He came home three hours later, smelling of rain and the cloying sweetness of Catalina’s vanilla shampoo.

I was sitting on the couch, staring at a blank TV screen. I hadn't moved in an hour, fused to the cushions like a ghost haunting her own living room.

"Eliana," Jax said, tossing his keys on the counter. His voice was casual, light, as if he hadn't ripped my heart out earlier that afternoon. "Cat's fine. Shaken up, obviously, but fine. You really didn't need to make a scene like that."

He walked into the living room, loosening his tie. He looked at me, expecting the usual fight. Expecting tears. Expecting me to demand an apology so he could charm his way out of it.

I didn't blink. I didn't look at him. I looked through him.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, trying to pivot to normal. He walked over and sat next to me, reaching for my hand. "I can order Thai."

I recoiled before he could touch me. It wasn't a violent motion, just instinctive—like jerking back from a hot stove.

"I'm not hungry," I said. My voice sounded flat, foreign to my own ears. "My stomach hurts."

It was a lie, but it was the only way to keep a barrier between us.

"You're still mad," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Look, I know what I said at the pool was harsh. But she was drowning, El. I had to prioritize."

*Drowning in three feet of water,* I thought.

But I didn't say it. There was no point. You can't explain the concept of drowning to someone who is convinced they are the lifeguard.

"It's fine, Jax," I said.

He paused, surprised by the lack of resistance. "Okay. Good. I knew you'd understand. I promised her dad I'd look out for her."

He got up and went to the kitchen. I stood up and walked to our bedroom.

I looked around the room. It was filled with *us*. Photos, gifts, memories. It felt like a museum dedicated to a civilization that had already collapsed.

I walked to the dresser and saw it immediately. A small glass bottle.

Catalina’s perfume.

It was sitting right next to my hairbrush. It was an invasion. A deliberate territory marker. She must have left it here the last time the "group" hung out before the party.

Jax walked in, holding a glass of water. He saw me staring at the bottle.

"Oh," he said, a flicker of something—guilt? annoyance?—crossing his face. "Cat must have left that. I'll give it back to her tomorrow."

"It's fine," I said again.

He frowned. "Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because it is."

I walked over to the corner of the room where a giant teddy bear sat. He had won it for me at the county fair on our first date. He had named it Elie Bear.

I picked it up. It was heavy, burdened with dust.

"What are you doing?" Jax asked.

I walked out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. I opened the trash can and shoved the bear inside. It was too big, resisting its fate, so I forced it down, crushing its synthetic smile against the wet, dark sludge of yesterday's coffee grounds.

"Eliana!" Jax snapped. "What the hell? That's sentimental."

"I'm cleaning," I said calmly. "It attracts dust."

The next day at school was worse.

I was in the cafeteria line when I heard her voice. Catalina was holding court at a center table, her arm draped with practiced casualness over the back of Jax’s chair.

"He's just so protective," she was saying, loud enough for the next three tables to hear. "Even his mom says he's always been that way with me. Since we were kids. He just knows what I need before I even ask."

My friends were sitting nearby, looking at their trays, uncomfortable. They knew. Everyone knew.

"I heard he left Eliana at the party just to drive you home," a girl asked.

Catalina laughed, a tinkling, artificial sound. "Oh, Eliana is sweet, but she gets so anxious. Jax just had to handle the situation."

I felt the eyes on me. Pity. Amusement.

Jax was sitting right there. He was eating his sandwich, nodding along, not correcting her. Not defending me.

He looked up and saw me. For a second, he looked guilty. He started to stand up.

I turned around and walked out of the cafeteria.

Later that afternoon, I found my locker open. Inside, my dance trophy—the one I had won last year, the one Jax said he was so proud of—had been moved to the bottom shelf, turned backward. In its place was a framed photo of the cheer squad. Catalina was front and center.

I didn't scream. I didn't smash the frame.

I just closed the locker.

"Hey," Jax appeared beside me, breathless. "I was looking for you. Do you want to go to the movies tonight? Just us?"

He was trying. He was buying tickets for a voyage on a ship that had already sunk.

"I can't," I said. "I have cramps."

"Again?" He rolled his eyes. "You're punishing me."

"No," I said, looking at the necklace he was wearing. It was new. A silver chain. Catalina was wearing a matching bracelet in the cafeteria.

"I'm just tired, Jax."

"Fine," he huffed. "Go rest. Cat wanted help with her trig homework anyway."

"Okay," I said.

He waited for me to argue. To tell him he couldn't go. To fight for him.

I just walked away.

"Eliana?" he called out.

I didn't turn back.

