I threw open my front door with far too much force, slamming it behind me and flying over to the staircase. I climbed the steps two at a time, my phone practically burning a hole in my cashmere pocket.

Needless to say, my anxiety was just as ripe as it had been when I received the salacious text at lunch.

But even after another five minutes of watching the video on repeat in the quiet of my bedroom, reverse-searching the number to no avail, I still had no idea what it was that I was looking at. Sure, the pixels on the screen were as clear as crystal, the action in the video even clearer, but it was as if my mind simply refused to accept the information being presented to it.

Nate didn't hook up with guys.

Nate was not gay, not even remotely.

Nate was Nate, for crying out loud. The only person in the world straighter than the football-playing, Sienna-crazed, dreamy ocean-eyed heartthrob was Astor fucking Black.

Nate wasn't gay. Which meant there had to be some other reason for why I was staring at a video that showed him on camp, wearing the same clothes I'd seen him wearing that night in the cabin, with his tongue down some other guy's throat.

So I FaceTimed the only person in the world who I had any hope of getting that reason out of.

"Straight guys hook up with other guys all the time, right?"

"Hello to you, too, stranger." Ryan chuckled, using his camera as a mirror and fluffing up his platinum blond hair. "You fell off the face of the earth for a second there. I thought you were dead or something—"

"Ry!" I cried, waving my hands frantically. I fell on top of my bed, staring into the phone as though it possessed all of the answers in the universe. At that moment, it did. "Has a straight guy ever wanted to make out with you? I'm talking a total straight-as-an-arrow macho guy who's maybe just, like, curious? Or drunk? Or doing a dare?"

Ryan's smile faltered. Was that a bad question to ask? It wasn't like tact was the first thing on my mind.

"Well... yeah." He shrugged, "I guess. Straight guys are the worst." He paused. Then, "Why? Do you know one who's interested?"

I brushed off his sarcasm, nodding to confirm the supposition in my head. "That's what I thought. He's just experimenting."

Ryan's amusement melted into confusion. He propped his phone up on his desk, frowning at me in a way that caused my temporary state of relief to totally capsize.

"What?" I asked hesitantly.

I could see that he was debating something, that he was biting down hard on his tongue.

"Ryan!" I prodded, desperately that time.

He sensed my urgency, releasing his tongue from its hold. "This isn't hypothetical. This is about Nate."

The name took a second to reach my diamond-studded ears. And when it got close, my brain spat it right back out.

I stared silently at my pale-faced best friend for what had to have been five very long seconds, my narrowed eyes asking the question my mouth didn't dare: How did you know?

"Ana?"

My head snapped up to find my mother's head poking into my room.

"I've been calling you," she said.

"Sorry." I shook my head from side to side as if that would rid my face of its panic. "I'm talking to Ryan."

"Ry!" My mother bounded towards us, a smile spread from ear to ear. "How are you, darling?"

"What do you want?" I practically snapped. I couldn't help it. I needed her out of my room.

She gaped back at me, her face brimming with maternal concern. "Oh, I just..." She trailed off, clearing her throat. And then her gaze was back, and it was far more penetrating. "I seem to have misplaced one of my pinhole cameras."

The question itself was plain. It was her tone—and insinuation—that was pointed. That's when I noticed how suspiciously her eyes were examining me. Examining the neckline of my blush sweater, in particular.

I shook my head immediately. "Sorry, I haven't seen that thing in years."

My words of reassurance didn't reassure her. That glare was unnerving enough to make even an innocent person feel guilty.

"Not since seventh grade," I said, placing a hand over my heart. "I swear."

Her scrutiny didn't let up for a second or so, and she scanned over my room once more. "Let me know if it turns up." She backed away tentatively, throwing a simple wave over her shoulder. "Bye, Ryan."

By the time she'd shut my door behind her, my initial panic had subsided. Slightly.

I turned back to face my best friend, coating my glossy mouth in a tight smile. "Please tell me that was just a lucky guess."

But Ryan didn't crack a grin like I expected him to. Instead, his voice caught on a laugh that was devoid of humor.

"Ry, this isn't funny—"

"I tried to tell you."

An unsettling feeling spread inside of me, my heart dipping as if I was on a carnival ride. "Tell me what?"

"Ana," Ryan uttered, his hushed voice a warning for the words to come. "Nate's gay."

I rolled my eyes, lounging back on my hands. "Your gaydar needs tuning."

"It's not a hunch, Ana. He told me."

The words were a defibrillator, an abrupt jolt that transmitted electric pulses to my stilled heart and thrust it into my throat. Not he had a feeling, not he found out through some investigative sleuthing online. Told. Nate told him.

