Change
The argument started loud.
Then became deadly quiet.
Jay stood near the doorway of Section E, confusion slowly twisting into something uglier as voices overlapped around her.
“What the hell do you mean you used her?” Cin snapped.
Nobody answered immediately.
Rain battered the classroom windows while tension thickened in the air like smoke.
Jay looked from face to face.
Mayo wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Kit looked horrified.
Even Rory — who joked through almost everything — looked visibly uncomfortable.
And Keifer?
Keifer looked exhausted.
Like he hadn’t slept in days.
“That’s not what I meant,” Denzel muttered under his breath.
“Yes it is,” Keifer said flatly.
The room froze.
Jay’s fingers tightened slowly around the strap of her bag.
Keifer leaned against the desk, jaw tight.
“I used her.”
No hesitation.
No softening.
Just brutal honesty dropped into the room like a grenade.
Cin stared at him.
“Keifer—”
“She was useful,” he continued coldly. “That’s all.”
Jay blinked once.
Then again.
Like her brain genuinely couldn’t process the sentence properly.
Ella, standing near the back with Freya and Aries from Section A, looked sick.
Freya immediately stepped forward.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Keifer ignored her.
Ignored everybody.
His eyes stayed on Jay like he was forcing himself not to look away.
And somehow that made it worse.
Jay laughed softly.
Tiny.
Disbelieving.
“No,” she whispered. “No, you’re joking.”
Nobody laughed.
That was when the panic started.
Not outside.
Inside her.
Quiet panic.
The kind that makes your heartbeat feel too loud inside your own body.
Because suddenly every memory started rearranging itself.
Late-night talks.
Protective hands.
Inside jokes.
Trust.
All of it twisting into something humiliating.
Something fake.
“Oh my God,” Mayo muttered, staring at Keifer. “You actually said it.”
Rory looked furious now.
“Are you insane?”
But Keifer just kept going.
Maybe because stopping would’ve destroyed him first.
“You got attached,” he said roughly. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
The room went silent again.
Jay’s face lost color.
Not dramatically.
Not all at once.
Just slowly.
Like somebody draining warmth out of her body.
Aries finally spoke, voice sharp with disbelief.
“You’re lying.”
Keifer looked at him.
“Am I?”
Aries didn’t answer.
Because that was the horrifying part.
Everybody in Section E knew there had been a plan once.
A temporary thing.
A manipulation.
A way to get close to someone else through Jay.
But somewhere along the way, it stopped mattering.
Or at least everyone thought it had.
Apparently Keifer didn’t.
Cin stepped forward angrily.
“You don’t mean this.”
“Yes,” Keifer snapped. “I do.”
Jay looked at him then.
Really looked at him.
And Keifer nearly broke right there.
Because her expression wasn’t anger.
It was shame.
Pure shame.
Like she was replaying every moment she trusted him and feeling stupid for all of them.
That expression would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Freya turned toward Jay instantly.
“Jay, don’t listen to this bullshit—”
“But it makes sense.”
Jay’s voice came out frighteningly calm.
Everyone stopped.
She smiled a little.
God, she smiled.
“That’s why you all let me in so fast.”
Keifer’s chest tightened violently.
“No,” Cin said immediately. “Jay, no—”
“You guys hated everyone,” she continued softly, almost talking to herself now. “Section E barely trusted anybody.”
Every word sounded like another crack forming.
“But me?” she laughed weakly. “You trusted me instantly.”
Nobody knew what to say.
Because she was connecting the dots in real time.
And every answer was destroying her.
Keifer pushed himself off the desk suddenly.
“Jay—”
She flinched.
Tiny movement.
Barely noticeable.
But the entire room saw it.
And the guilt that slammed into Section E was immediate and nauseating.
Keifer noticed too.
His expression shattered for half a second.
That was all it took for Cin to explode.
“What is wrong with you?!” he shouted. “She loved us!”
The word loved echoed horribly in the room.
Jay looked down immediately.
Like even hearing it hurt now.
Mayo looked furious.
“You think this fixes anything? You think acting like some villain suddenly makes this okay?”
Keifer didn’t answer.
Because if he opened his mouth again, he might tell the truth.
And the truth was worse.
