The air outside the school felt electric.
A storm was coming—not from the sky, but from the way Julian and Scott stood across from each other in the parking lot, like two poems written in rage.
Penelope could feel it before it started. Like the quiet before a match is struck.
Julian's voice was low, his jaw tight. "You knew what that photo would do to her."
Scott didn't flinch. "She deserved the truth."
"You don't care about the truth. You care about taking me down."
Scott stepped closer, a shadow of something sharp behind his smirk. "You think you're the good guy in this story, Julian? You think one love confession erases what you did?"
"I never claimed to be perfect," Julian snapped. "But at least I don't hide behind tragic one-liners and smirks like they're armor."
"Boys!" Penelope said, stepping between them. "This isn't—"
But she didn't get to finish.
Because Scott swung first.
Julian dodged—but barely—and then retaliated with a shove that sent Scott stumbling into a bike rack. The crash rang out through the lot like a starter pistol.
And just like that, they were fighting.
Not a movie-scene fight with choreographed punches and heroic pauses.
This was ugly.
Fists, curses, bruised egos. Emotion poured out of them both—years of hurt, shame, jealousy, and something rawer: grief.
Penelope screamed for them to stop, but neither heard her.
Until—
"ENOUGH!" she shouted, tears breaking loose. "You're both so busy proving you're the better man that you forgot to be decent ones!"
Julian froze. His lip was bleeding.
Scott stood still, panting. His cheek already swelling.
"I am not a prize to be won," she said. "I am not your therapy. I am not your second chance or your damn battleground."
Silence.
"You want to fight?" she said, stepping back. "Fine. Fight over who gets to lose me first."
And then she walked away.
From both of them.
Leaving two boys, two broken pasts, and one truth they couldn't punch their way out of:
They might've fallen for her.
But she was done falling for anyone who didn't know how to catch her.
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