Your Rival Saw Me Naked

Chapter 127

We drove to the old school without discussing it.

Just got in his truck and went, like our bodies knew where we were supposed to end up even when our brains hadn't caught up yet. The route was muscle memory. Same turns. Same streets. Same parking lot that used to be full of cars and now just held ghosts.

Chain-link fence circled the property. Yellow demolition notices stapled to posts every ten feet. WARNING: STRUCTURE UNSAFE. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The building loomed behind the barriers like a monument to everything we couldn't save.

But it still stood.

For now.

He parked in the empty lot. Killed the engine. We sat there in silence that was loaded with five years of unsaid things and all the ways we kept circling back to this place.

I shifted in my seat. Pulled my knees up. Stared through the windshield at a building that was about to become memory.

"Can I show you something?"

He nodded.

I pulled out my phone. Not the one at the bottom of the lake—the new one I bought yesterday with a different number and zero social media apps. Scrolled through my photos until I found it.

The picture I took of my old journal before I burned it. Insurance. Evidence. Proof I existed as someone other than who I pretended to be.

Senior year. Right after everything fell apart. When Miles humiliated me and I met Chase and started writing lists like they could organize chaos into something survivable.

I handed him the phone. "Zoom in."

He did. His expression shifted as he read. Recognition flickering across his face as he realized what he was looking at.

The entries were there. All of them. Some he was there for. Some he caused. Some neither of us knew would become prophecy.

Get a tattoo that means something.

Kiss someone who sees me.

Break a rule that scares you.

Stop apologizing for existing.

Love someone who lets me be messy.

His thumb hovered over the screen. Scrolling slowly like each line was a landmine.

"You kept this?" I asked.

"I kept everything."

The admission landed heavy. Like he was confessing to more than just saving a photo.

He pointed to one entry. Break a rule that scares you. "We crossed this one off together."

"That was a lifetime ago."

"Doesn't mean it doesn't count."

He looked at me directly. Eyes steady. Serious. "What would scare you now?"

I knew what he was really asking. Not what rules I wanted to break. What I was avoiding. What made me run when I should stay.

The answer was immediate. Obvious.

"Going back to that gym."

The place where we first kissed. Where I spray painted FUCK MILES across the floor and thought destruction was the same as healing. Where we started something we didn't know how to finish.

"Then let's go."

"The building's condemned."

"So?"

"We could get arrested."

"We could've gotten arrested five years ago. Didn't stop us then."

He was right. We were always good at trespassing. At breaking into places we weren't supposed to be and leaving evidence we existed there.

"Okay," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Fifteen minutes later, we were standing at the east side of the building where the window panel was loose. Same one we used before. Some things never changed even when everything else did.

Chase pulled on the metal frame with his good hand. The panel groaned but didn't budge.

"Here." I grabbed the other side. We pulled together. The screech of metal on metal echoed too loud in the empty lot.

The panel gave. Swung open on rusty hinges that probably hadn't moved since the last time we were here.

He gestured. "Ladies first."

"Chivalry in felony. How romantic."

"I aim to please."

I climbed through. My hands remembered where to grip. My feet remembered where to land. Muscle memory from being seventeen and reckless and convinced that breaking rules was the same as being free.

Chase followed. Less graceful with one arm still healing. He landed harder than he should. Winced.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

"You're always fine."

"So are you. We're a matched set of fine people doing not-fine things."

The hallway was exactly the same. Lockers still lined up like soldiers. Bulletin boards still covered in faded announcements for events that happened years ago. Homecoming. Prom. College application deadlines.

We walked toward the gym without speaking. Our footsteps echoed. Everything smelled like dust and abandonment and the specific kind of nostalgia that only came from places that used to matter.

The gym doors were propped open. Emergency lights casting everything in dim red. The floor was still polished. Still reflecting what little light bled through the high windows.

And there, faded but visible, in huge red letters across the center:

DANIEL LIED.

Not FUCK MILES like I remembered. Wrong timeline. Wrong villain. Right impulse.

"That's new," Chase said.

"From a few weeks ago."

"When you were here with—" He stopped. "Right."

We stood in the doorway. Neither of us moved to actually enter. Like crossing that threshold meant something we weren't ready to commit to.

"This is where it started," I said quietly.

"Which time?"

"Both."

He walked in first. Slow. Deliberate. Headed straight for the bleachers where we sat five years ago. Where we made promises we couldn't keep and broke each other trying.

I followed because that's what I did. Followed him into places that scared me and hoped we both survived.

We climbed to the top row. Same spot. Same angle. The view hadn't changed but we had.

"Why did you really want to come back here?" he asked.

I stared at the spray paint. At the evidence of my rage immortalized in industrial coating. "Because last time we were here, I ran. And I need to prove to myself I can stay."

"Stay where?"

"Here. With you. In the hard parts instead of the exit."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "What if it gets worse before it gets better?"

"Then we deal with worse together."

"You're leaving in two weeks."

"I know."

"So what are we doing?"

The question hung in the space between us. Honest. Terrifying. Necessary.

"Trying," I said. "That's all we can do."