Chapter 1 The Welcome Party

Avery's POV

Madison Thorne stepped into my path before I made it 3 steps inside the door.

"Well, well. The scholarship infestation has arrived."

Four girls spread out behind her. Gold dress, expensive perfume, smile already decided. The ballroom was packed behind them, chandeliers and marble and 200 seniors in silk, and none of it mattered because Madison had already locked onto me like I was the only person in the room worth destroying tonight.

I kept walking. "Love what you've done with your face. Did the filler settle?"

Shock moved through the group. I felt it without looking.

She stepped into my path again. "Still in the thrift store dress? I saw that exact one on a woman outside the pharmacy last week."

"Then she had excellent taste."

"I heard your mother started cleaning for the Ryders." Her voice dropped, just between us. "Mopping their floors. Scrubbing their toilets. How does it feel, knowing your family's survival depends on wiping up after people who actually matter?"

My mother had taken the job 3 weeks ago. Come home with red-rimmed eyes and told me it was temporary, just until something better came through. I hadn't told a single person at school. I hadn't thought I needed to.

"At least my mother works for a living." I held her eyes. "What do you do, Madison? Besides spending your father's money and peaking at 18?"

Her smile came back wider than before. That was when I knew I'd made a mistake.

A phone appeared from somewhere in the crowd. Her girls closed into a half circle behind me, cutting off the exit. The people who had been pretending not to watch stopped pretending. The string quartet kept playing. Nobody looked at them.

"She thinks she's too good for us." Madison's voice carried easily now, pitched for the room. "Little Miss Coding Genius. The fat scholarship girl who builds video games in her bedroom because she can't afford to go anywhere real."

Laughter from the nearest cluster. Then wider, spreading back through the crowd like something catching.

"She lives in a shed. Her mother's bedroom is a converted closet. They share a bathroom with their landlord."

None of it was entirely true. It didn't matter. I stood at the center of it with my hands pressed flat against my thighs and my jaw locked and my throat doing something I absolutely refused to let it finish.

Not here. Not in front of them.

"Excuse me."

The voice came from behind the circle. Unhurried, carrying easily without being raised. The crowd shifted before I even turned.

Jaxon Ryder walked through like the space had been arranged for him, which in most ways it had. 6 foot 3, dark jacket, pale gray eyes already done with everything. He stopped between me and Madison without looking at either of us for more than a second.

I noticed how good looking he was. I hated that I noticed.

"Thorne. Party's that way."

"Jaxon, I was just—"

"Leaving." He stepped forward. The crowd stepped back. "Go on."

Madison flipped her hair, laughed like nothing had happened, and walked. Her girls followed. The circle dissolved. The quartet swelled back into the silence like it had never left.

I stared at the floor and breathed.

"You okay?"

I looked up. He was watching me with a slight frown, like I was a problem he hadn't signed up for.

"I didn't need your help."

"Didn't say you did."

"Then why."

"She was getting loud. I share a locker room with half those guys." A shrug. "It wasn't about you."

"Thanks for the rescue, quarterback." I turned. "I'll try to be less inconvenient next time."

I walked before he could respond. Behind me, a short exhale. Then nothing.

I found the dessert table, ate one cheesecake because I had earned it, and counted down to 9:45. The October air hit my face when I stepped outside and I pulled out my phone to arrange a ride home.

The notifications were already flooding.

Instagram. TikTok. Snapchat. Group chats I had never been added to, all of them at once. The video was up. The whole thing. Madison performing, the crowd laughing, a close up of my face while everyone pressed in around me. The view count moved in real time.

60,000. 78,000. 93,000.

Charity case thinking she belongs here.

Someone get this girl a diet plan.

Wait is she actually living in a shed??

I locked my phone. Breathed. Unlocked it.

112,000 views.

My mom was going to see this. My teachers. The scholarship committee. Every person who had ever signed a document on my behalf was going to see my face frozen in that moment while strangers picked me apart in the comments.

I sat down on the cold pavement outside the ballroom and didn't bother getting back up. The sky above me was wide and indifferent. 3 years of invisible. 3 years of careful. 90 seconds to pull all of it apart.

My phone buzzed.

Mom: Baby I just saw it. Leaving now. 10 minutes.

She was supposed to be at the Ryder mansion right now. Which meant she had been checking her phone between rooms, between tasks, and had still seen every comment. Every laughing emoji. Every stranger deciding what I was worth from a 60 second clip.

I stopped fighting it.

Her Honda pulled in 9 minutes later. No words, just an unlocked door and arms around me. The hug smelled like lemon cleaner and a long shift and everything she never complained about.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't." Both hands on my face, eyes wet and completely steady. "You stood up for yourself. I did not raise a girl who stands there and takes it."

The drive home was quiet. I went inside, changed into my oldest sweatshirt, and lay on my back in the dark.

230,000 views. Someone had already made a meme of my face.

I silenced my phone and let myself cry. 3 years of careful and one night had been enough to erase all of it.

By morning, it was going to get worse.