The truth was:
he’d rather let Jay hate him than watch her get dragged into the mess surrounding Aries and the Watsons.
But nobody knew that.
So instead, he stood there in silence while the people he considered family started looking at him like a stranger.
Jay adjusted her bag shakily.
“I should go.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody knew how to stop her.
Then Percy appeared at the classroom door.
The second he saw Jay’s face, his entire expression darkened.
Jare stood behind him, already furious before hearing a single explanation.
Percy’s eyes moved across the room once.
Then landed on Keifer.
“What did you do?”
Silence.
That answered enough.
Jay walked toward the door numbly.
But right before leaving, she stopped beside Keifer.
Close enough to touch.
Close enough for him to smell rain on her clothes.
For one horrible second, he thought she might cry.
Instead she looked up at him with the saddest smile he had ever seen.
“You know,” she whispered softly, voice trembling at the edges, “I think the worst part is that I would’ve stayed anyway.”
Keifer stopped breathing.
Jay swallowed hard.
“I would’ve forgiven you.”
Then she walked out.
And this time—
nobody followed.
Nobody spoke after Jay left.
The classroom stayed frozen in this horrible, suffocating silence while rain hammered against the windows hard enough to sound violent.
Keifer still hadn’t moved.
The door slowly swung shut behind Jay with a soft click.
That sound somehow hurt more than the shouting.
Cin was the first to move.
He turned toward Keifer so abruptly his chair screeched against the floor.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Keifer looked away.
Wrong move.
Cin shoved him hard.
Actually shoved him.
Everybody froze because Cin never got physical.
But Cin looked furious.
“No, answer me!” he snapped. “You don’t get to stand there acting dead inside after saying that to her!”
Keifer’s jaw tightened.
“She needed to leave.”
“Oh, so you humiliated her for her own good?” Rory barked out a laugh. “Great plan, genius.”
Mayo looked sick.
“She thought we were her family.”
The word family poisoned the room instantly.
Because everybody remembered it.
Jay asleep across three chairs during exam week while Kit covered her with his hoodie.
Jay sitting on the rooftop at 2 a.m. listening to Denzel rant about Grace for an hour.
Jay teaching Rory chemistry because he nearly failed twice.
Jay threatening Yuri with scissors after he pissed Freya off.
Jay calling them idiots with this exhausted fondness like she’d already accepted them as hers.
Home.
She’d become home so quietly none of them noticed when it happened.
And Keifer had just burned it down.
Aries finally moved from near the windows.
His face looked pale.
Not angry.
Worse.
Horrified.
“You said she was useful.”
Keifer shut his eyes briefly.
“Aries—”
“No.” Aries laughed once, hollow. “Don’t ‘Aries’ me right now.”
Ella stood beside him silently, fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist.
Freya looked ready to murder somebody.
“You know what the worst part is?” she said coldly. “She’s gonna believe you.”
Keifer finally looked up.
Freya’s eyes burned.
“She’s gonna replay every single memory and think none of us cared.”
“That’s not true,” Kit said immediately.
“But she doesn’t know that anymore!” Freya snapped.
Silence again.
Because she was right.
And they all knew it.
Keifer leaned back against the desk slowly, looking exhausted beyond words.
Cin stared at him for a long moment before speaking quietly.
“You love her.”
Keifer’s expression flickered.
Too fast for most people to notice.
But Section E noticed.
Because they knew him too well.
Rory cursed softly under his breath.
Mayo looked genuinely devastated now.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “You absolute idiot.”
Keifer laughed bitterly.
“Don’t.”
“No, seriously,” Mayo said, voice cracking slightly. “You just destroyed her.”
That landed.
Keifer looked away again.
And suddenly everybody understood something terrifying:
He knew.
He knew exactly what he’d done.
That somehow made it worse.
—
Jay threw up in the bathroom twenty minutes later.
Nobody was there.
Thank God.
She gripped the sink hard enough for her knuckles to ache while cold water ran endlessly from the faucet.
Her breathing wouldn’t steady.
Every inhale felt wrong.
Too sharp.
Too painful.
Useful.
The word repeated violently inside her skull.
She stared at herself in the mirror.
Mascara slightly smudged.
