Chapter 1 Crash

Maya

I’ve always known what it feels like to be watched.

It used to feel good.

Not because I was vain. Well, maybe a little. But when you go from being the new girl, the immigrant’s daughter, to the girl everyone wants to know, you notice the change. People used to call out to me.

That was my normal.

“Maya!”

“Girl, your hair is giving today!”

“Are you coming to Cindy’s this weekend?”

I used to answer all of it with a laugh, like I had nowhere else to be but in their attention.

But today… no one was smiling. This morning was different.

I noticed it the moment I stepped into the school gates. The stares were still there—but they weren’t warm anymore.

People were still looking at me, yes—but not the same way. It wasn’t admiration anymore.

Whispers followed me down the hallway and I caught pieces of them as I walked.

“…that’s her, right?”

“…I swear it looks like her…”

“…Luke really chose her?”

My steps slowed without me meaning to and my fingers tightened around my bag strap.

No, that didn’t make sense. Luke and I were fine. Perfect, actually. I forced myself to breathe normally and lifted my head.

Okay, I thought. Maybe I’m imagining things.

Then I saw Rosie and Sally by the bike rack. My stomach loosened. Thank God.

“Hey guys!” I called, already smiling as I waved.

Rosie’s eyes flicked to mine for half a second, then she looked away. She grabbed Sally’s elbow and whispered something. They both turned and walked the other way.

They didn’t wave back or say anything. My smile died halfway.

“Rosie?” I turned slightly confused. “Sally?”

But they didn’t stop, they didn’t even slow down. I stood there with my hand still in the air, feeling like an idiot.

Fine. Maybe they didn’t see me.

Before I could figure it out, laughter came from behind me.

“Yo, Maya Sandoval!”

I turned.

Three boys from the hockey team peeled off from the wall near the gym doors. Jaxon Reese, the one with the snake tattoo on his neck and two of his friends whose names I never bothered to learn. Jaxon smirked like he had been waiting for this moment.

“Well, well,” he said, stepping into my path. “If it isn’t Maya Sandoval.”

I forced a tight smile. “Jaxon. Move.”

He didn’t move. Instead, he leaned in closer. “Hey, beautiful. How about you and me hit the locker room after school? I can show you some new positions to try out with your man.”

My blood went cold. Not because it was dirty, I’d heard worse. But because of the way he said it, like he knew something.

“Get away from me, you pervert,” I snapped, stepping back. “Wait till Luke hears about this.”

They laughed, all three of them. A nasty, knowing laugh that scraped down my spine.

“Luke?” Jaxon’s friend snorted. “You mean your boyfriend? Yeah, I’m sure he’d love to hear about it. Maybe he already knows.”

Jaxon pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and held it out like a gift.

“Why were you fucking someone else, Maya? Luke not enough for you? Or do you just like them plenty?”

He let the paper drop. It fluttered once and landed facedown on the concrete between us. I stared at it. My heart was already pounding, but my hands were steady as I bent down and picked it up.

It’s nothing, I told myself. Just some stupid rumor, just a prank.

I turned it over and the world stopped.

It was a photograph. Printed on good paper and it was me. I was lying on a bed. A bed I recognized—Sarah’s bed, the pale blue duvet I’d slept on a hundred times during sleepovers.

My head was tilted back, my eyes were closed and on top of me, bare-chested, face half-hidden, was a boy I had never seen before in my life.

I froze so completely it felt like my body forgot how to exist.

“No…” the word slipped out of me without permission.

My fingers went numb.

I looked closer. My shirt was pushed up. Not off—just up enough to show skin and his body was positioned exactly like—

No, no, no.

My eyes scanned the image again and again, searching for anything that would make it wrong. A filter, a mistake, a face swap. Anything. But the longer I looked… the more real it became. I felt the blood drain from my face. The paper trembled, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the wind or from me.

“That’s not….” My voice cracked. “That’s not real.”

Jaxon just laughed again and walked away.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even think. The photograph was burning holes in my hands. How? When? I tried to remember. Last weekend at Sarah’s house. We’d had a sleepover—just me, Sarah, and a few other girls. I had one drink. One. And then I’d gotten so tired so fast that I passed out on her bed.

I thought it was just exhaustion.

Oh God.

“Babe.”

The word came out of my mouth before I even saw him. Luke. He was walking across the courtyard, his arm slung around someone’s shoulders. Someone blonde.

Sarah.

“Babe!” I called again, louder this time. My voice sounded wrong and thin.

They stopped walking. Luke turned his head and Sarah turned with him, slowly like she’d been waiting for this moment.

I walked toward them. Each step felt like wading through cement. The photograph was still in my hand. I didn’t care anymore. I needed him to look at me and say it’s a lie, I know you, I trust you.

“Luke?” My voice broke as I stepped forward. “Sarah?”

I lifted my hand slightly, like I could stop the world from moving.

“Hey—hey!” I called, faster now. “Sarah!”

“Luke!” I called out, reaching for him.

He stepped back. Just one small step, but it might as well have been a mile.

Sarah smiled. It was the same smile she’d given me the night we became friends, two years ago, when I’d shown up at the Dean mansion with my dad’s old tool belt and dirt on my knees. The same smile she’d given me when she said; You’re like the sister I never had. But her eyes were different now.

Maya,” she said sweetly, tilting her head. “Can you lower your voice?”

I blinked. “What is going on? What is this picture? Why is everyone…”

I held it up again, my hands trembling violently..Her eyes flicked to it just for a second, then she looked away. Like it bored her.

“Babe,” she said softly, her hands still on Luke's arm, “can you tell her to stop calling my name? People are going to start thinking I’m a cheap hooker… like you.”

The words landed like glass in my chest.

I looked at Luke. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

And in that moment, I understood two things at once: Someone had done this to me on purpose.

And that someone was standing right in front of me, wearing my best friend’s face.