Chapter 5 Lockers, Lies & Proposals

When Rhea cracked open her phone Monday morning, she half-hoped the internet would have moved on to someone else's drama. Maybe a fight in the cafeteria, or Liv's third break-up this semester, or a senior getting busted for stealing test answers. Anything but her.

No such luck.

Her notifications were an avalanche of screenshots, reposts, and snarky captions that all blurred into one big neon sign: LOOK AT HER.

She scrolled in bed, her thumb trembling, eyes gritty with zero hours of sleep. One post after another. Same photo - her red face, Jace's hand around her waist, the angle that made it look like they were mid-makeout instead of mid-disaster.

Some posts called it "adorable." Most weren't that nice.

Campbell caught thirst-trapping the golden boy! Nerd seduces player - desperate much? Bet she'll be crying when he dumps her tomorrow.

Rhea's throat felt raw, like she'd swallowed barbed wire. She wanted to throw her phone across the room, bury herself under her comforter, and pretend she was invisible again. She'd give anything to be invisible again.

But Naomi's face popped up on her screen, FaceTiming her at 6:48 a.m. sharp - the only person who knew Rhea well enough to guess she hadn't slept a wink.

When she picked up, Naomi's eyes were blazing behind her smudged glasses. "Rhea Campbell. Get. Up."

"I don't want to," Rhea croaked, voice rasping like she'd swallowed sand. "I want to die."

"You can die later. We're gonna eat breakfast at school, we're gonna ignore every moron with an iPhone, and you're gonna pass that chem quiz. Got it?"

Rhea tried to smile. It came out more like a grimace. "You are terrifying."

"Good. Now brush your hair. You look like an electrocuted raccoon."

---

Walking into the hallway felt like being fed to piranhas - again.

Whispers followed her like the sound of her own heartbeat.

"Is that her?"

"I heard she begged him for it."

"Wonder what she did to get his attention. Must've been desperate."

Naomi flanked her the whole way to their lockers like a bouncer at a VIP club nobody wanted to get into. Her glare was a force field, but it didn't stop the curious stares or the not-so-hidden phones. The new twist: memes.

There was one of Rhea's face edited onto a Disney princess kissing a frog - only the frog wore Jace's stupid letterman jacket.

Rhea wanted to peel her skin off and live in a hole.

Naomi slammed her locker shut so hard the hinges rattled. "Look at this trash." She shoved her phone at Rhea's face.

It was a screenshot from the biggest gossip page on Insta - WestviewTea.

A repost of the same accidental kiss, now with a cruel caption: "Nerd seduces player. Desperate much? She's got zero chance - she's a placeholder, not a girlfriend."

Rhea's stomach twisted. "I hate this. I hate this so much."

Naomi's eyes narrowed to slits. "They're just jealous you exist. Jace is the school's favorite toy. They can't stand someone unexpected holding it for a second."

"Except I'm not holding anything," Rhea muttered. "I'm not even in the game."

She turned back to her locker, pretending to rearrange books she'd never actually read at school. Her hands shook as she stuffed her lunch into her bag.

All she could see in her mind was Liv's perfect hair flipping as she laughed at the photo. Her fingers typed phantom comments she imagined Liv would post: Try harder, sweetie. Not his type. She's nothing.

"Hey."

The voice slid under her skin like a spark. She didn't have to turn around to know who it was.

Jace Rivera - the reason she'd been turned into a punchline.

She spun the dial on her locker a little too fast. "Go away."

Naomi immediately squared her shoulders, planting herself between them like a human guard dog. "She said go away, Jace."

Jace raised his palms in surrender. "I just want to talk to her. Alone."

"Nope."

"Naomi-" Rhea muttered.

"What? He's the reason you're half a meme today. He doesn't get to-"

"It's fine." Rhea shut her locker with a sigh. "Just... two seconds. Please."