Eyes red.
Still recognizable.
That felt unfair somehow.
How could she still look like herself after something like this?
A quiet knock sounded outside the stall area.
“Jay?”
Percy.
She immediately straightened.
Wiped her mouth.
Fixed her expression.
By the time the door opened, she was smiling.
Percy froze.
Because it was immediate.
Too immediate.
Like she’d stitched the smile onto herself before he entered.
“You okay?” he asked carefully.
“Fantastic,” Jay replied lightly.
Percy’s face hardened.
There it was again.
The joking.
The pretending.
The same thing she always did whenever she was hurting badly enough that honesty became impossible.
Jare appeared behind Percy, carrying Jay’s bag now.
The second he saw her face, his jaw tightened.
“He cried after you left,” Jare said suddenly.
Percy shot him a look.
Jay blinked once.
“Who?”
But she already knew.
Jare leaned against the doorway.
“Keifer.”
Jay laughed softly.
Not because it was funny.
Because if she didn’t laugh, she might collapse right there on the bathroom floor.
“That’s embarrassing for him.”
Her voice cracked halfway through the sentence.
Percy noticed.
So did Jare.
Jay immediately looked down at the sink.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
Lie.
The word practically echoed.
Percy stepped closer carefully, like approaching someone standing too close to an edge.
“You don’t have to stay strong right now.”
That almost did it.
Jay’s expression twisted for one terrifying second.
Then flattened again.
“No,” she said quietly. “I think I do.”
Jare stared at her.
And suddenly he understood something awful.
This wasn’t heartbreak.
Not completely.
Heartbreak was when someone hurt you.
This?
This was humiliation.
Jay wasn’t thinking:
He didn’t love me.
She was thinking:
How stupid was I to believe he did?
And humiliation always cuts deeper.
Percy exhaled slowly.
“You’re transferring.”
Jay went still.
“What?”
“It’s done,” Percy said quietly. “Section B.”
Jay stared at him.
“No.”
“You’re not staying here.”
“My friends are here.”
The second the words left her mouth, the bathroom fell silent.
Because none of them knew if that was true anymore.
Jay realized it too.
Her expression shattered slightly.
Just slightly.
Then she looked away first.
And Percy’s heart broke for her
Jay didn’t return to Section E after that.
Not for her books.
Not for her charger.
Not even for the hoodie hanging behind Rory’s chair that still smelled like cigarette smoke and detergent.
Percy collected everything instead.
Nobody stopped him.
Nobody even tried.
Section E looked hollow by evening.
Like something essential had been removed from the air itself.
Keifer sat alone at the back of the classroom while voices drifted around him in fragments.
Nobody sat beside him anymore.
Not intentionally.
It just… happened.
Mayo and Kit whispered near the windows.
Rory stared blankly at his laptop without typing.
Cin hadn’t spoken to Keifer in nearly two hours.
And Aries?
Aries looked like he wanted to punch him.
Ella leaned against the teacher’s desk quietly, watching the room unravel in real time.
Because this wasn’t normal Section E silence.
This was grief.
Ugly.
Heavy.
Unfinished.
The classroom door creaked open suddenly.
Percy walked in.
Every head turned immediately.
His expression alone made the room tense.
Cold.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
He carried a half-filled cardboard box in one arm.
Jay’s things.
Keifer’s stomach twisted instantly.
Percy ignored everyone and walked straight toward Jay’s desk near the windows.
The desk she covered in doodles and sarcastic sticky notes.
The desk nobody had touched all day.
He started collecting things silently.
Pens.
Books.
Headphones.
A tiny blue lighter.
Percy paused.
The room went still.
He picked it up slowly between two fingers.
Then looked at Keifer.
Not surprised.
Just furious in a deeply exhausted way.
“How long?”
Keifer didn’t answer.
Percy laughed once under his breath.
“Of course.”
Cin frowned.
“How long what?”
Percy tossed the lighter into the box harshly.
“She quit smoking eight months ago.”
Silence.
The words settled horribly across the room.
Keifer felt sick.
Because he remembered.
Jay leaning against his shoulder on the rooftop while proudly announcing:
“Three weeks clean. Applaud me.”
Rory buying her strawberry lollipops whenever cravings got bad.
