Chapter 4

Eliana POV:

Catalina preened under his praise, her cheeks flushed with victory as she shot me a condescending smirk. The game continued, a meaningless blur of noise and forced laughter. A few minutes later, the bottle, as if guided by a malevolent force, landed on Catalina again.

"Dare!" she chirped, her eyes once again locking onto Jax.

I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't sit there and watch another second of this grotesque performance.

"I need some air," I mumbled to my friends, my voice barely a whisper. I stood up on shaky legs and walked away from the circle, heading toward the quiet of the house.

I made it to the guest bathroom and leaned against the cool marble counter, my reflection a pale, hollow-eyed stranger. I splashed cold water on my face, trying to wash away the feeling of his words, of everyone's pitying stares. I told myself to be strong, that this was the end, that his opinion no longer mattered. But it was a lie. It still hurt. It hurt like hell.

I decided to leave. There was no point in staying, no point in subjecting myself to any more of this torture. I would slip out the side door, call an Uber, and go home.

As I walked down the quiet hallway toward the side exit, I heard voices coming from the adjacent den. Jax's voice. My feet stopped of their own accord.

"Dude, that was harsh," I heard Mason, Jax's best friend, say. "In front of everyone? 'A far better kisser'? You know Ellie heard that."

I pressed myself against the wall, my heart pounding against my ribs.

Jax let out a bitter laugh. "She needed to hear it. She's been pulling this 'we're done' crap for months. It's just another one of her little dramas, her way of trying to get my attention."

The air in my lungs turned to ice. He thought this was a game.

"I don't know, man," Mason said, sounding hesitant. "She seemed different tonight. Calm. Too calm."

"It's an act," Jax scoffed, his voice dripping with condescending certainty. "She's threatening to break up to make me beg, like always. She thinks she can control me. Well, she needs to be taught a lesson. She needs to understand that I'm the one in charge here."

A lesson. He was teaching me a lesson. The public humiliation, the cruel words-it was all a calculated punishment.

"So what's the plan?" Mason asked. "You're just going to keep hooking up with Catalina?"

"For a little while," Jax said, his voice dropping conspiratorially. "Let Ellie sweat. Let her see what she's losing. She can't live without me. We both know it. In a week, maybe two, when she's cried her eyes out and realizes I'm not coming back, I'll show up. I' ll say the right things, buy her some flowers. She'll be so relieved, she'll come running back, and she'll never dare to pull this stunt again."

A profound, soul-deep chill spread through my body. It was colder than the pool water had been, colder than his words. It was the cold of absolute disillusionment.

My love, my pain, my heartbreak-to him, it was all just a strategy. A tool for manipulation. A predictable pattern he could exploit for his own ego.

I didn't hear any more. I didn't need to. I backed away from the door, my movements silent and ghost-like. I slipped out the side gate and into the warm summer night.

The air was thick with the scent of jasmine, but all I could feel was the biting cold that seemed to emanate from my very bones. I walked, my feet moving automatically, with no destination in mind.

I remembered when he first told me he loved me. We were sixteen, sitting on the hood of his beat-up truck, watching the sunset. He' d looked at me with such awe, as if I held the entire universe in my eyes. "I'm never letting you go, Ellie-bear," he' d whispered.

He had been my first everything. My first love, my first heartbreak, my first real glimpse into the kind of pain that feels like it could physically kill you. I had grown so accustomed to his presence, to the gravitational pull of his orbit, that I had forgotten how to exist on my own.

When did it change? When did our love curdle into this toxic, one-sided obsession?

Catalina. It all started with her.

For her, he broke every rule he' d ever made. He' d always been fiercely private, but he' d let her plaster their pictures all over social media. He hated clinginess, but he let her hang off his arm like a designer handbag. He' d always sworn I was the only girl he' d ever love, but he' d thrown that love away for a new, shiny toy.

And I had let him. I had fought, I had cried, I had threatened to leave, hoping each time that my pain would be the catalyst for him to wake up and see what he was doing. I thought if I just pulled away hard enough, he would finally grab hold and never let go again.

But my efforts were not seen as the desperate struggle of a drowning person. They were seen as childish, annoying, predictable. When you are no longer the one and only, even your pain becomes a mistake.

Lost in my thoughts, I barely registered that I had walked all the way home. As I approached my house, I saw the familiar mail truck pulling away from the curb. A uniformed postal worker was walking up my driveway.

And standing right in front of him, his back to me, was Jax.

He was holding a large, crisp white envelope in his hand. The return address was unmistakable: New York University. It was my official acceptance packet.

My heart leaped into my throat.