The Ghostwriter's Secret

Fifty bucks a pop. I ghostwrote thirtysix love letters for the reigning It Girl. I aimed every single one at the guy ruling our high school food chain.

The exact guy I secretly obsessed over. I figured he fell for the obvious—her flawless face. Until that day.

I overheard him laughing with his buddy: "I only said yes because her letters... they actually blow my mind." He holds zero clue.

The soul he actually fell for belongs to his family's chauffeur's daughter! Chapter 1 Chloe possessed a terrifying kind of beauty. The second she transferred in, guys swarmed her.

Candid shots flooded the school's anonymous gossip page. The student body crowned her the untouchable queen bee before first period even ended.

The day she slid into the empty desk next to mine, the comment section exploded. "Anyone know who the It Girl is sitting next to?" "Oh, that's Willa. The tryhard from AP Calc.

Good grades, but looking at her is a struggle." "Wait, someone in my class actually has a crush on Willa.

LMAO." "Is that guy legally blind?" People scanned the packaging and ignored the contents. I did the exact same thing. I couldn't even blame them.

Hearing Tristan admit the letters won him over didn't spark a single ounce of joy. My chest went hollow. Tight.

I was seventeen, with a mom I lost in middle school, and a dad who drove town cars for the Sterling family.

He drilled two rules into my skull every single day. "Keep your head in your textbooks. No boys." And the heavy one. "Tristan goes to your prep school.

You only have that scholarship because of his parents. Know your place, and show the boy some respect." I followed Dad's rules like religion. Not that it mattered.

Tristan and I shared maybe three sentences in our entire lives. He probably didn't even know my name. In the hallways, we operated as total strangers. I kept my history buried.

I never told a soul I'd known him since we were kids. Reality swallowed me whole. Even if Tristan somehow discovered my handwriting on those letters, he wouldn't look at me twice.

Girls like Chloe possessed a natural glow. The universe handed them everything on a silver platter.

I could spend my entire life clawing my way up, and I still wouldn't reach her starting line.

He drove her to campus, brought her iced lattes every morning, and when she tanked her quizzes, he spent hours tutoring her in the library.

Whispers echoed in the girls' bathroom. "Tristan is literally the perfect boyfriend.

It's sick." "I swear I saw them totally going at it under the bleachers yesterday." My pen paused on the paper. The geometry line skewed sideways. I bit down hard on my lower lip.

A jagged breath pushed past my teeth. After the final bell, I barely made it down the front steps when my phone buzzed. Dad. He and Mr.

Sterling booked a flight out of state for a massive corporate merger. A twomonth trip. He told me to pack my bags. I needed to crash at the Sterling estate.

This wasn't exactly new territory. Mrs. Sterling always pitied the motherless girl. Whenever Dad left town, she insisted I take one of their guest rooms.

But it was usually a weekend. A week, tops. Two entire months. My throat constricted. I couldn't reject Mrs. Sterling's charity.

But Chloe's flushed, lovesick smile flashed behind my eyelids. "Dad, please.

Do I have to?" I gripped the phone, my knuckles turning white. "I can just stay at the apartment by myself—" A deep, booming voice cut through the receiver. Mr.

Sterling. "Nonsense, kiddo. You're practically family." The line crackled. "I already texted Tristan. He's grabbing you on his way home." Click. The call went dead.

Tires crunched against the gravel dropoff lane. A sleek, black GWagon idled inches from my wornout sneakers. The tinted passenger window slid down.

Tristan's sharp, impossibly perfect jawline caught the late afternoon sun.

His dark gaze met mine. "Get in." Chapter 2 That single command remained his only dialogue for the entire night. Anything attached to Tristan's name instantly went viral.

Especially now that he had a girlfriend. The school's anonymous gossip thread exploded within minutes. "Only a shot from the back? She literally got into Tristan's GWagon.

Need a name drop ASAP." "Guys like him usually have arranged engagements with girls from their country club circles. Wild that she goes to our prep school, though.

Never seen her." "Wait, if that's true, where does that leave Chloe?" Chloe lost her mind. After the final bell, she gave Tristan the silent treatment.

Instead, she sat at her desk, furiously scribbling a list of every pretty girl on campus, crossing them out one by one. The leaked photo lacked any real definition.

Just a silhouette of a short girl with long hair. Half the student body fit that description.

With the classroom mostly empty, Chloe finally dropped her perfectgirl filter. "I swear to God, I'm going to find out which basic bitch is trying to steal my boyfriend." I chewed on my inner cheek.