Mayo threatening physical violence if anybody offered her cigarettes again.
And now—
Percy looked around the room bitterly.
“She started again today.”
Nobody spoke.
Nobody could.
Kit looked devastated.
“Oh…”
Aries dragged a hand down his face slowly.
Freya, standing beside the doorway now after coming from Section A again, looked ready to cry out of pure anger.
“She was doing so well,” she whispered.
Keifer finally stood up abruptly.
“Where is she?”
Percy’s expression darkened instantly.
“No.”
Keifer ignored the warning.
“I need to talk to her.”
“No,” Percy repeated, sharper now. “You’ve done enough.”
Keifer stepped forward anyway.
Wrong choice.
Percy shoved him back hard enough for the desk behind him to slam loudly against the floor.
The room exploded.
“Percy—”
“Holy shit—”
“Stop—”
But Percy looked murderous.
“You do not get to break her,” he hissed, “and then act concerned afterward.”
Keifer’s expression cracked for the first time all day.
Because concern wasn’t the right word.
Terror was.
He knew Jay.
He knew what happened when she stopped feeling wanted.
She destroyed herself quietly.
Not loudly enough for people to intervene.
Not dramatically enough for rescue.
Just slowly.
Like rot spreading beneath floorboards.
Cin stepped between them quickly before Percy could swing again.
“Enough.”
Percy looked at Keifer one last time with absolute disgust before grabbing the box again.
Then he stopped near the doorway.
Without turning around, he said quietly:
“You know what she asked me in the bathroom?”
Nobody answered.
Percy’s grip tightened around the box.
“She asked me if you guys ever laughed about her when she wasn’t there.”
The room physically deflated.
Mayo covered his face immediately.
Rory cursed softly.
Ella looked heartbroken.
And Keifer—
Keifer stopped breathing.
Because that question revealed something horrifying.
Jay didn’t just think they betrayed her.
She thought she had imagined the love entirely.
Percy finally looked back at them then.
At all of them.
“You made her feel pathetic for loving you.”
Then he left.
Nobody moved after that.
Not even Keifer.
Because for the first time since Jay walked out—
Section E understood the true damage.
It wasn’t that Jay hated them now.
It was worse.
She thought she had never mattered at all.
The first thing Jay noticed about Section B was how quiet it was.
Not literally.
People talked.
Chairs scraped against floors.
Someone laughed near the windows.
But it was a different kind of noise.
Controlled.
Section E had always sounded alive — loud arguments, overlapping voices, music blasting from somebody’s speaker at eight in the morning for no reason.
Section B sounded careful.
Organized.
Like nobody here had ever fallen apart publicly.
Jay hated it immediately.
“You’re staring,” Jare muttered beside her.
Jay blinked.
“I’m observing.”
“You’re judging.”
“I am absolutely judging.”
That earned the smallest smile from him.
Tiny.
Quick.
Like he was relieved she still sounded like herself.
Percy walked ahead of them through the classroom rows, dropping Jay’s bag beside an empty desk near the back.
The second students realized who she was, the room shifted.
Whispers spread instantly.
That was another thing Jay hated.
People knew her.
Not personally.
By reputation.
The girl from Section E.
The loud one.
The chaotic one.
The girl constantly surrounded by trouble and boys willing to fight for her.
Except apparently not enough.
Jay swallowed the thought before it could settle.
A girl near the front leaned toward her friend and whispered,
“That’s Jay Mariano?”
Jay smiled automatically.
“Unfortunately.”
A few people laughed.
The tension eased slightly.
Percy noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He noticed everything when it came to her.
“You’ll survive,” he said flatly.
Jay dropped dramatically into the chair.
“Actually I think this environment may kill me.”
One boy snorted.
Another hid a smile behind his notebook.
And just like that, Jay slipped into performance mode.
Easy jokes.
Easy smiles.
Easy breathing.
Like yesterday hadn’t happened at all.
Only Percy and Jare seemed disturbed by it.
Jare sat on the desk beside her, arms crossed.
“You don’t have to entertain people.”
Jay raised an eyebrow.
“Who said I’m entertaining? Maybe I’m naturally delightful.”
“Jay.”
