Your Rival Saw Me Naked

Chapter 128

The school smelled like abandonment and forgotten potential. We slipped through the back entrance Chase knew about from his delinquent days, and now we were navigating hallways with phone flashlights like we were breaking into a tomb. Which, honestly, we kind of were.

Everything was coated in dust and the ghosts of who we used to be.

Our footsteps echoed too loud. The hallway felt narrower than I remembered, or maybe I just got bigger. Took up more space. Stopped apologizing for existing. The lockers still had faded stickers on them. Band names I forgot existed. Inside jokes that died with graduation.

"Your locker was 247, right?" Chase asked, beam of light cutting through the dark.

"You remember my locker number?"

"I remember everything."

The words landed heavier than they should have. I didn't respond. Just walked faster until I was standing in front of it. The combination lock was rusty but still functional. My fingers remembered the sequence before my brain did. Right 12, left 34, right 8. I spun it without thinking. Muscle memory from a life I barely recognized.

It opened on the first try.

Inside was a time capsule of my carefully curated mediocrity. Faded photos taped to the metal. Notes I forgot existed, folded into tiny squares with hearts drawn on the corners. Old quiz papers with red A-plus marks that used to feel like oxygen. A dried corsage from homecoming. Lip gloss I probably spent too much money on.

And buried underneath, wrinkled and coffee-stained: the original list.

From junior year. Before Miles. Before Chase. Before everything detonated.

My hands shook as I pulled it out. Chase read over my shoulder, phone light illuminating my seventeen-year-old handwriting. The letters were rounder. More hopeful. Less damaged.

Learn to drive stick shift. Get a tattoo that means something. Kiss someone in the rain. Stop apologizing for taking up space.

"You were planning rebellion even back then," Chase said quietly.

"I was planning survival."

He didn't argue. Just stood there while I remembered writing these. Remembered who I was when these things felt impossible instead of inevitable. When wanting anything felt like asking permission from a world that never gave it.

"Your turn to dare me something," I said, voice steadier than I felt.

He considered. Studied me like I was an equation he was trying not to solve wrong. "Spray paint on the gym floor. Your choice what it says."

I found a can of red paint left by contractors near the hallway. It rattled when I shook it. We walked to the gym—those same bleachers where we first kissed, same floor, same air that still tasted like teenage regret and cheap deodorant.

I crouched down. The paint hissed as I pressed the nozzle. Huge letters across the polished wood:

DANIEL LIED.

Chase read it when I stood. "Truth?"

"Completely."

"What did he lie about?"

"Everything that mattered."

He nodded once. Got it without needing details. "My turn to dare you."

I knew what was coming. Could see it in the way he was looking at me. Could feel it in the space between us that had been shrinking since we climbed through that window.

"Kiss me after."

I should have said no. Should have listed all the reasons this was complicated. Should have reminded him I just ended an engagement yesterday. Should have acted like an adult with healthy coping mechanisms and boundaries.

Instead, I closed the distance.

It was supposed to be for old times' sake. Nostalgia wrapped in bad decisions.

It was charged with five years of unfinished business and all the things we never said. His hands found my waist like they never forgot where they belonged. Mine gripped his collar like I was drowning and he was the only solid thing left.

Clothes started shifting. Heat building. My jacket hit the floor. His hands slid under my shirt, fingers tracing skin that remembered his touch even when my brain pretended it didn't. I tasted mint and regret on his tongue. Felt his heartbeat against mine.

Then he pulled back.

Breathing hard, eyes dark, jaw tight.

"You just ended an engagement yesterday."

"So?"

"So you're rebounding. Using this to avoid dealing with that."

Anger flared white-hot in my chest. "You think I'm using you?"

"I think you're running again. And I'm convenient."

I grabbed my jacket off the floor. "I'm not your repair project, Chase. I don't need you to save me from my bad decisions."

"I'm not trying to save you." His voice was rough. Raw. "I'm trying not to be one."

The words hit like ice water. Like truth I wasn't ready to hear.

I didn't respond—just headed for the window we climbed through. My hands shook as I pulled myself up and out. I didn't look back. Didn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me crack.

The drive home was silent rage and something worse. Something that felt like grief for a version of us that never got to exist properly.

Morning came too bright and too unforgiving. I sat on my apartment floor with cold coffee and my phone in my hand for twenty minutes before I finally called Daniel.

He answered on the third ring. "Zoey."

"This is officially over," I said. No preamble. No explanation. "I'm sorry I wasted your time. I'm sorry I said yes when I should've said I'm not ready. But I'm saying it now. We're done."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I know."

"You know?"

"I've known for a while. I just kept hoping you'd figure out what you actually wanted."

"I'm working on it."

"Good luck with that."

He hung up. It should have hurt more than it did.

I opened my notes app and started a new list. The cursor blinked at me like a dare. First entry: Sleep with someone who sees me clearly.

I stared at the words. They felt dangerous. Real. Like something that might actually change me instead of just distract me.

My phone buzzed. Text from Chase: You left your old list here.

I didn't respond. Just added a second line to the new list.

Stop running from things that scare me.

Then I deleted both entries and closed the app. Some lists weren't meant to be written down.