The annual spring formal was supposed to be the highlight of the year. Instead, it felt like an autopsy of my relationship.

I stood by the punch bowl, gripping a plastic cup as I watched them on the dance floor. Jax and Catalina moved with a synchronization that made my stomach turn. It wasn't overtly sexual; it was something worse. It was intimate.

It was a language of shared history that I didn't speak. He knew exactly when she would spin; she knew exactly how he would catch her.

"They look like they were made for each other," someone whispered behind me.

"Totally. I heard they're practically soulmates," another voice agreed.

I took a sip of the overly sweet punch to keep from gagging.

Catalina broke away from Jax and floated toward me, her dress shimmering under the strobe lights. She didn't look malicious. She looked helpful. That was the cruelty of it.

"You look tired, El," she said, touching my arm. Her fingers were cold against my skin.

"I'm fine," I said, pulling away.

She leaned in closer, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "You know, I'm really glad you and Jax are still trying. I actually told him he should ask you out back in sophomore year. He was so unsure, but I said, 'Give her a chance, she needs someone.'"

The room tilted.

*She told him to ask me out.*

The ground beneath my feet felt like it dissolved. All those memories—Jax asking me to the movies, the shy confession, the first kiss—it wasn't passion. It was an assignment.

I was a project Catalina had assigned him because she wasn't ready for him yet.

"Excuse me," I mumbled.

I rushed to the bathroom, locking myself in a stall. I dry-heaved over the toilet, but nothing came up except the bitter taste of bile.

I left the dance early. I didn't tell Jax. He wouldn't notice anyway.

A few days later, I was in the student lounge working on an essay. A group of students from the drama club were drinking wine in the corner—technically illegal on campus, but no one cared. Catalina was holding court again.

She was tipsy, her cheeks flushed a deep rose.

"Jax is just... intense," she giggled. "You guys don't know the half of it. When we were twelve, I lost my charm bracelet in the lake. He spent four hours diving for it until his lips turned blue. He missed his own baseball championship game just to find a piece of cheap jewelry for me."

The group swooned.

"He's always been yours, hasn't he?" a girl asked.

"Basically," Catalina shrugged, swirling her wine. "I mean, he dates other people to pass the time, but when I call? He answers. Always."

I sat frozen behind a bookshelf.

*Dates other people to pass the time.*

Every detail she spilled matched a memory I had of Jax cancelling plans.

*Sorry, El, family emergency.* (He had been diving in a lake.)

*Sorry, El, got stuck at practice.* (He had been fixing her flat tire.)

The lies fit together like a perfect, horrifying puzzle. I wasn't his girlfriend. I was the commercial break in the Catalina show.

Jax walked into the lounge then. He looked around, spotting Catalina.

"Cat," he called out. It was automatic. A reflex.

Then he saw me sitting in the shadows.

His face went pale. He looked from Catalina, who was beaming at him like a prize she had won, to me.

"Eliana," he stammered. "I didn't know you were here."

He walked over, reaching for my water bottle on the table. "You look thirsty. Here."

I stared at his hand. The hand that had held mine. The hand that had held hers.

"No thanks," I said. My voice was steady, which surprised me. "I'm not thirsty."

Catalina watched us, a smirk playing on her lips. She raised her glass to me.

"Don't be rude, Eliana," she called out. "He's just being nice."

Panic flared in Jax’s eyes. "Cat, stop."

"What?" She laughed. "I'm just saying. You'd do anything for me, right Jax? Even fight your parents?"

Jax flinched. "That was a long time ago."

"But you did it," she insisted. "You told your dad you'd never take over the company if he didn't let me come to dinner."

I closed my laptop. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room.

I stood up.

"Eliana, wait," Jax said, stepping in front of me. "Did you eat? We can go grab a burger."

He was terrified. He could see it in my eyes. The adoration was gone. The patience was gone.

"I ate," I lied.

I looked at him, really looked at him. He was handsome. He was charming. And he was completely hollow.

"I have to go," I said.

"Eliana—"

I walked past him. I didn't look back at Catalina. I didn't need to. I knew exactly what her face looked like.

It looked like victory.

The bruise on my arm, a souvenir from where she had grabbed me days ago, was finally fading to a sickly yellow.

But the bruise on my spirit? That was fresh, raw, and bleeding.

"Eliana, stop being so dramatic," Catalina said, cornering me against the bank of metal lockers.

"I was just trying to help you with your hair. It looked messy."

"Don't touch me," I warned, my voice dropping to a low, vibrating hum.

"God, you're ungrateful," she scoffed, leaning in closer.

