked back hair caresses her collarbones. The unconscious grace in her every move. The complete absence of pretense.

It’s infuriating how badly I want to—

“You’re staring,” Emily says without turning around.

Her voice carries that dry edge that cuts through my carefully constructed composure.

“I’m checking my makeup.” The lie slides out smooth as lip gloss. “Some of us actually put in effort for these things.”

She snorts softly but doesn’t engage further. Smart girl. We leave separately, because arriving together would suggest a connection neither of us wants to acknowledge. Fifteen minutes apart. Plausible deniability preserved.

The common room thrums with bodies and bass when I arrive. I find Derek immediately—he’s hard to miss, sprawled across the couch like he owns the building and everyone in it. His arm settles heavy around my shoulders as I sit.

Familiar weight. Useful weight.

He’s already scanning the room for other girls. I watch his eyes track a sophomore in a crop top, and I feel nothing. That’s not what he’s for.

Derek is a shield, a statement. Proof that Maddie Reyes is exactly who everyone believes her to be.

The cheating doesn’t matter. The performance matters.

I learned that lesson a long time ago, carved it into my bones until it became the truth.

Jenna and the other girls cluster nearby, drinks in hand, laughter pitched just loud enough to be noticed. I let their chatter wash over me, contributing expected comments at expected intervals.

This is my court. These are my people. Everything is completely under control.

Then Emily walks in with Ava, and Jenna’s eyes sharpen immediately like a predator spotting wounded prey across the savanna.

“Oh, look,” Jenna says, voice carrying deliberately across the room. “The scholarship kids made it. Emily, sweetie, is that top from the Goodwill clearance rack? I think my grandmother donated that exact one last spring.”

The other girls laugh on cue and I watch Emily’s face, waiting for the flinch, the retreat, the proof that she doesn’t belong in my world.

She’ll shrink. They always shrink. That’s how this works.

But then Emily turns and faces Jenna directly, expression is calm and almost bored.

“At least I earned my spot on the team instead of buying it,” she says, pleasant as poison. “Maybe if you spent as much time on your axel as you do on your highlights, Coach would actually remember your name.”

The common room goes dead silent as Jenna’s face flushes crimson, mouth opening and closing like a fish drowning in air. She looks to me for rescue.

Something hot and unwanted sparks in my chest like… Admiration?

Emily didn’t flinch, didn’t retreat. She demolished Jenna with two sentences of controlled devastation. Yet I’m furious at being impressed.

She’s not supposed to fight back, not supposed to hold her own so effortlessly.

She wouldn’t.

Not while looking directly at me like that.

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