Chapter 3 Skylar's Pov

By Monday, the entire campus had picked sides and unfortunately, most of them didn't pick mine.

The rumors started slow, like a leaky faucet, until they flooded every hallway, every class and every damn social feed. Caleb wasn't just letting the breakup breathe. No. He was rebranding it to save his reputation.

According to him, I was clingy, bossy and toxic.

"She was obsessed, bro," I overheard him saying in a video that someone recorded at the rink. "Checked my location twenty times a day like a psycho. Blew up my phone. Didn't want me to talk to other girls or even my own teammates. She was basically a prison warden in lip gloss."

The was laughter in the background. It was obvious a lot of people were listening to him rubbish my name. One of his goons added, "Total drama queen. She deserved what she got, totally."

She deserved what she got.

Somehow, it was that part hurt the most.

When I listened to it just once, my fingers clenched so hard around my phone I thought the screen would crack.

I didn't cry in public. Not in the lecture hall. Not in the quad. Not on the bus.

Nah, my tears waited until I was alone in my room, curled on my bed with my blanket pulled over my head and a rage in my chest that I didn't know how to name.

This wasn't just heartbreak. It was pure humiliation.

And it stuck.

The whispers followed me like shadows. There were the girls raising eyebrows, guys giving me pity looks and people pretending to be subtle when they clearly weren't.

"Is that her?"

"Yeah, the crazy ex."

"Didn't she throw her drink on him? So extra."

"I'd cheat too if my girlfriend was that controlling."

I hated every second of it. And yet I still showed up to class. Still walked with my head held high. Still sat in the front row like my world hadn't tilted sideways.

But every day, I felt a little more like a ghost in my own body.

Until Ethan had had enough.

Ethan, my protective older brother and the only person I didn't have to pretend for, was the one who rushed to the rescue.

He knocked on my door, came into my room with a protein bar and a tired look on his face and then flopped beside me on the bed like he belonged there. Like we were still kids and hiding from thunderstorms.

"I hate him," he said finally, like every thing was very personal to him. "Like, genuinely hate his guts. I don't care how many points he scores or how good he looks in a jersey. He's dead to me for how he hurt you. I so fucking hate him."

I didn't respond and just waited for him to continue. I didn't have the strength to talk to much.

"Alright," he continued, "enough moping. You're coming with me to the team barbecue this evening."

"No." I didn't want to see people. At this point in my life, I hated all of them, not just Caleb.

"Yes."

I sighed and turned my head away from him. "Ethan, I'm not in the mood for burgers and awkward conversations."

"Sky, you've been wearing the same hoodie for two days and you haven't posted a single savage story since Friday. This is serious. I'm staging an intervention and it is going to work. I refuse that it be otherwise."

I turned and gave him a blank look.

He sighed. "C'mon. No drama. No Caleb. Just good vibes, grilled meat, and me throwing the gist better than every guy on the roster."

Tempting but still-

"I don't want their pity," I said in a voice that was beginning to turn teary.

He turned serious. "You won't get pity. I swear. You'll get respect especially if you walk in there like the queen you are. Let them see what Caleb fumbled. I trust you will."

He knew how to twist the knife just right.

So I went.

***

The barbecue was in a large backyard two blocks from campus and the scent of grilled steak and roasted corn hit me before the music did.

People laughed around picnic tables. Someone was doing keg stands. A couple of the guys tossed a football back and forth on the lawn while a Bluetooth speaker blasted a summer playlist that didn't quite match the cool spring air.

Even though the environment was nice to be in, I kept my arms folded tight and my eyes glued to my phone so I wouldn't talk to people.

To my dismay, Ethan hovered beside me like a sentry.

Every few minutes, someone from the team wandered over to say hi. Each one tried to sound casual, like they hadn't heard the rumors. Like they weren't picturing the video of me dumping punch on Caleb's head on a loop in their minds.

"Hey, Skylar, you good?"

"Glad you came."

"Heard you roasted Caleb. That was...iconic."

I gave each of them a polite nod and a weak smile before returning to my screen. I wasn't here for validation. I wasn't here to fix my image.

I was here because Ethan was relentless, damn it.

Still, the compliments continued to come. Most sounded awkward but some were sincere.

One guy-Jeremiah, the backup goalie-grinned nervously as he said to me, "Honestly, the way you walked out? Kinda legendary."

That one made me almost smile. Almost.

But none of it fixed what Caleb had broken. Not just my heart had been broken. My trust, my sense of safety and the belief that love, when given fully, would be held with care, had been broken.

I wasn't sure I could get that back.

So I stood there with arms folded tighter around me while the wind blew strands of hair into my eyes and the smell of charred meat clung to my clothes and tried to forget that someone I once loved was actively poisoning my name like it was sport.

Ethan came back to me with two sodas and nudged my arm. "Smile," he whispered. "You're at a party not a funeral."

I gave him a look. "It's the death of my dignity. Close enough."

He chuckled and handed me the can.

I opened it but didn't drink. My gaze wandered to the fire pit where some of the younger players huddled around and was trying to laugh quietly at something on someone's phone.

I didn't need to look to know it was about me.

"Don't," Ethan said as he followed my gaze. "They're idiots. Ignore them."

I tried. God knows I tried.

But deep down, part of me wanted to scream. To shout about every lie Caleb had told. To post the entire truth with screenshots, timestamps and receipts.

But that wasn't me.

I didn't want revenge. I wanted peace.

I wanted to not care.

And I wasn't there yet.