Chapter 3 THE COMMENT

POV: Callum

I did not post that comment.

I need to say that first because when I pick up my phone at eleven-fifteen and see seventeen notifications on a post I did not make from an account I have not opened in four months, my stomach drops straight through the floor.

Someone used my account.

I sit up so fast I knock my water bottle off the nightstand. I grab my phone and open the app with shaking hands. And there it is. CVoss18. My username. My profile picture. Three laughing emojis and the words lol, did she really not notice sitting directly under a video of Wren walking down the hallway this morning with that sign on her back?

Four hundred and sixty-one likes now.

I stare at the screen.

Then I look at the time the comment was posted. 6:47 PM. I was in the kitchen at 6:47 PM. I was cutting Theo's chicken and pretending I did not notice Wren refusing to look at me.

I did not post this comment.

But my name is on it.

And somewhere in this house, in the room two doors down the hall, Wren has already seen it.

I know exactly who did it.

Sable.

Three weeks ago at Reef's party, I left my phone on the kitchen counter for twenty minutes. Sable was the only one near it. I didn't think anything of it because back then, I trusted her the way you trust someone you have known your whole life, automatically, without checking.

I am not going to make that mistake again.

I call her. It rings four times and goes to voicemail.

I text her. One sentence. Take it down. Now.

Three grey ticks. She has read it.

No reply.

I throw my phone onto my bed and press both hands over my face. I can feel the headache building behind my eyes, the same one that shows up every time my life decides to come apart at the seams at the worst possible moment.

I should go to Wren's room. I should knock on the door and explain. I should say my account was used without my permission, and I had nothing to do with it.

But what comes out of my mouth when I try that sentence in my head is: Hi, I know we just agreed we don't know each other, and also, my ex-best-friend posted a video of your humiliation using my login because she is trying to ruin both our lives at the same time.

I sit back down on my bed.

I will fix it in the morning.

Except I do not sleep.

I lie in the dark, and I think about this morning. About the hallway. About the sign.

Here is what I have not told anyone. When I saw the janitor stop Wren, when I saw her turn around and understand what had been on her back the entire time, I almost stopped walking. Something in me actually pulled in her direction. Like a reflex.

But Reef was already three steps ahead, saying something about Friday's game, and my feet just kept moving,g and the moment passed, and I buried it under everything else I was already carrying.

I am good at burying things.

Theo's diagnosis. My mother is leaving. My father, replacing grief with a new family, as you can just swap out the broken parts. I have buried all of it so deep that some days I forget it's there until I am lying in the dark at midnight and there is nothing left to distract me.

The truth is, I keep walking because stopping costs too much.

The truth is, I have been walking for two years.

At 7 AM, I am outside Wren's door.

I raise my hand to knock. I hold it there. I can hear her moving inside. Drawers opening and closing. I imagine her getting ready for school, probably thinking about the comment, probably thinking about me, and none of it is good.

I knock.

Silence.

"Wren."

Nothing.

"I know you saw it. I need to explain something."

The door opens so fast I nearly knock on her face. She is already in her hoodie, bag on her shoulder, and her eyes are doing the thing I noticed yesterday at dinner. Completely flat. Like she pulled a curtain across whatever she is actually feeling.

"I'm going to be late," she says.

"It wasn't me."

She looks at me for a long moment. Then she does something I did not expect. She laughs. Not a real laugh. A small, tired one that sounds like it has been used many times before.

"Callum," she says. "It had your name on it."

"Someone used my account. Sable. She had my login. I didn't."

"I believe you," she says.

I stop. "You do?"

"Sure." She steps past me into the hallway. "It doesn't matter either way."

I follow her. "What do you mean it doesn't matter?"

She stops at the top of the stairs and turns around. And for the first time since she walked into my house, the curtain lifts just slightly. Just enough for me to see what is underneath.

Not anger. Something worse.

Complete, total exhaustion.

"It means I've been here before," she says quietly. "Different school. Different names. Same video. Same comments. Same morning after." She shrugs. "I know how this goes."

She goes downstairs.

I stand at the top of the stairs, and I do not move for a long time.

I get to school at 7:40, and the first person I see is Reef, who holds up his phone with a grin.

"Bro, that comment though."

I take his phone out of his hand and delete the comment myself, standing in the middle of the car park. Reef stares at me.

"Sable posted it from my account," I say. "It's gone."

Reef's grin fades. "Oh." Then: "She's not going to like that."

"I don't care what she likes."

I give him back his phone and walk toward the building. Coach Briggs is already waving me over from the gym entrance, which means more bad news before I have even had breakfast.

My phone buzzes.

A text from a number I don't recognise.

I stop walking and open it.

Four words.

I have the video.

Not the hallway video. Not the sign video. Something else. Because attached to the text is a single screenshot, and when I see what is in it, every muscle in my body locks up at once.

It is Theo.

At the medical centre.

And whoever sent this knows things about my brother that I have never told a single person alive.