"Jax wrote you poems, you know. I actually helped him rhyme 'love' with 'dove'. It was pathetic, really. But cute that he tried so hard to make you feel special, considering."

She was dissecting my memories, tainting them one by one with surgical precision.

"Leave me alone, Catalina."

I turned sharply, heading toward the main staircase. It was the midday rush; the air was thick with the noise of students hurrying between classes.

"I'm talking to you!" she shrieked behind me.

Then, I felt it.

A shove. Not a stumble, not an accident. A deliberate, forceful shove.

I pitched forward, the weight of my backpack throwing my center of gravity into chaos.

I flailed, grabbing blindly at the air, and my fingers hooked onto the leather strap of Catalina’s purse.

We went down together.

The world dissolved into a blur of spinning ceiling tiles and hard, unforgiving edges.

My shoulder slammed into the concrete step. My head cracked against the metal railing with a sickening thud.

We tumbled until we hit the landing in a violent tangle of limbs.

Pain exploded in my ankle—a sharp, white-hot agony that stole the breath from my lungs.

"Cat!"

Jax’s voice roared above the din of the crowd. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

He didn't run to us.

He ran to *her*.

He fell to his knees, ignoring my crumpled form, and scooped Catalina up. She was sobbing, clutching her elbow dramatically.

"She pulled me! Jax, she pulled me down!"

Jax whipped his head around. His eyes were wild, filled with a rage I had never seen directed at me before.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he screamed at me.

"You could have killed her! Are you crazy?"

I was lying on the cold floor, clutching my ankle, fighting the black spots dancing in my vision. I tasted the copper tang of blood in my mouth.

"Jax..." I wheezed. "My leg..."

"I don't care about your leg!" he yelled, his voice echoing off the walls.

"Look what you did to her!"

The hallway went dead silent. Everyone heard it. The confirmation.

He carefully helped Catalina stand, treating her like fragile glass. She had a minor scrape on her elbow. I couldn't move my foot.

"I'm taking her to the nurse," Jax spat at me, his lip curling in disgust.

"Stay away from us."

He walked away, supporting her weight, leaving me broken on the floor.

The physical pain was blinding, but the mental clarity was absolute.

It was over. Not just the relationship—the delusion was over.

An ambulance came. Not for Catalina. For me.

In the hospital, the sterile lights hummed overhead as the doctor delivered the news. "You have severe soft tissue damage and a fracture, Miss. You won't be dancing for a long time."

Jax showed up two hours later. He stood in the doorway of my hospital room, shifting his weight, looking uncomfortable.

"Cat's fine," he said.

No 'how are you'. Just an update on the VIP.

"She's really upset, though. You should apologize when you get out."

I closed my eyes, too exhausted to fight the absurdity of his statement.

"I have to go back to her," he said, checking his watch impatiently.

"She's scared to be alone right now."

"Go," I whispered.

He left without looking back.

Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed on the bedside table. A notification.

Catalina had posted a photo on Instagram. It was Jax, sitting by her bedside in her dorm room, holding a spoon to her lips.

Caption: *My hero. Thank god for you.*

I stared at the photo. Then, slowly, I smiled. It was a weak, broken smile, but it was real.

A nurse walked in to check my IV drip. "Is your boyfriend coming back? He seemed... in a rush."

"No," I said.

The word tasted like freedom.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

The nurse paused, her expression softening. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said, turning my head to look out the window at the gray sky.

"I'm not."

The next day, Jax came back.

He brought a bouquet of carnations—the cheap, wilting ones from the hospital gift shop.

"I brought you flowers," he said, placing them on the table as if presenting a grand offering.

"Look, El, about yesterday... I was just scared. You know how I get."

"I know exactly how you get," I said, my voice devoid of warmth.

"Cat's really hurt that you haven't texted her."

"I broke my ankle, Jax."

"I know, but..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Can we just move past this? I booked us a dinner at that Italian place you like for when you're discharged."

He was rewriting history in real-time. Erasing the screaming. Erasing the abandonment.

"I told the nurse we broke up," I said calmly.

Jax froze. He laughed nervously, a hollow sound.

"What? That's not funny, El."

"It wasn't a joke."

Just then, outside the door, I heard Catalina’s voice. She was loud, intentionally projecting her voice to someone in the hall.

"Yeah, he stayed up all night with me. He's literally obsessed. He's in there breaking up with her right now, I bet."

Jax turned pale.

I looked at him, my gaze steady.

"Go to her, Jax. She's waiting."

He looked at me, then at the door. He didn't fight for me. He didn't argue.

"You're being unreasonable," he muttered.

And then, he walked out.