Honesty seemed like the safest route. Tristan giving me a ride was a onetime fluke. A total anomaly that would never repeat.

I parted my lips to confess, but a tall shadow eclipsed my desk. My chin jerked up. Our eyes collided. A flicker of genuine shock cracked his perfect mask.

Tristan hadn't connected the dots yet. He had no clue his chauffeur's daughter sat right next to his girlfriend.

I shoved my chair back, keeping my mouth clamped shut, and bolted for the door. But his voice still chased me down the aisle. "It's just my family's driver's kid.

I've barely exchanged three words with her.

Don't be jealous, good girl." His tone dripped with lazy reassurance. "I can't give you a name, but I swear on my life, I could never be into someone like her.

Okay?" A heavy knot formed in my throat. He kept my identity a secret to spare me the social execution. Chloe crossed her arms, letting out a dramatic huff. "Fine.

You're off the hook." In all the years I'd watched him from the shadows, I'd never seen Tristan bend the knee for anyone. The air in the Sterling estate felt suffocatingly thick.

Tristan ditched his usual routine of disappearing into his bedroom. Instead, he sprawled across the living room sofa, tapping his phone against his thigh. Waiting.

I knew better than to make myself the main character in his story. I kept my head down and aimed straight for the sweeping staircase.

My Converse barely hit the second marble step before his voice sliced through the silence. "Willa." I froze, my hand gripping the cold mahogany banister. I turned around.

His dark eyes cataloged my face for a long, heavy second before he thrust his unlocked iPhone toward me. "Put your number in." When I first transferred to the prep school, Mrs.

Sterling practically cornered him in the dining room.

She demanded he add my contact to "keep an eye on me." Back then, Tristan just lifted his heavy lids, radiating pure boredom. "Hard pass.

I don't give my number to random girls." He wasn't flexing. Rumor had it he kept his contacts strictly to his inner circle and the lacrosse team.

His digital footprint remained completely locked down. But right now, he shoved the glowing screen closer to my chest.

He needed to justify breaking his own rule. "Your desk mate is my girlfriend." I gave a jerky nod. "I know." I ghostwrote the exact letters that put her in that position.

The corner of his mouth ticked up into a boyish smirk. "If she ever needs anything, or gets into trouble… I need someone on the inside looking out for her." So that was it.

I took his phone, my fingers hovering over the glass screen, and typed in my digits. I handed the device back.

The clear phone case caught the chandelier's light, illuminating the polaroid tucked behind it. A flawless, sunkissed picture of Chloe.

Chapter 3 He tapped my name into his contacts, pausing halfway. "Willa. Like the willow tree?" A bitter tang hit the back of my throat.

The words slipped out before I could swallow them. "No. Willa.

Like the poem—weeping for a fleeting moon, wasting our youth in the dark." Tristan's thumbs froze over the digital keyboard. His chin tipped up.

His dark gaze met mine, calculating and heavy. "My girlfriend likes that exact line." My breath hitched.

The memory hit me—I'd woven that specific quote into one of Chloe's ghostwritten letters. I never expected him to memorize it. Chloe was drowning in the honeymoon phase.

She namedropped Tristan a hundred times a day. She leaned over her desk, dropping her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "Tristan's a little… guarded.

I'm always the one initiating whenever we hook up. Ugh. Give me some ideas." Hook up. I parted my lips. I wanted to ask how far they'd actually gone.

But the mental image flashed behind my eyes, violently sharp, forcing the words back down my throat. My silence stretched too long.

Chloe let out a breathy laugh, waving a manicured hand. "Never mind. You've literally never dated.

Asking you is pointless." She dropped the subject, immediately ducking her head to furiously tap at her phone under the desk. I sat close enough to see her screen.

Her text read: "Szechuan hotpot tonight?

The spicy spot we went to last time." Tristan's reply popped up a second later. "Sure." I ripped my eyes away and stared blankly at my AP Gov textbook. White noise filled my head.

A single, glaring fact blinked in my mind—Tristan despised spicy food. His tolerance for heat was completely nonexistent. That night at the Sterling estate, Mrs.

Sterling was out for a charity gala. Only Agnes, the housekeeper, shuffled around the kitchen. Tristan's spot at the massive dining table remained empty.

I ate dinner surrounded by deafening silence. Back in my guest room, I mindlessly scrolled through Instagram. Chloe's newest post hit the top of my feed.

She stood by the waterfront, swallowed up by a massive, familiar varsity jacket. Her eyes crinkled into a blinding, perfect smile.

