Chapter 1

Kingston Academy was a world away from my life, even though it was just across town.

I was Summer Hayes, scholarship kid, quiet, always filming something.

My mom worked two jobs, a single parent doing her best in our small apartment, while my classmates planned European summer trips.

My special thing, my secret, was this glitchy app on my phone.

It just appeared one day, no name, no icon I recognized.

It gave me access to the "ghost channel," a live-stream and chat for Kingston's elite.

Pranks, gossip, all their ugly little secrets broadcasted.

I mostly ignored it, until today.

Today was about Ethan Prescott.

Student body president, lacrosse captain, golden boy from a family that practically owned the East Coast.

I had a massive, secret crush on him.

He' d defended me once, when Brody "The Bruiser" Jensen, a campus bully, was making fun of my thrift-store jeans.

Ethan stepped in, calm and firm, and Brody backed off.

That moment cemented him in my mind.

I' d worked extra shifts at the coffee shop for weeks for this.

The town green gazebo, historic, beautiful.

Ethan mentioned in a school paper he admired it.

I decorated it with fairy lights and his favorite dark blue streamers.

A simple, heartfelt promposal.

He was due any minute.

My phone buzzed. The ghost channel.

My stomach dropped.

The live feed showed my gazebo, my decorations.

The chat exploded.

"She actually did it. Pathetic."

"Ethan, you ready for your performance?"

Then, a voice I knew, Chad Mulligan, Ethan' s best friend.

"Caleb' s almost there. Remember the plan, bro. Lead her on, make her think she' s queen of the Fling, then BAM."

My blood ran cold.

Caleb. Ethan' s identical twin.

The "black sheep," always in trouble, just back from another kicked-out boarding school.

The chat scrolled faster.

"Ethan' s watching from the SUV. This is gold."

"He' s known she' s into him for months. Prime entertainment, he said."

Ethan.

He knew.

He was in on it.

The boy who defended me.

The boy I poured my stupid heart into decorating this gazebo for.

It was all a game to him.

A cruel, elaborate prank.

Caleb would pretend to be Ethan, accept, lead me on, then humiliate me at the Spring Fling.

And Ethan would watch.

The fairy lights suddenly seemed to mock me.