The days blur together like something I can’t hold onto. I keep checking my phone. Lifting it. Unlocking it. Staring at the blank screen. Nothing. No text. No missed call. No explanation.

He kissed my cheek. He promised to call. He looked at me like I mattered, like I was worth remembering. And then he vanished.

I replay the date in my head on a loop. Did I talk too much? Laugh too loud? Lean too close? Maybe I read the signals wrong. Maybe I wasn't what he expected up close. Maybe the idea of me is better than the reality.

That thought sticks. It burrows under my skin and stays there, pulsing like a second heartbeat. Maybe I'm too much. Maybe I'm embarrassing. Maybe people lose interest once they get to know me.

I walk through the hallways and the fluorescent lights make everything look sickly. The lockers slam like gunshots. People talk to me. I smile. I laugh. I say the right things. But I'm not there. I'm somewhere else, staring at a phone that never rings.

He avoids me now. The football player. The one who kissed my cheek and promised to call. He walks past me in the hallway like I'm invisible. His eyes slide off my face like I'm not worth the effort of recognition. I feel my stomach drop every time. Every single time.

And I have no idea what I did wrong.

River is there too. He's always there. Sitting in the corner of the cafeteria with his tray untouched, his eyes tracking something I can't see. I feel his gaze on me sometimes, heavy and unreadable. But when I look up, he's already looking away. He never says anything. He never comes over. He just watches.

It makes me feel like a specimen. Like something pinned under glass.

The days stack on top of each other and I shrink inside my own skin. I start wearing baggier tops. I pull my hair back instead of letting it fall. I stop meeting people's eyes. The confidence I've worn like armor for years starts to crack. I feel it flaking off, piece by piece, until I'm something raw and unfamiliar underneath.

Maybe this is who I really am. Maybe the popularity was a mask. Maybe the real me is someone people walk away from.

Thursday afternoon. The hallway is emptying out, late bell about to ring. I'm heading to my locker when I hear voices from around the corner. Boys' voices. Low. Tense. One of them sounds familiar.

I slow down without meaning to.

"—told you to stay away from her."

My heart stops. That's River. I know his voice. I've memorized it from a thousand moments of quiet rejection.

"Yeah, man, I got it. I stayed away. What else do you want?" Another voice. The football player. The one who ghosted me.

"I want you to remember what happens if you don't." River's voice is flat. Cold. The same tone he uses when he tells me he's not interested. But there's something underneath it now. Something I've never heard before.

Possessiveness.

"I know. I know. I'm staying away. She hasn't talked to me since—"

"Good."

I press myself against the lockers. My hands are shaking. My breath is coming too fast. I can't process what I just heard. It doesn't make sense. It can't make sense.

River told him to stay away from me?

River, who doesn't want me. River, who flinches when I get too close. River, who told me a hundred times in a hundred different ways that I mean nothing to him.

That River. Made someone ghost me.

I step around the corner. They both see me at the same time. The football player's face goes white. River's jaw tightens. His hands are in his pockets, shoulders squared, that black hoodie pulled up like armor.

"What did you just say?" My voice comes out thin. Barely a whisper.

Neither of them answers. The football player takes a step back. He looks terrified.

"River." I say his name like it's breaking glass. "What did you do?"

He doesn't look away. That's the worst part. He meets my eyes and doesn't flinch. Like he's already decided this is a truth he's going to own.

"I told him to stay away."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I feel them in my chest. In my throat. In the hollow space behind my ribs where hope used to live.

"Why?" I hear myself ask. The word is small. Broken.

He doesn't answer.

The football player slips away. I barely notice. I'm staring at River. At the boy who has been breaking my heart for two years. At the boy who just admitted he's been breaking everyone else's too.

"Was it you?" The question comes out before I can stop it. "All of them? Every guy who stopped talking to me? Every date that ended with nothing?"

He doesn't look away. He doesn't deny it.

Something inside me cracks open. Not cleanly. Not gently. Like a fist through drywall.

"I thought it was me." My voice breaks. I let it. I don't care who hears. "I thought I was the problem. I thought I was too much. I thought I was embarrassing. I spent every night wondering what was wrong with me."

His jaw tightens. His hands are fists in his pockets.

"And it was you." I'm shaking now. Tears hot on my face. "It was you the whole time."

"Bella—"