Chapter 25. Photos

Tessa’s POV

Nobody tells you what it costs to be popular until you are.

Then it hits you like a hangover you didn’t earn.

By Sunday morning, the hallway kiss has its own Cadston Howl post. Somebody filmed it from the bathroom line. It’s grainy and dark and only nine seconds long, but you can see my hands on his face, his arm around my waist, and at the very end, a gray blur in the doorway that everyone in the comments has already identified as Cole.

CADSTON HOWL: The ex WATCHED. 🐺🔥 Is it still slumming if he’s this into it??

Eight thousand views. My phone buzzes so much on Sunday that I put it in a drawer.

On Monday, three girls I’ve never spoken to say hi to me in the dining hall. On Tuesday, the editor of the campus magazine, who rejected my last two pitches, emails to ask if I’d like a column. On Tuesday afternoon, a sophomore stops me outside the library to ask if Wyatt has a brother who isn’t Cole.

“He doesn’t,” I say.