The caption radiated pure, smug victory. "Told him I was freezing. Someone gave up his jacket." I slammed my thumb down, locking the screen.

Sometime in the dead of night, the sharp crack of shattering glass dragged me out of my sleep. I fumbled for my phone. 2:00 AM.

I stared at the ceiling, fighting the urge to ignore it. Anxiety won. I slid out of bed and crept down the sweeping staircase.

A single, dim pendant light illuminated the kitchen island. A tall figure hunched over the marble counter, rummaging through the drawers.

Shards of a shattered water glass littered the hardwood at his feet. I pressed my lips into a tight line. Every survival instinct screamed at me to turn around.

To march back upstairs and pretend I saw nothing. But staring at the rigid line of Tristan's back, my selfcontrol completely evaporated. "What are you looking for?" He spun around.

A feverish, unnatural flush stained his sharp cheekbones.

His dark brows pulled together as his eyes dragged over me. "You're still up?" I swallowed the truth about the noise waking me. "Just thirsty." He gave a clipped nod, accepting the lie, and finally answered my question. "Have you seen the Advil?

The heavyduty stuff?" It clicked. The Szechuan hotpot. The freezing waterfront without his jacket. He was burning up.

My chest tightened as I watched him shiver, the untouchable prep school king suddenly looking incredibly vulnerable. "Do we need to go to the ER?" I stepped closer, my pulse ticking up.

He shook his head. "Thermometer says it's lowgrade. I'm fine." I let out a quiet breath of relief. "I have Tylenol in my bathroom.

Let me grab it." I bolted up the stairs before he could argue. When I came back, I handed him the pills and a fresh glass of water.

I watched the harsh line of his throat work as he swallowed them down. A sudden, reckless thought hijacked my brain.

He definitely hadn't kept any of that spicy dinner down. "I'm making a bowl of ramen," I blurted out. "Want some?" I needed a buffer.

A reason for him to say yes. "Eating alone in this massive kitchen makes me feel… awkward." Silence stretched between us.

His feverbright gaze held mine, stripping away my defenses. Finally, a fraction of the tension drained from his shoulders. "Yeah.

Okay." His voice was wrecked, a raw, gravelly scrape. "Thanks." Chapter 4 Having zero culinary skills, I barely managed to boil two packs of instant ramen, tossing in an egg and some chopped spinach.

My stomach tied into knots. I waited for him to push the bowl away in pure disgust. He inhaled every last bite. He even scrubbed the bowls clean at the sink.

The scrape of porcelain and running water filled the massive kitchen. Neither of us spoke a single word. The brutal truth remained. We had each other's numbers.

We shared the same roof. Chloe stood squarely between us. But we were still strangers. Before heading upstairs, my eyes snagged on his collar.

A faint smear of pink stained the crisp fabric. My chest tightened. Chloe wore that exact shade of lip gloss in third period. My phone buzzed against my palm.

A new message notification lit up the screen. The name paralyzed me. Tristan. My thumb hovered over the glass before clicking it open.

The text sucked the air straight out of my lungs. "Keep last night between us. Don't tell Chloe." My fingers shook slightly as I typed back. "Okay." He was definitely overthinking.

I would never casually drop his name into a conversation. Besides, the window to confess my living situation to Chloe had slammed shut days ago.

Two days later, Chloe threw her birthday bash. She handed me an invite. Mr. Sterling treated my dad incredibly well. The paycheck kept us afloat.

But before my mom passed, the hospital bills had buried us under a mountain of medical debt. I counted every single penny.

If I wasn't completely desperate, I never would have accepted that eighteen hundred bucks to ghostwrite Chloe's love letters.

I spent weeks meticulously studying and forging her handwriting. It was a secret buried entirely between the two of us. Guilt gnawed at the edges of my conscience.

So, I showed up to the party. I even splurged on a delicate silver bracelet that totally wrecked my budget. Chloe barely glanced at it.

She tossed the velvet box onto a mountain of other gifts. Her manicured finger tapped a massive, sleek box on the coffee table. "This is from Tristan.

Wanna see what he got me?" She ripped into the wrapping paper before I could even nod. Tristan strolled over from the kitchen island.

He casually slung a heavy arm over her shoulders, pulling her flush against his side. "Like it?" A sickly sweet smile stretched across Chloe's face. "I'm still opening—" Her voice abruptly died.

The smile vanished. I peered over her shoulder. My blood ran cold. Resting on top of an insanely expensive diamond necklace was a thick stack of stationery. My letters.

