Chapter 239 Chapter Two Hundred And Thirty Nine

Chapter 239 Chapter Two Hundred And Thirty Nine


LENA'S POV

Someone was shaking me. Saying something in my ears, but I couldn't hear it. The world around me had gone eerily quiet, like I was underwater or wrapped in cotton.

Only a matter of weeks until final exams, and I wouldn't even get the opportunity to write them. Because I was now... expelled. A high school dropout, of all things.

And they had already told my mother.

What was I supposed to do? Where would I even start picking up the pieces? Start all over from the beginning? Where? How? Community college didn't even require a high school diploma in some cases, but the good ones did. And scholarships? Forget about it. No one gave full rides to expelled students with academic dishonesty on their records.

Someone was shaking me again.

I blinked, looking up slowly to find... Jace. I could see his mouth moving, could see the concern etched across his features, but I couldn't really hear what he was saying. Everything sounded muffled, like my head was stuffed with cotton balls.

Until his voice came through, faint at first, then louder and clearer, along with a sharp ringing noise in my ears.

"Talk to me, Lena. You're scaring me. What's going on?"

I finally managed to form words, though they felt disconnected from my body. "Can you please come help me get my stuff out of my locker?"

"Why?" His hands tightened on my shoulders. "Where are you taking it? Are you okay? Lena, there are tears in your eyes."

I wiped at my face with the back of my hand, surprised to find it wet. "Just... please."

"Okay. Sure. No problem." But he looked worried, really worried, in a way I'd never seen before.

We walked to my locker in silence. I spun the combination, 26-14-8, my father's birthday, and opened it to reveal the chaotic collection of my high school life. Love letters I'd never opened, shoved in through the vents by boys whose names I didn't even know. Little gifts, chocolate bars, origami flowers, a keychain shaped like a cheerleader. Polaroids taped to the inside of the door: me and Nicole at the fall carnival, me and the cheer squad after winning regionals, me tutoring Martin while he showed me his favorite train model.

And underneath all of that: my textbooks. My color-coded binders. My flash cards held together with rubber bands. My scientific calculator that had gotten me through three years of advanced math. The acceptance letter I'd printed out from the College Board confirming my SAT test date. My draft college essays, marked up with red pen and coffee stains.

My entire future, packed into three cubic feet of metal.

I started pulling things out mechanically, separating trash from keepsakes from necessities. Jace grabbed an empty cardboard box from the recycling bin nearby and held it steady while I loaded things in.

He was patient at first, helping me organize everything, books in the bottom, papers and folders on top, the sentimental stuff tucked carefully on the sides. But after a few minutes of this, he stopped me, his hand covering mine so I couldn't reach for another textbook.

"Wait, wait. Tell me where you're taking all this."

I didn't even know how to say it out loud. It felt surreal, impossible, even, to put into words. Just last night we'd been talking about our plans for the future, about college and finals and prom. And now I was leaving school. Permanently.

"Lena." He forced me to look at him, tilting my chin up with his fingers. "Tell me. Whatever it is, I'm sure we can figure it all out together."

I finally managed to take a shaky breath, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. "I'm taking my stuff home because only enrolled students are allowed to take up space in the lockers."

Jace stared at me. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I just..." My voice cracked. "I just got expelled."

"Expelled?" He said the word like it was in a foreign language. Like it didn't make sense in the context of me, of us, of this moment.

I nodded, blinking back the tears that were threatening to spill over again.

He was looking at me like I'd just told him the sky was green. "That's not possible, princess. They're literally making you prom queen. This school doesn't have a better student than you. What the fuck could they possibly be expelling you for?"

"Could you please just help me pack my stuff?" My voice came out small, defeated. "I really don't want to talk about it right now."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He started doing the opposite, taking the things I'd already packed and putting them back inside the locker. "You're not going anywhere."

"Wait, stop. What are you doing?" I tried to grab a textbook from his hands, but he held it out of reach.

The thing was, my entire vibe throughout this nightmare was hopelessness. Grief for my dead dreams of leaving this town behind and going after something better. I'd wanted so badly to escape, to prove that I was more than the fat girl everyone had laughed at, more than the poor kid on scholarship, more than my circumstances. And now that door had been slammed in my face and locked from the other side.

"Lena." Jace's voice was calm, controlled, which somehow made it more intense. "Half the kids in this school don't even want to be here in the first place. You actually do. You work harder than anyone I've ever met. No one is expelling you. Not if I have something to say about it."

I felt a weird, irrational urge to hit him upside the head. Why the fuck did he think he was, the president? Why did he always feel like he could just snap his fingers and solve everything? Even something like this, which was so far beyond his control it wasn't even funny.

"You don't get it, Jace. I'm serious." I grabbed his wrist, stopping him from shelving another binder. "The principal was there. Mrs. Sinclair. Mr. Reeves. Coach Ellis. All the teachers on the board. They said I cheated on my history test and on about a million other tests dating back to freshman year. They have evidence. Physical evidence, in my handwriting."

Jace put another book back in the locker anyway, his jaw clenched. "How?" He looked at me, his eyes searching mine. "Obviously that's impossible. And even if it was true, why the hell are they bringing it up now, so close to finals? Why not address it when it supposedly happened?"

He trailed off. I could see the exact moment he answered his own question, the realization dawning across his face.

"Allison," he said flatly.

He put the last of my books back in the locker in one swift motion, then turned and kissed me on the cheek. "Wait for me here."

"Jace, what are you, "

But he was already gone, striding down the hallway with purpose, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

All of that happened in a flash, and suddenly I was alone in the hallway. Students passed by, staring at me with curiosity and poorly disguised glee. The girl who'd risen so high, now crashing spectacularly back to earth. I could practically hear their thoughts: She never belonged here anyway. She was always just pretending.

I found an empty bench against the wall and collapsed onto it, my legs finally giving out. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. The tears came then, hot and furious and unstoppable, streaming down my face as the full weight of what I'd lost crashed over me.

Yale. Princeton. Columbia. All those application essays I'd spent months perfecting. The scholarship opportunities Coach Ellis had helped me research. The recommendation letters I'd been counting on. Mr. Reeves' mentorship. My spotless academic record. My reputation. My future.

Gone. All of it, gone.

Because Allison couldn't stand that I'd taken her crown. Couldn't stand that the fat girl she'd tormented for three years had transformed into someone people actually respected. So she'd destroyed me the only way she knew how, by attacking the one thing I had that she could never buy with her daddy's money.

My integrity.

I buried my face in my knees and sobbed, not caring anymore who saw or what they thought. What did it matter? I was already ruined.