There it was.
The warning tone.
She looked away first.
Because she knew exactly what he meant.
Stop pretending.
But pretending was easier.
Pretending meant nobody asked questions she couldn’t answer without breaking apart.
The teacher entered ten minutes later.
And unfortunately for Jay, he looked thrilled.
“Ah, our transfer student.”
Jay nearly groaned.
“Everyone,” the teacher continued proudly, “this is Jay Mariano. Former vice president of Section E.”
Former.
Weird how one word could sound like a funeral.
“She’ll be joining us permanently.”
Permanently.
That word felt worse.
Jay smiled politely while introductions continued around her like background noise.
Then—
“Wait.”
A guy near the middle row frowned.
“You’re the tennis player?”
Jay froze.
Percy looked up immediately.
Jare muttered,
“Oh no.”
Jay forced a laugh.
“There are many tennis players in the world.”
“The regional champion,” the guy continued. “That was you, right?”
The classroom shifted again.
Not gossip this time.
Interest.
Real interest.
Jay felt irritation crawl up her spine.
Because Section E never cared about that stuff.
They cared about her missing assignments and horrible sleep schedule and whether she stole Rory’s fries again.
Here?
People looked impressed.
Like she’d become valuable now.
“Used to be,” Jay answered shortly.
“That’s insane,” another girl said. “Why’d you stop?”
The room quieted slightly.
Jay stared at her desk.
Because suddenly all she could remember was Keifer sitting on the bleachers during practice one evening, shouting:
“If you lose after making me sit in this heat, I’m disowning you.”
Her chest tightened violently.
Jare noticed instantly.
“She injured her shoulder,” he interrupted smoothly.
Lie.
But a useful one.
The class accepted it immediately.
Conversation moved on.
Jay didn’t.
For the rest of the lesson, she stared at the notebook in front of her without reading a single word.
Because the horrible thing about betrayal was this:
It infected good memories too.
Everything became suspicious afterward.
Every laugh.
Every touch.
Every kind moment.
Fake.
Fake.
Fake.
By lunch, Jay had perfected her smile again.
She sat with Percy and Jare while students from Section B slowly approached throughout the break.
A girl complimented her grades.
Someone else asked about student council.
Another asked if the rumors about Section E fighting teachers were true.
Jay answered everything effortlessly.
Like she was born for this.
Percy watched her carefully the entire time.
Because nobody else noticed:
* how tightly she held her drink,
* how she kept zoning out mid-conversation,
* how every loud laugh from another table made her flinch slightly.
“She’s scary good at this,” someone whispered nearby.
Percy nearly laughed.
If only they knew.
Jay wasn’t adapting.
She was surviving.
There was a difference.
Lunch ended.
Students started leaving.
Jare got dragged away by one of his friends arguing about assignments while Percy stepped out to answer a call.
For the first time all day, Jay sat alone.
Silence settled around her.
The smile slipped immediately.
Just gone.
Like somebody turned off a light.
Jay stared blankly at the cafeteria table for a long moment before slowly reaching into her pocket.
Then paused.
Her fingers trembled slightly.
She hated that.
Hated weakness.
Hated shaking.
Hated how badly she suddenly wanted to breathe without feeling crushed.
The cigarette pack sat hidden beneath her phone.
She stared at it.
Eight months gone.
Eight months ruined in one day.
Jay laughed softly under her breath.
Pathetic.
Then she pulled one out anyway.
The lighter clicked once.
Twice.
Third time lucky.
The flame finally appeared.
And for one horrible second, reflected in Jay’s eyes—
she looked relieved.
Keifer stopped sleeping properly after Jay left.
At first nobody noticed.
Because Keifer had always looked tired.
But after a week, the exhaustion became ugly.
Dark circles.
Short temper.
Silences that stretched too long.
He stopped sitting in Jay’s chair near the windows.
Nobody else sat there either.
Not intentionally.
The seat just stayed empty like the classroom itself refused to move on.
Section E felt wrong now.
Too clean.
Too quiet.
Nobody blasted music anymore because Jay used to complain dramatically for five minutes before secretly singing along.
Nobody ordered extra food because Jay always stole half of everyone’s fries anyway.
Even arguments ended faster.
