Chloe,

It's easier to pretend you're ignoring me, rather than admitting that I hurt you. I'm sorry for leaving you, but I'll hang out with you on Monday, seriously, like old times. And Sophie's relative is opening a club tonight, do you want to come? I can make it up to you.

I promise.

Love, Mon.

I hadn't even noticed my feet, clad in awkwardly balanced Louis Vuitton ankle boots, carry me around the side of the cylindrical stone column and onto the edge of the perfectly manicured lawn. I also didn't notice the hateful glare which burned its way into William Bishop's horrified one, or the way my lips parted into an expression of both shock and hurt, revolted by the scene before me.

The raw, undisturbed statement of betrayal hung stale in the air, and my brain struggled to comprehend it, willing everything I heard to be false. All I saw was red, tinging my vision in a deep color of crimson.

I wanted to lunge at him and grab his crisply ironed collar while I demanded him to explain everything. More than anything, I wanted to lose my cool. To lose control, and stop trying to string together the pieces of me that were breaking with each second that my eyes bored into his.

But I'd be giving him what he wanted. Not William. Jack.

I pried my scowl from Will and placed it on the boy beside him instead.

"What the fuck?"

Jack looked amused. Of course he did. All of us belonged to him in some way. This was his game after all.

"I told you this was a favor, Chloe. I'm letting you know who's really there for you. William Bishop is not," he said, his eyes softening in a way that I once may have thought as sympathetic. But I knew better now. I knew how easy it was to feign feelings.

I bunched my fists together at my sides, trying to stop my body from its instinctive urge to burst into hot, furious tears, or to resort to physical rage.

William, opposite me, looked even more pissed off than I did. I recognized the look on his face, it was the same one he'd worn as he punched Francis across the jaw. I took a step back. I was scared he was going to attack him, and to be honest, I wouldn't have stopped him. I hated Jack. And in that moment, I hated William too. God, I couldn't even look at him. My mind flashed with every intimate moment we'd spent behind closed doors.

I took another step back. They were twisted. Both of them.

My heart was breaking, shattering and splintering from the chunks they'd already been pulverized to with the death of my best friend.

I turned around and walked as fast as I could.

Hot tears fell thickly down my cheeks, and once I started walking my pace turned into a quick strut in the opposite direction, and I couldn't stop. My steps slammed against the paved path circling to the parking lot, taking me as far away as I possibly could be from them.

He cared for me. All the things he did to make sure I was okay, to help me, to electrify me. I could still feel it, the touch of his fingertips tracing my jaw, his laugh against my skin when I teased him with his full name.

I couldn't breathe. I had to stop. The exterior of the school was empty, and I couldn't prevent my knees from buckling beneath me and falling to the floor.

He was working with Jack. He'd been telling him everything. There was a reason Jack was somehow one step ahead. He was getting inside information from the best source possible. He'd wormed his way into my life, created a puppet for me to develop feelings for. To feel for and cry for and long for.

I hated him. I hated that I'd made myself vulnerable.

How had I ever let my walls down? How had I let myself trust him?

How had everything I worked for shattered in just a number of days?

I needed to see him. I needed answers. To know just why he was helping him. Jack must have manipulated him somehow. That, or William Bishop simply had no heart. He was the monster I'd once hoped he was.

If he did throw punches at the smug-faced Jack, then expulsion would be certain. As much as I wanted it to happen, my chest constricted painfully and begged my feet to carry me back, to make sure he didn't. To protect him.

But then I pictured him, taking everything I said – which became more and more valuable as my walls collapsed further by the day – and sending it back to him. Even when he knew just how much I needed to take them down. When he claimed to understand. And I decided that Will didn't have a heart anyway. And maybe he'd deserve whatever punishment he'd get.

If Jack had something on him, he could have told me. If I had known Jack was the enemy to begin with, we could have worked it out. Together. But he didn't. He kept it from me and used it against me. He was selfish.

And whatever Jack had, it must have been more than what I did. Here I was, furious that the boy I'd blackmailed had been blackmailed by someone else. It didn't feel right, but we were far past our initial situation now. Surely he knew that too. Both of our hearts were tangled in this.

It was that, or he was doing it for the same reasons as Jack. Entertainment. Power.

It wouldn't be hard to take him down. I could take all of them down now. Well, maybe not Jack, but I had nothing to lose. Not anymore. I could air out whatever I could, do it all in one clean sweep. I could get revenge for not only Monica, but myself too.

And God, I hated them. I hated the person I was because of them. Because of him. Monica had made me powerful, and William had made me weak. And I had let him. I was blinded by a handsome face and gorgeous eyes and every single lie he told me to cover up the unbearably painful truth.

