Rose POV
Everyone thinks I'm the villain.
The girl with the fake smile. The one who picks fights. The one who shoved Vanessa's bottle and "oops"ed her way out of it.
But they don't see the whole picture.
They don't see what happened before the fall.
Before Alexis changed me.
We were close once. Closer than anyone knew.
I saw him before the grief. Before his mother died. He was light then—warm, steady. I loved him for it. And I think, for a moment, he loved me too.
But when she died, something shattered in him. And when something breaks in someone you care about, you do everything to fix them.
I tried.
I brought him notes in class. Laughed at his silence. Sat next to him even when he pushed me away. I wanted him back—the real him.
But Alexis stopped being real.
He wore sadness like armor and let it harden into something cold. He wanted to be left alone, but I couldn't leave.
And then that day on the stairwell…
We argued. I said things I shouldn't have. He turned to walk away. I reached for him—and in that second, he turned back fast.
His hand connected with mine. I lost balance.
I fell.
Hard.
My ribs bruised, wrist twisted. But the real pain? It came when he didn't help me up. When he walked away.
When he let everyone believe I was clumsy. Attention-seeking. Lying.
I kept quiet for weeks. What was the point?
The golden boy had lost his mother. No one would side with the mean girl.
And maybe they were right. Maybe I did act like one.
Because after that, I changed too.
If he could pretend it didn't happen, so could I.
If he could protect his image, so could I.
Then Vanessa showed up.
And everything I tried to bury boiled back up.
She was sweet. Smart. Quiet. The kind of girl you want to protect. I should've welcomed her. Instead, I hated her.
Not because of anything she did.
But because I saw how he looked at her.
Like he cared again.
Like the part of him I thought I destroyed still existed—for her.
Not me.
So yes, I sent the notes. I wanted her to back off. To see the cracks in him before she fell the way I did.
But she didn't fall.
She stayed.
She believed him.
And it made me wonder: maybe she was the better version of me. The girl who could love him and survive it.
But it still hurts. Every day.
I sit two rows away from him and pretend I'm not remembering how it felt to matter to him.
I walk past Vanessa in the hallway and pretend I don't envy her courage.
I mock, I provoke, I spill her water—because that's what people expect now.
The mean girl.
The villain.
And maybe I deserve it.
But in quiet moments—in the bathroom, in the library, in my room at night—I'm not her.
I'm just Rose.
The girl who fell for someone and never stood up the same.
***Alexis' ( Classmate) POV***
Most days, I feel like I'm holding my breath.
Like one wrong word, one wrong look, and everything I've kept buried will spill out.
They think I'm cold.
Quiet.
Some even say I'm arrogant.
But I'm just trying to survive the weight of who I used to be—and the guilt of who I became.
I still hear my mom's voice in the mornings.
Not in a dream. Not in my head. Just in the absence of her.
The way she used to hum in the kitchen. The way she called me "her little light."
It's been months, but the silence still rings louder than her laughter ever did.
When she died, something in me snapped—like a thread that held all the soft parts of me together.
Dad didn't speak at the funeral. He just stood there. Hollow.
People say he didn't kill her.
But he didn't save her either.
That's the difference no one talks about.
Rose was the only person who tried to reach me afterward.
I didn't deserve her.
She kept trying to stitch me back together. But I was sharp. Angry. Grieving.
I said things I can't take back. Pushed harder than I should've.
And then that day… the fall.
She said something about my mom. Not cruel—just wrong. I turned back too fast.
I didn't mean to touch her.
But I did.
And she fell.
It wasn't a push. It wasn't violence.
But it wasn't innocent, either.
I stood there frozen, watching her struggle to get up.
And I did nothing.
That's what haunts me most.
The not doing.
When Vanessa came into my life, I didn't want to care.
She reminded me too much of myself—wounded but still standing.
But she saw me.
Not the quiet boy.
Not the top student.
Me.
She asked questions no one else did.
She offered me bread on her first day. That stupid dry piece of bread—like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I wanted to say no.
But I didn't.
Because for the first time in months, I didn't feel completely alone.
Then came the notes.
I knew they weren't random.
I had a feeling it was Rose.
Part of me understood why.
But another part of me hated that Vanessa was being dragged into something she didn't start.
She didn't deserve that.
Neither did Rose.
But me?
Maybe I did.
When I saw the look on Vanessa's face after she read Rose's version of what happened, I knew I had a choice.
Lie again.
Or own it.
And this time, I told the truth.
All of it.
The turning. The flinch. The fall.
And how I did nothing.
She looked at me like she wanted to run, but stayed rooted in place. Like she didn't know whether to hate me or hug me.
I deserved hate.
But she gave me forgiveness.
That... broke me.
Because when someone sees the ugliest part of you and doesn't walk away—
That's love, isn't it?
Or the start of it.
I don't know where this road leads.
I still carry my mother's silence, my father's shadow, and the echo of Rose's fall.
But now I carry something else, too.
Vanessa's trust.
It's fragile. Like glass.
And this time, I won't drop it.