Naomi glared at Jace like she'd happily stab him with a pencil. "One minute. Then I'm dragging her to chem. You break her heart, I break your face."

Jace cracked a grin. "Noted."

When Naomi stomped off to the water fountain - just far enough to eavesdrop - Jace leaned against the locker next to Rhea's, the metal creaking under his weight.

"You're enjoying this," she hissed.

His eyebrows shot up. "Enjoying what?"

"This." She gestured to the hallway - the stares, the whispers, the buzzing phones. "Your fan club is having the time of their lives."

He looked genuinely offended. "You think I like people talking crap about you?"

"It's not about me," she snapped. "It's about you being the center of attention. That's your thing, right? I'm just the collateral damage."

He stared at her, jaw tightening. His voice dropped low. "You really think I wanted this? That I wanted everyone to treat you like garbage?"

She didn't answer. Because the truth was - she didn't know what to think.

This wasn't supposed to be her life. She'd built every day around not being seen. And now she was on the front page of WestviewTea like a zoo animal.

He huffed out a breath and ran a hand through his hair - which, annoyingly, only made it look better. "Look. This is exactly what I was trying to say in detention. You can't run from this. They're not gonna shut up."

"Gee, thanks for the pep talk."

He ignored her sarcasm. "So you need to own it."

"Here we go again." She backed up against her locker, crossing her arms over her chest. "Fake dating. Seriously?"

He held up his hands. "Just listen for five seconds."

She didn't want to. But she did. Because the alternative was another day of cruel captions and giggling girls trailing behind her like a mean girl parade.

Jace leaned closer, voice pitched low so only she could hear: "Right now, you're the 'pathetic nerd who threw herself at me.' That's the version they like. But if we're actually together? They have nothing to say. No scandal. No story."

Rhea's breath caught. "So... we lie."

He shrugged, lips tugging at the corner. "You call it lying. I call it survival."

She hated how her stomach did a tiny flip when he looked at her like that. He was too pretty for her sense of self-preservation.

"Liv will hate me," she said quietly. "She'll make my life hell."

"She's making it hell already," he pointed out. "You think she's gonna stop now? She wants to watch you squirm."

Rhea squeezed her eyes shut. In her head, she could still see the worst meme: her face stuck on a clingy cartoon girlfriend clinging to a football player's leg. The comments were still burning behind her eyelids: Pathetic. Desperate. Place-holder.

A tiny voice whispered: Maybe Jace is right.

If she owned it - if they all thought they were real - maybe the novelty would die. Maybe the rumor would stop growing teeth.

But the rest of her fought it. The part that hated how fake it felt. The part that didn't want to owe him anything.

"What's in it for you?" she asked flatly.

Jace didn't miss a beat. "I get Liv off my back. I get to pick my own narrative for once. Maybe I want to shut people up too."

She snorted. "You? Golden boy wants the rumor mill to die?"

His eyes darkened just a fraction. "You don't know everything about me, Campbell."

Her throat went dry. She looked at the floor, the toes of her beat-up sneakers bumping the clean white of his Jordans. They were worlds apart - and yet here they were, cornered by a hallway full of rumors neither of them could control.

Naomi returned, clapping her hands sharply. "Times up, Rivera. She's got chem."

Jace didn't flinch. He straightened up, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. "Think about it," he said to Rhea, ignoring Naomi's dagger eyes. "We fake it. They get bored. You get your life back."

Rhea's hands curled into fists around the straps of her bag. "I'll think about it."

A slow grin spread across his face - the kind that made half the girls at Westview swoon and the other half seethe.

"Good. See you around, Campbell."

And with that, he sauntered off down the hall, leaving behind a handful of curious eyes and a best friend who looked like she might actually explode.

Naomi turned to Rhea, eyebrows halfway to her hairline. "You're not actually considering it, right? Tell me you're not."

Rhea didn't answer.

Because the truth was - a tiny, rebellious part of her was.

And that part was louder than the whispers that clung to her like smoke.