I couldn't trust anyone.

I stared blankly at the parking lot filled with luxury cars belonging to teenagers who didn't deserve them. My tears had dried into a hollow fury which sat heavily in the pit of my chest. I heard the distant clatter of footsteps approaching nearby.

"Chloe," he breathed moments later. The air, saturated with afternoon sun, clung to my skin in the most tormenting way. My fingertips were digging into my arms and I cradled my torso defensively.

I didn't want to be below him, crouched on the ground in mourning of the secrets I thought I had safely locked away. I pushed myself to my feet so I was at least at eye level.

When I finally looked him straight on, my lips parted and I tried to speak, to say anything. But I couldn't. I was torn directly through the middle. I wanted to never see him again, to scream at him until my throat became raw and he somehow understood.

But then there was the part of me that didn't want to hurt him. That didn't want him to leave my life. That told me I still needed him, even if the him I needed was just a figment of my imagination, cast by a few clever lies and deceptions.

So he beat me to it.

"You have absolutely every reason to be angry-"

"Angry," I said with a scoff, finally finding my tongue. "How much of it was real, William? How many times have you lied to my face, thinking you could charm me with a pretty smile and a few feigned words of comfort?"

"Chloe," he said again, his eyes hosting a whirlwind of desperation as his hands gripped his hair, as if he wished to pull it from its roots in frustration. "I need you to hear me out."

"How much did you tell him?" I asked through gritted teeth. "And for how long?"

He hesitated, exhaling through his lips sharply. "As much as he asked for. And since the night you found me at that party. The night you blackmailed me."

It felt as if every fiber holding me to sanity was snapping. Every second I'd spent with William Bishop had been a lie.

Jack had even taken me home that night. Had he gotten rid of me so he could have his turn gaining Will's loyalty? To see just what I'd been up to?

"Why?"

His pained look deepened and he turned away for a moment before facing me again. "I can't tell you that."

If my rage ran deep before, it was now swimming through every vein, every capillary in my body, burning me with a furious fire. Its flames licked at my sides and enveloped my fingers, my toes, the tips of my hair.

"Then you can forget everything, every moment I've been in your life. Every nice thing I've ever said to you. I could ruin you, Bishop."

"You're not like that, Chloe, even if you wanted to be," he said calmly, contrasting the tension burning between us.

"You don't know anything about me," I spat. "I can't believe I ever trusted you."

"You were blackmailing me too," he reminded me. "From the start."

I was a fool. An idiot to consider that there was anything more between us than strategies and leverage. I tried my best to stop the words tumbling from my lips from sounding defeated or weak, but the emotion was becoming too wild to control. "You tricked me into thinking that you cared."

He clenched his jaw, the muscles pulsing in his cheek. "I never pretended to care."

"That's exactly what you did," I said, pushing past the film of tears. "You pretended you knew what it felt like to lose her. You pretended to be there for me, that you were on my side, but you were telling him everything all along. You were helping him destroy me."

"His intention wasn't to destroy you," he said, sighing with frustration. "But at first I was all for that anyway. You blackmailed me, he told me everything. He said you were best friends with Monica, and that he wanted me to monitor you for him. That's all it ever was. When I agreed, all I knew you as was the power-hungry girl who wanted control. Not the broken girl who was still grieving."

"But you didn't stop helping him, did you?" I asked, a sardonic laugh chafing my lungs. "You kept playing his game. You're a good actor, William. A fucking great one."

"I didn't have a choice," William pressed, his tone growing defensive. He was keeping his distance, as if scared I'd attack him. Or maybe he was just trying to stay away, having no reason to come close to me anymore. To seduce me in the dark with his feather light touch against my collarbone.

"Everyone has a choice," I said firmly.

"Did I have a choice when you told me to help you reach level one?" he questioned.

He had a point.

"So we're all pawns," I said. God, I was no fucking better than the rest of them. "None of us have any control, or are allowed to act with genuine intention. Everything between us was a lie, even the parts that were supposed to stay between us."

"No," he said, his voice cracking. "That wasn't a lie, Chloe, I tried my hardest to play double agent, I warned you when he told them, I was watching out for you."

"You warned me too late."

"I did," he agreed. "But I tried, Chloe. My hands were tied. He was dabbling in things with too much power, I couldn't risk slipping up."

"What was it?" I asked, needing to know what justified him betraying me in the worst way possible. I needed to know. "If you don't tell me, then I assure you, William Bishop, I will erase you from my life completely. I won't want you there. I will promise you I'll hate you for the rest of eternity."

It was weak, but the way my tone echoed with the tears thick in my throat must have made him take them seriously enough, because his whole expression changed, from apologetic to pissed off. Frustrated.