I was staring at that phone, my lips slightly parted, my head light and airy as my mind seemed to drift further and further away. "What do you mean he told you?"

"We've been talking," Ryan said plainly. "We exchanged numbers at your party."

A thousand tiny needles pricked my skin, my anxiety washing out to sea as a wave of anger came to shore. "You what?"

"Ana, it's not a big deal—"

"Don't. You. Dare."

"Ana," Ryan tried again.

My hands were covering my face, massaging my throbbing temples. Betrayed. That's what I felt. By Ryan? By Nate? I wasn't completely sure. All I knew was that I had a glistening silver knife stabbing me right in my cashmere-cloaked back.

"Does he know about you?" My words tasted like venom.

"Ana—"

"Does he know?"

The question hung in the air like a thick morning fog.

Ryan sighed, biting his lip. "Yes."

I launched off my bed, the adrenaline stirring inside of me too overwhelming to contain. This was bad. This was really, really bad. Not only did whoever sent me Nate's video know that I was collecting information about my peers, but Ryan had been handing insider intel straight to my enemies.

"So he either thinks I'm an idiot," I hissed, "or he thinks that I lied about dating you." Neither was good. Both threatened to bring my castle of lies crashing down around me.

"You don't think I thought about that?" Ryan called from my phone, and I turned back to see him hunched over the screen. "Give me some credit. Jeez—"

"Give you some credit?" I replied, my hands shaking with rage. But no, he was right. I had to hear him out. I took in a shaky breath, closing my eyes and suppressing the wrath inside of me. "What's the story, then?"

"The story," Ryan repeated sourly, "is that you knew I was gay. That you agreed to help cover my tracks for the sake of my conservative parents."

I nearly scoffed. Ryan's parents? Conservative? They were practically a walking billboard for LGBT+ rights.

"And he believed that?"

"He didn't just believe it, Ana," Ryan stressed. "He completely understood. Because Sienna's been doing the same thing for him."

At the mention of the fallen angel's name, any traces of composure I had shattered on the floor like glittering shards of glass.

She knew. All this time. She knew.

"She's been covering for him," Ryan declared, sounding quite proud of himself. "Since... well, since forever. I've been trying to tell you this..."

He was still droning on as I resumed my position on my bed, my mind spinning with the implications of Ryan's revelation.

Sienna and Nate. Nate and Sienna. The queen and her king. They didn't exist.

Their coveted relationship was the source of their initial power, their claim to fame that helped them navigate the social ranks of Irvine High. And it was based on a lie.

"I can't believe you kept this from me," I interrupted, my voice a ragged whisper.

Ryan brushed his candy-floss fringe from over his eyes. "You're not listening to me, Ana. I tried to tell you as soon as I found out. You wouldn't answer my calls—"

"You could have texted me—"

"It's not the kind of thing to say through text!"

I lifted my eyes to run over my best friend's face. Even through the screen, I could see that he was pained.

"And the more that I spoke to Nate..." His voice hitched in his throat. "I don't know, I can't explain it. He was so desperate to keep his secret. I couldn't do that to him."

It was like I had slipped head-on into a block of ice, his words a firm, cold slap in my blood-drained face. "So you're loyal to him, now?"

"No, babe. It's not like that."

"That sounds exactly what it's like—"

"God, Ana!" Ryan's voice exploded like thunder, causing my slitted eyes to spring open. "Not everything is about you!"

I stared at him coolly, trying to regain my composure despite the heat that was creeping to my face. "This is my school, Ryan. My friends. My life—"

"My, my, my. Listen to yourself! Who the hell are you?"

"Who the hell are you? You're supposed to be my best friend!"

"What was I supposed to do?" He erupted. "Tell him that he was wrong? Tell him that no, he's not gay, that he should hook up with you and fulfill your childhood dream?"

"That's not what this is about—"

"Really?" He released a condescending breath of air, acidic judgment dripping from his raised voice. "Because I think that's precisely what it's about. You're pissed because you wasted five years lusting after a guy who could never love you back anyway, when the truth of the matter, Ana, is that even if Nate wasn't gay, he never gave you any reason to think that he wanted you to begin with!"

His rapid-fire inference shot me right in the chest, pulverizing my molten rage and replacing it with a numbing chill. Anger, resentment, rejection, jealousy; a vicious cocktail of emotions pooled underneath my skin, threatening to manifest into fighting words I was sure I'd later regret.

I gripped my hands on my bedsheets, crumpling them as if that would restore my strength. Bitter tears stung my eyes, and I gritted my teeth to keep them at bay. "I think I should go."

"I think you should."