One of Tristan's lacrosse buddies leaned against the counter, barking out a laugh. "You two owe me big time!" he teased, lifting his red Solo cup. "Tristan gets dozens of love letters a day.

He usually throws them straight in the trash. Total fluke—I grabbed yours out of his locker and ripped it open." The guy took a swig of his drink. "I read three lines out loud.

Boom.

He was hooked." "Dude dug out the rest of them and read every single one." "I literally just found out he fell for you strictly because of those letters." He fell for the mind on the paper before he even looked at the girl.

He fell for my soul. Tristan snatched a velvet throw pillow off the sofa and hurled it at his buddy's head. "Shut up, man." The room erupted into laughter.

The bass from the speakers pounded against the walls. But my gaze remained fixed on Chloe. Her knuckles gripped the edge of the box, turning stark white.

Her face contorted into something dark and terrifying. Chapter 5 The night ended with a massive fireworks display over the estate.

Pure, blinding colors exploded against the dark sky.

Tristan bankrolled the whole thing. "You guys are literally prep school royalty," someone yelled over the booming explosions. "Tristan dropping thousands just to make his girl smile.

I'm posting this everywhere tomorrow." That year, the entire universe operated on one undeniable fact. Tristan worshipped Chloe.

She cornered me before the party completely died down.

She lowered her voice, skipping the pleasantries. "Consider this hush money." She slid a thick envelope across the marble counter. "You never wrote those letters." We both knew exactly why she panicked.

I stared at the envelope. I slid it right back. "We made a deal. You paid, I wrote.

Transaction complete." I met her sharp glare. "You don't need to pay me twice to keep my mouth shut." Chloe's eyes narrowed into icy slits. "You better remember that for the rest of your life." I gave a single nod. "I will." The freezeout started the very next morning, with Chloe treating me like invisible dead weight; if we crossed paths by the front gates, her eyes simply glazed right over me.

The rest of the student body immediately followed their queen bee's lead. The social isolation hit hard and fast.

I walked over to the classroom trash can to throw away a crumpled worksheet. A glint of silver caught the fluorescent lights. My stomach bottomed out.

The expensive bracelet I wrecked my budget for sat perfectly nestled among crumpled papers and halfeaten granola bars. A sharp, physical ache bloomed behind my ribs.

The distraction completely hijacked my focus. Midterms rolled around, and I totally bombed. I plummeted from the top of the AP rankings, falling completely out of the top five.

Tristan, of course, maintained his iron grip on the number one spot. The day they posted the class ranks, reality slapped me across the face. My lungs burned.

I stared at my name typed so far down the list. Are you insane, Willa? I was tearing my own future to shreds over someone else's love story.

Sinking my own ship for a guy who didn't even look at me. That night, sleep never came. My pulse pounded in my ears.

I lay rigid in the dark, staring at the ceiling until the sun bled through the blinds. First period the next morning, I marched up to the teacher's desk and demanded a seat change.

Then, I tracked down Mrs. Sterling. I told her I was packing my bags. She gripped my hands, her brow furrowed in genuine concern. "Don't be ridiculous, Willa.

Your father is stuck out of state for another two weeks. You're drowning in AP prep.

You can't just go back to an empty apartment and eat microwave dinners." I pulled my hands back gently. I told her I could handle it.

I couldn't spend my life surviving on other people's pity. And I definitely couldn't keep feeding this toxic, hopeless obsession. I forced myself to swallow the bitter truth.

I hadn't moved into the Sterling estate just to appease her. I packed my bags because I wanted proximity to Tristan. I wanted just a fraction of his attention.

And I got nothing in return. A hollow, echoing void. I slammed the door on my social life and buried myself in textbooks. Two brutal weeks of relentless grinding.

My test scores skyrocketed, securing me a solid spot in the top three.

Every single afternoon, Tristan leaned against the doorframe of our homeroom, waiting to walk Chloe to his GWagon.

He always dipped his tall frame downward, angling his head to catch her whispers. I learned to keep my eyes glued straight ahead.

I walked past their intimate little bubble without a single muscle twitching in my face. Once Chloe realized I posed zero threat, she erased me from her radar entirely.

Her desk remained the epicenter of the classroom, constantly surrounded by her loyal followers. Until Tuesday. "Where's Tristan?" a cheerleader asked, leaning over Chloe's desk.

Chloe rolled her eyes, letting out a sharp scoff. "I was freezing last night. I told him to give me his letterman, and he flatout lied to my face.

Claimed he didn't bring it." She crossed her arms, her glossy lips forming a deep pout. "I literally saw him wearing it that morning.