"If you're going to try and guilt me into telling you something we both know will give you leverage, then maybe you should go ahead and hate me."

His words sliced through me, cold and blunt, stinging my insides. "It must be bad then, right? To throw me under the bus every chance you got. To watch him pretend to be my friend, knowing he was pulling all of the strings. Of course you should feel guilty. You ruined everything."

William looked so furious I was almost scared, but he turned to face away from me again and it drove me so close to losing it. I wanted him angry. I wanted to hurt him.

"It was all about who could win you over, wasn't it?" I laughed humorlessly, my hysteria getting the better of me, my mind running rampant with an emotion so intense it had me dizzy. "Who can dig up Will's biggest secret? And you thought it was okay to just trick me. To give me your jacket and kiss me and order me pizza and listen to me cry. To humor me just so I could spill to you the juiciest aspects of my plan to avenge my dead best friend. The one who died because of—"

"Fine. My father is having an affair," Will interrupted, his tone laced with a deadly fury, his back still to me.

"People have affairs all the time," I retorted after a second. Affairs, especially with wealthy businessmen, were not uncommon. It was hardly leverage, and even if it was, surely he'd have told me. That, or he'd just been so good at tricking me into thinking that we could confide in each other.

He slowly turned to look at me, and his cold glare burned into my own for a few seconds, each of us challenging the other to create a fault line in whatever was crackling between us, the last straw before everything shattered into nothingness.

"My father's gay, Chloe," he said finally, his tone so ice cold that it slid over my skin, cooling the flames that were burning me from the inside. "Jack knew. His uncle..."

His voice trailed off. My heartbeat, which was still racing from my words, was now still from his.

"I didn't know until he showed me. I wanted to pretend I didn't know. So I did everything I could to keep Jack happy. I didn't want my mom to find out. Or anyone, for that matter. Jack's uncle is also on our company's auditing team. They're supposed to be completely independent from the business. Now that would bring us down much more than a dodgy tax return. Two scandals in one and a family ruined."

My body was slow to firstly process that the man I'd met, Will's father, was cheating on his wife with a man. And then, it was churning over the blatant fact that he'd chosen his family's secret over me, and maybe that was the right choice. I didn't matter in comparison, I was a tiny dot on his radar. He simply needed to play the part. My feelings were just collateral damage.

He could have told me. We could have worked together.

The silence between us was warped when the school bell rang in the distance, a signal alerting us that afternoon classes were starting.

"I think it's best—" I began, my voice too dry. I cleared my throat. "I think it's best if we just don't see each other."

William was silent, and I could tell he was still seething from my words. From the whole situation.

"That might be a good idea."

My breathing started to come quick and time began elongating. He was right in front of me, his expression unreadable. If it was such a good idea, why were my insides ripping apart, creating jagged edges that stabbed deep into my heart? Why was it so hard to find oxygen, when my lungs were working so hard?

I blinked back the tears again, this time promising myself I'd never shed them again.

"Goodbye, Chloe," he said, his eyes finally dropping the hold they had on mine and finding the floor. His lips parted again, and I was sure he was going to say something else. Sorry? I don't want you out of my life?

But of course, he didn't. The William he'd showed me might have, but the real one did not.

He turned around slowly, his feet taking one step and then another before his figure disappeared completely

And then I broke down into tears, despite my vow to never cry them again.

I finally made it to my last class, being physics. I was behind, but that didn't matter because I couldn't read the board through the blur coating my vision anyway. I couldn't focus, my mind still replaying our conversation over and over again, on an endless loop.

And then there was the jet black hair of the boy in front of me. As if on cue, Jack turned to look at me, a smirk on his lips as he raised his eyebrows.

I'm doing you a favor, Chloe.

I scowled at him.

"Psst," Claire said from beside me, nudging my elbow nonchalantly, as if my whole world wasn't collapsing as we learned about electromagnetism. "Aren't you glad Will's back at school now?"

I was frozen, my lips too cold to form words. In front of me, Jack leaned back again, his voice low in an effort not to attract the attention of the teacher.

"I heard they had an argument. Better not bring him up for a while."

I hated him, and I hoped my glare showed that. I hated being confined in the same room, forced to pretend everything was perfectly okay. Perfectly normal. Like every student in Arlington wasn't completely messed up.

And it was in that moment that I realized I couldn't do it. I couldn't handle sitting next to students who had terrorized my life in every indirect way possible. They'd stolen my best friend, my trust, and now my heart. I couldn't look at them every day, knowing what went on behind closed doors. Knowing what they could do to people.

