Chapter 5 5

Chloe POV

Pain wakes me before anything else does. Not a headache. Something closer to a siege happening behind my eyes, each heartbeat landing like a hammer against my temples. Somebody has opened the blinds halfway, letting in exactly enough gray dawn to feel like an attack. Kelly's doing, no question. She treats blinds-up-at-sunrise like a personal moral code, though on nights involving serious drinking, she compromises. Her consistency has made me worse at fending for myself.

A groan escapes before I can stop it. Whiskey. Why whiskey, of all things, when I know what it does to me? I keep my eyes shut against the light, the nausea, and the creeping certainty that last night involved a truly spectacular mistake. Something cold nudges my hand.

"Drink. You need it."

One eye opens. Sam stands over the bed, an unopened water bottle extended toward me.

"Thanks," I croak.

I crack the seal and gulp too fast, nearly choking. It tastes incredible. I don't stop until it's half gone.

"Slow down before you make it worse," Sam says.

"Already there."

I settle into the pillows and take stock of the disaster zone that used to be my bedroom. Clothes everywhere. My purse dangling off the desk chair. Two glasses on the nightstand I have no memory of touching. Rod must have come home with me and talked me into "just one more," like he always does.

"Where's Rod, anyway?"

Sam doesn't answer right away. Something in his face changes. The look he gives me could only be described as disbelief. He exhales slowly and drops onto the couch at the foot of my bed.

"You don't remember any of it."

"Remember what, exactly?"

Pity settles over his features, and I hate it instantly.

"I don't" I start, but the sentence never finishes. Because it floods back all at once, every piece of last night crashing down together. Austin. Cole.

The man I've loved for two years.

The girl I called my closest friend.

The person sharing my roof.

My grip tightens around the bottle until it shakes. "Oh my god."

Sam is beside me instantly. "Hey. I'm right here."

"No," I whisper.

"Chloe"

"No." The tears break through before I can hold them back, my voice cracking down the middle.

He gathers me in, arms tight around my shoulders while I press my face against him.

"You're going to be okay," he says quietly. "Neither of them was worth what you gave them."

Drunk, I'd had a different kind of clarity. Pure fury, pure ache, and one single-minded goal: burn it all down and make sure Austin watched every second of it. Sober, the hangover strips away whatever numbness the alcohol offered. The betrayal is razor-edged now, working through every part of me until it's the only thing I can feel.

He cheated. With her. The one person I trusted with a spare key, a shared lease, every secret I own. She knew about every fight Austin and I ever had, every time he said he loved me, every intimate corner of a relationship that apparently meant nothing.

How long had the two of them been laughing about this behind closed doors?

I press my palm flat over my sternum, as if that could hold anything together.

"Hey, you." Kelly is leaning in the doorway now, and her face tells me she already knows.

"Hey," I manage.

She comes over, sits, and takes my free hand in both of hers. "Say the word and I'll have her stuff on the curb within the hour." Her chin tips toward the hallway. "Never liked her, if we're being honest. Always seemed a little too perfect."

A small, cracked laugh slips out of me despite everything.

"I just need time. To sit with this."

"Take it. However much." Her hand squeezes mine. "I mean it."

A beat passes before Sam clears his throat. "So, um."

I eye him warily.

"Worst possible timing, I know, but" he winces "your brother's out in the living room. And he is not calm."

My stomach drops. Tyler.

It all comes rushing back: how far I let things go, how little I cared about consequences in the moment, all in the name of hurting Austin. And my brilliant idea, apparently, was kissing the one man Tyler trusts with his life and threatens on principle.

Mason. Hayes. Of course.

I drop my head into my hands. "What did I do."

Kelly clears her throat. "So, funny thing. You and Mason are basically the top story on the gossip site right now."

A groan tears out of me. "Tell me you're joking."

"Extremely not joking."

I drag a pillow over my face. By lunch, the entire campus will have decided I'm just another name on Mason's list, and worse, that I cheated first.

"It'll die down," Sam offers, not sounding convinced. "Give it a week, tops. I mean, it's Mason. There's a new name attached to him practically every other week."

"Except she's literally his best friend's little sister," Kelly cuts in, "which kind of complicates the whole 'it'll blow over' theory."

"Kelly. You're supposed to be making me feel better."

"I was! Truth just came out first."

Bless her completely filterless heart.

Sam shrugs. "When you said you wanted to blow shit up last night, I assumed you meant getting Tyler to tank Austin's standing with the team. Not walking over and kissing the guy in front of everyone."

"Can we not, right now?"

"Also," Sam says, and he's suddenly very interested in the carpet, "you should know you made me text him."

I lower the pillow. "Text who?"

"Mason. Around two a.m., from my phone, because yours was 'compromised.' You dictated every word." He winces. "You told him to meet you on the library roof at seven. Alone."

I stare at him. "I did what?"

"You said you'd explain everything." He checks his watch. "It's six-fifteen."

I have no memory of that. None. Which means I don't know what I promised him, or what I told Sam to say, or how much of the plan I'd already worked out before the whiskey erased it.

I fumble for my phone on the nightstand. Twenty-seven missed calls from Austin. Sixteen texts. I've been flipping the screen face-down for hours in my head, but now I can't help it. My thumb hovers over the newest preview, and the first line is all that fits on the lock screen.

Before you do anything else, ask Kelly how long she's known.

The room goes very quiet.

Kelly is still sitting on the edge of my bed, my hand in both of hers, her face soft with sympathy. Not a flicker of surprise. Not a single question about what Cole did, or when, or how I found out.

She said she never liked her. She said it before I'd told her anything at all.

I slowly lift my eyes from the screen, and she smiles at me like nothing in the world is wrong.

"What?" Kelly says gently. "Everything okay?"

Out in the living room, something heavy hits the floor, and my brother starts shouting my name.