It pissed me off so bad, I dumped him." Chapter 6 She called it a breakup. But the smug edge in Chloe's voice screamed pure, unadulterated tantrum.

She was just waiting for Tristan to crawl back and grovel. "So when are you gonna take him back?" a girl whispered. "Guys like him don't stay single.

What if someone else swoops in?" My fingers clamped down hard on my mechanical pen. Chloe's bright, arrogant laugh cut through the classroom. "Not gonna happen.

He's way too obsessed with me." Yeah. He really was. Between periods, I headed to the AP faculty room to grab some worksheets.

Tristan walked right past me in the corridor, balancing a stack of textbooks. A fivesecond window. We didn't even trade a glance. Just two ghosts sharing the same hallway.

I finished talking to my guidance counselor. I stepped back out into the empty hall, ready to head back to class, when a low, familiar voice stopped me dead. "Willa." I spun around.

Tristan leaned against the lockers. He actually waited. I shifted my weight, hesitant. "Need something?" Chloe's little performance flashed in my brain.

Did he want me to play the middleman and fix his relationship? I pressed my lips into a tight line. "I'm not sitting next to Chloe anymore.

If you're looking for an inside scoop on her, I can't help you." Tristan's dark brows hitched up. A slow, wry smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Not about her.

It's about you." My brow furrowed. I stared at him, my brain completely shortcircuiting. A cold draft swept through the hallway.

Tristan unzipped his heavy varsity jacket—the exact one Chloe threw a fit over—and shoved it into my arms. "Take it." He didn't wait for a thank you.

He just shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away. I stood frozen on the linoleum tiles. The thick wool weighed down my hands. And then it clicked. The calendar date.

The dull ache in my lower abdomen. He saw the stain on the back of my uniform skirt. Realizing what he meant, I felt a sudden flush burn my cheeks.

I wanted the concrete floor to crack open and swallow me whole. I didn't leave my wooden chair for the rest of the day.

I guarded that varsity jacket around my waist like a paranoid thief. I stared down at the heavy fabric. Thick, white cursive lettering sat right over the heart. Tristan Sterling.

A ragged sigh pushed past my teeth.

Back at my cramped apartment, I pulled out my phone and pulled up his contact. "Thanks for today." I tossed the phone on the counter and grabbed the laundry detergent, ready to scrub the jacket clean.

My screen lit up. A single chime cut through the quiet kitchen. I tapped the notification. "Open the door?" My lungs locked.

My pulse hammered a violent, frantic rhythm against my ribs. I ripped the front door open. Tristan stood on my tiny, cracked porch. The pale moonlight washed over his sharp jawline.

He thrust a brown paper takeout bag toward my chest. "My mom was stressing.

Demanded I drop off dinner." I took the warm bag, my neck craning up to meet his dark eyes. "Thanks." He didn't ask for his varsity jacket back.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I've got a spare. Keep that one." The unspoken truth dropped like a stone in my gut. I wore it. Now it was trash to him.

He and Chloe patched things up before the week even ended. Rumors echoed through the cafeteria that they were locking in early applications for the same Ivy League.

Winter break hit fast. I took a Greyhound bus upstate to my grandparents' house for the holidays. Midnight on New Year's Eve. I refreshed my Instagram feed.

Chloe's post glared back at me, bright and undeniable. "Every single year, starting right now. Me and Tristan." Chapter 7 I dropped my phone onto the mattress.

I ground through practice test after practice test until the sun came up. Eighteen months until graduation. I needed an ironclad exit strategy. The semester slowly bled away.

Locker cleanout hit right before junior year finals. The teacher told Chloe to collect the stray textbooks from my cluster of desks.

She reached for a book just as my phone screen lit up inside my open backpack. She completely invaded my privacy, tapping the glass.

A push notification from my dad sat dead center. "Willa, driving Mr. Sterling up to Chicago later. Back tomorrow night." A girl's radar rarely misses.

The dots connected in a split second. She realized the chauffeur's daughter and her quiet desk mate were the exact same person.

To prove her theory, Chloe ripped through my backpack. She dumped my folders onto the linoleum. A folded piece of scratch paper slipped out. Two tiny words sat in the corner.

Tristan Sterling. With a tiny heart drawn right next to it. She snatched the paper and slammed it down in front of my face.

The entire class went dead silent. "You scheming bitch," she hissed, her eyes wild. "Playing dumb this whole time.

You're obsessed with Tristan too, aren't you?" I stared at the wrinkled paper. My throat clamped shut. There was no denying it