I couldn't sit in the same room as Jack Thomas and pretend to be his friend, or bump into William in the hallway, knowing I'd fallen for him despite the game he was orchestrating. I couldn't focus on good grades when at every corner I turned, my best friend was there, a hazy delusion cast by my own eyes.

I stood up abruptly, ignoring the looks from the students around me as I headed for the door.

I had a meeting at three o'clock with Ms. Neal and my mother. And I already knew exactly what I wanted to do.

My mother was at the school office waiting room when I entered after spending the remainder of the period in the bathroom. She was dressed nicely in a floral blouse and slacks. I gave her a tight smile when I entered, her bright one switching to a look of concern.

"Are you okay, Chloe?" she asked, clutching my shoulders. I nodded. If I spoke now, my voice would betray me.

"Mrs. Whittaker?" the receptionist interrupted, smiling sweetly as she gestured down the hall. "Ms. Neal is all ready for your appointment."

I followed my mother. As we walked down towards the coordinator's office, I made a vow to myself. I'd wipe him from my mind. I'd wipe everything that had happened over the last few months, and replace it with something new. A fresh start, a clean slate.

"Chloe, Mrs. Whittaker," Ms. Neal greeted warmly as we entered her office, which was decorated in warm hues and frog ornaments.

"Hi," my mother said, shaking her hand.

"Now, I'm sure you know why you're here, Chloe," Ms. Neal said. She was a kind woman who'd taught me numerous times throughout my high school life. She'd understand.

I nodded once.

"You've had a tough year, I know after Monica Pennington things haven't quite been right. You've lost a part of your life, and I know it's been hard to find it again," she said. "And I'm going to get right to the point here, because I know you know what's best for you, and so it's ultimately all your decision."

"Our decision," my mom added her hand finding mine on the arm rest.

"Your grades are slipping, Chloe, and I know you're hanging around with new people. People who have obviously had an influence on you." Her smile grew more compassionate. "You know I've worked in schools all around the area, and I know you have a flair for maths and science—"

"Arlington's a good school," my mom interrupted. "I don't think Chloe wants to leave, I don't think we should force that option, maybe we could just consider some more support? A tutor maybe?"

"Mom," I said, my voice splitting. "I think... I think I want to leave. I mean, Ms. Neal's right, I'm struggling to get over her. Monica."

My mom looked surprised, her mouth popping open a little as her brows arched. "I mean, you never told me this."

"That's because I didn't realize," I said, my eyes averting to a particularly happy looking frog, holding a pencil on the desk. "But I know now. I need to start afresh. I want to look at other schools."

"Are you sure, Chloe?" my mom asked doubtfully.

I nodded, my mind flashing back to them one last time. Twisted. All of them.

"I need this, Mom. I want to leave Arlington."

And so I did. I never spent another day at the lavish campus, or took another class next to Jack and Claire, or cast my gaze to the level one table from the mezzanine floor. I never met William by my locker again or went to Jermaine's for coffee on a Monday afternoon.

Level one were self-destructive. It took me escaping them to know that. They didn't need someone seeking revenge to take them down, they'd do it to themselves with time. There was more to grief than evening the playing field and righting karma.

Just as I was walking down the hallway, collecting my belongings from my locker for the last time, I paused, taking out a pad of Post-it notes and a pen. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop myself writing the message.

I really did trust you. And I wish you trusted me enough too. Even if it was all an act to you, you should know you helped me move on, just a little.

You tried to convince me you were better than the rest of them, but you should also know that that isn't true. You hurt the worst of all, Bishop.

I'm leaving for good. You might never see me again. And maybe that's how we should leave it.

Chloe.

But then I peeled the note from the pad and screwed it up, before ripping it to shreds instead. I couldn't give it to him. I couldn't admit to him how much he'd meant to me, not when he'd let me down the most.

Stolen firsts flashed across my vision, and I tried to convince myself I should be repulsed by the memories now. I scrunched my eyes shut for a few seconds to gather my bearings before grabbing my bag and strutting down the empty halls one last time.

Maybe this was the end of us. And maybe that was a good thing.

I wasn't sure who'd won and who'd lost, or whether I'd done anything meaningful at all. I wasn't sure if Monica would be appalled or proud, or whether she'd find it all awfully entertaining. I'd never know. But what I did know was that I needed to consider myself for a while. To get into college and forget level one ever existed.

And so, with one last wistful glance at what could have been, I kissed Arlington goodbye.

And... well, that was it. The last chapter.

What are your thoughts right now?

Thank you all for being with me and supporting me with this long ass whirlwind of a story. I am still in denial it's finishing so let's keep that on the down low, lol. Love you all, Ann 💕