Just as I reached out to end the call, Ryan called my name once again.

"Promise me something," he said, his voice wavering as he, too, tried to swallow his temper.

My hand hesitated, hovering near his sullen face.

"Promise me that you won't use this against Nate."

His plea lingered near my ears but, once again, my brain refused to acknowledge it.

"I can't promise that," I uttered, hanging up the call.

Irvine Academy was a kingdom built on corruption and lies. No one knew that better than me.

That's what I'd told myself the day that I stepped through its iron gates as Elle Roxford. How quickly I'd forgotten it.

But it ran on a loop in my mind when I got ready for school the next morning, primping my blonde hair with loose curls and pearly barrettes. It flashed in my eyes when I painted my lips pink in the girls' bathroom after third period, and it nagged at the pit of my stomach when I sat in the cafeteria with my friends, lacing my fingers through Cameron's hair robotically while I pierced holes into Sienna's smug, lying face.

Everyone in Irvine was lying. And some of them were even better at it than me. Irvine's queen—she was proficient.

"I have something to tell you," Sienna announced after school.

It was just Kat and I sitting with her in the library, working out some of the remaining kinks in our group project. Cameron had a meeting for the school paper, so Sienna had issued him a royal pardon.

How very kind of her.

"Don't be mad at me," Sienna went on, a teasing smile tugging at her red mouth.

Too late.

Kat and I popped our pens down on the table, giving our queen our total, undivided attention like the good little handmaidens we were.

Sienna's sly simper gave way to an all-out grin. "Nate asked me to the dance. And I said yes!"

I had to clench my jaw to suppress an incredulous scoff.

"I thought you were swearing off of men?" Kat questioned innocently. Meaning not even Kat was in on Sienna and Nate's scheme. "Female empowerment and all that jazz?"

Sienna waved a hand. "Nate's not just any man. Nate is Nate."

That was certainly one way to put it.

My fists balled under the table, my poker face surely giving way to the disgust bubbling underneath. What I couldn't get passed was how very calculated Sienna and Nate's lie was. How layered and complex. Even their breakup—completely unnecessary given that Nate, too, was cheating on Sienna, not to mention that they weren't even really dating in the first place—was another lie. A lie designed to add credibility to the biggest one of all.

And they weren't just lying to me. They had been lying to everyone. For years. They must have thought they were so damn clever; the school's headlining couple that didn't actually exist.

"I'm happy for you, Sienna," I heard myself murmur, my wispy tone unintentionally cutting. "For both of you."

The queen's eyes flashed, her wide and bright smile faltering in the corners.

"I'm going to head off," I announced before she could question me, rising from my seat and gathering my things. After an entire day of staring her right in her arrogant face, and with the knowledge that I'd have to face both her and Nate together at the dance while everyone around us fed into their lies, I needed some time to recollect myself.

And maybe a stiff drink of whatever people took to wind down.

"Oh, okay," Sienna replied. She leaned across the table to return a pen she'd borrowed, tucking it into my neon pink case. "Can you let Chontelle know about the plans to meet at my place before the dance on your way out? I think she was taking a makeup test for math."

Can't you text her?

"Sure." I stuffed my books and pencil case into my purse, slinging it over my shoulder and throwing them both a wave.

Who the hell did Sienna think she was, ordering me around like that? Had she so quickly forgotten that I was the only one who stood by her during the whole Kirsty-debacle? That I saved her from the embarrassment of having a so-called friend turn up to the dance on her ex-boyfriend's arm?

Of course she had. That's what Elites did—use and discard.

I rounded the deserted hall to my math classroom, steadying my breathing as I approached the closed door. Whatever I was feeling in the aftermath of Ryan's revelation, it wasn't Chontelle or Mr. Briar's problem.

But when I stepped into the room, I realized that neither of them would likely care about whatever juvenile high school problem I was dealing with that day. Not when Chontelle had a disheveled Briar pinned against his desk, her skirt hoisted up to her hips while his hands traced along her silky red thong.

"Miss Roxford," my math teacher choked hoarsely, the sound muffling around my friend's swollen lips.

Chontelle straightened immediately, a mixture of lust and guilt leaping from her sultry gaze.

I didn't wait for either of them to speak again. I did the only thing I had the energy to do at that moment.

I nodded, stepped out into the hall, and closed the door behind me.

So... thoughts? 🙃

I have to shout out LividLylie for guessing the Nate twist all the way back in chapter 27 (which made me so happy at the time because foreshadowing ftw)! Great sleuthing 🌟 A lot of you foresaw the Chontelle x Briar affair, so gold stars all around 🌟🌟🌟

See you in the next one!
- D