“My Friends Bet I Couldn’t Do Better Than You—I’m Just Proving Them Wrong,” She Said With A Smug Little Smile After I Caught Her Perched On Another Man’s Lap. I Didn’t Yell. I Didn’t Beg. I Just Looked At Her And Said, “Prove This Too.” Then I Took One Photo, Sent It To Her Parents With, “I Thought You Should See This,” And Walked Out. A Minute Later, My Phone Blew Up. She Was Calling In A Panic—Because Her Dad Had Already Opened The Message.

Her smirk faltered, replaced by confusion. “What?”

I already had my phone out, but I didn’t raise it quickly.

I made a show of it—opening the camera app deliberately—watching her eyes widen in understanding. “Alex, don’t you dare,” she hissed. The flash went off.

A perfect, stark, high-resolution image: Chloe caught mid-transition from cruelty to shock, the VIP rope in the foreground, Jared lounging like a king behind her, her friends frozen in various stages of drunken glee. It was a masterpiece of context. I looked at the screen, at the damning evidence, and nodded again, this time to myself.

“Got it.”

“Delete that!” she shrieked, her cool façade shattering as she tried to reach over the rope, but the bouncer shifted, his bulk a reminder of the barrier she herself had chosen. “Alex, I swear to God, delete it right now!”

I didn’t answer. I slid my phone into my pocket, turned on my heel, and walked back toward the elevator while her shouts chased me.

“You pathetic loser!”
“Come back here!”

But they were swallowed by the music and the city’s hum behind the glass walls, and the elevator doors closed on the sound of her fury. The sudden silence was deafening, and I leaned against the wall, the cold glass a kind of relief against my back. My heart was pounding, but my mind was preternaturally still.

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