Like they were all subconsciously waiting for a voice that never interrupted anymore.
Cin hated it.
He hated the silence.
He hated Keifer.
He hated how much he missed her.
Mostly, he hated that Jay still hadn’t answered a single message from any of them.
Not one.
Mayo sat upside down on his chair near the back of the room, staring at his phone.
“Left on delivered again,” he muttered.
Kit sighed.
“She answered Freya.”
Everybody looked up immediately.
“What?” Rory asked.
Kit shrugged.
“Not much. Just said she’s fine.”
“She’s not,” Cin snapped instantly.
Nobody disagreed.
Because apparently Jay Mariano becoming “fine” looked like this:
* perfect attendance,
* highest grades in Section B,
* helping teachers voluntarily,
* joining student council after three days,
* smiling constantly.
It made Section E feel sick.
“She’s replacing us,” Rory muttered quietly.
“No,” Keifer said suddenly.
Everyone looked at him.
His voice sounded rough.
“She’s surviving.”
The room fell silent.
Because somehow that was worse.
—
Meanwhile, Jay was becoming terrifyingly good at pretending.
Section B adored her.
Teachers loved her.
Students respected her.
Even the principal mentioned her during assembly after she scored highest in two surprise tests.
Jay smiled through all of it.
Perfectly.
“Honestly,” one girl laughed during lunch, “you’re nothing like the rumors.”
Jay stirred her iced coffee lazily.
“What rumors?”
“That you were insane.”
Jare choked on his drink immediately.
Jay looked offended.
“Excuse me? I’m deeply offended. I’m only mildly unstable.”
The entire table laughed.
And for a second—
just one second—
Jay laughed too.
A real one.
Bright.
Warm.
Familiar.
Then it disappeared.
Like she remembered she wasn’t supposed to feel okay anymore.
Jare noticed the exact moment it vanished.
So did Percy.
Their expressions darkened slightly.
Jay stood abruptly.
“I’m getting air.”
Nobody stopped her.
Because everybody in Section B still thought Jay Mariano simply liked being alone sometimes.
Only Percy and Jare understood:
she isolated herself whenever the act became too exhausting to maintain.
Jay climbed the empty staircase toward the rooftop slowly, cigarette already between her fingers before she even reached the top.
The door creaked open.
Wind hit her immediately.
She inhaled deeply.
Then froze.
Someone was already there.
Yuri leaned against the railing, red hair glowing under the afternoon sun like fire.
Of course.
Jay groaned dramatically.
“Rooster.”
Yuri glanced sideways.
“Chain smoker.”
She walked beside him anyway.
Neither spoke for a moment.
Jay lit the cigarette quietly.
Yuri watched her too carefully.
Annoyingly carefully.
“You quit,” he said eventually.
Jay inhaled once before answering.
“People change.”
“No,” Yuri replied calmly. “People relapse.”
That irritated her instantly.
“Wow,” Jay muttered. “What a deeply inspiring sentence. Did you get it off a motivational poster?”
Yuri ignored the sarcasm.
“You look worse.”
Her hand paused slightly.
Just slightly.
Then she laughed.
“Should I cry prettier for you next time?”
“You joke too much now.”
That one landed.
Jay’s smile flickered.
Because that was the exact thing Percy told her yesterday.
And Freya before that.
And Cin months ago, before everything collapsed.
Yuri looked ahead at the skyline.
“When you first came here,” he said quietly, “you looked angry.”
Jay stayed silent.
“Now you look tired.”
For some reason, that hurt more.
Because anger meant there was still fight left in someone.
Tired meant they were starting to lose.
Jay inhaled sharply from the cigarette.
“You know,” she murmured, smoke curling from her mouth slowly, “I used to think heartbreak would feel dramatic.”
Yuri glanced at her.
“Turns out it’s just embarrassing.”
The rooftop fell quiet.
Below them, students moved through campus like nothing catastrophic had happened.
Like worlds weren’t ending quietly every day.
Yuri stared at her for a long moment before speaking again.
“Do you still love him?”
Jay looked down at the cigarette burning between her fingers.
Then laughed softly.
Not bitter.
Not angry.
Just sad.
“I think that’s the humiliating part.”
