The Villainess Steps Down

Only I could see them.

Glowing comments, blowing up in the air, every one of them screaming that I was a shameless villainess. [Somebody get this bitch off my screen.] They meant me.

Two feet away, the smartest boy in our school was deleting his own future. Valedictorian. Full ride to MIT. My childhood best friend.

He was clicking it away for a girl who smoked behind the bleachers and settled things with her fists. [THIS is what real love looks like. I'm crying.] [Our girl finally wins.

SAY IT LOUDER.] I reached out to stop him. Then I pulled my hand back. I wasn't reborn. I didn't know anything about a "last life." I only knew one thing.

This time, I wasn't saving him. In eight days, the enrollment deadline would close. In ten years, the boy who signed away MIT for a diploma mill would shatter his leg.

That girl would leave him with eight kids. He'd rot in a rented apartment, living off his mother. And I would be standing at the top of the school he tore up with his own hands.

Chapter 1 Something in my chest folded in on itself. Nobody knew what MIT had cost Trevor Barlow. Nobody except me.

Everyone called him a natural, the boy who skipped fifth period for pickup games and still finished first in the school.

Only I knew about the nights he didn't sleep, one problem, one legal pad, the sky going gray behind his window. Valedictorians don't fall out of the sky.

They get built, hour by ugly hour. I had no idea whether the comments were real. Three years of him was real. Neighbor, classmate. He'd earned a headsup. "Trevor.

Somebody changed your enrollment." The air lit up. [Hold on, the mods set the comments to villainessonly.

Why is she butting in AGAIN?] [Last life her one little warning cost our girl and the ML five years. FIVE. YEARS.] [God, she's exhausting.

Have some shame.] His face did something wrong. "Not possible." We walked to school together from kindergarten on. Same elementary, same middle, same high school.

I'd know his lying face in the dark. Half of me went cold right there. "You're sure?" The bathroom door opened on cue.

Jodi Vance drifted out, pretending she'd just been washing her hands. "Aww, Trev." Her voice went bright and sugary. "You need Wren's permission to pick a college now?

What even is this, mommyandherboy playing house? Honestly, kind of shipping it." The comments scrolled so fast they blurred. [My poor girl.

Watches the villainess corner her man and doesn't even flinch.

THAT is a female lead.] [If this dumb bitch opens her mouth one more time I'm putting a curse on her.] [Relax, she doesn't know the ML got reborn too.

He is NOT giving up our girl for some test score this time.] Right on schedule. Trevor snapped. He crossed the room and pulled the front door open. "Wren.

If you're this desperate to be somebody's mother, ask first whether I want to be your son." "I'm eighteen. I get to run my own life.

Go home." No, I'd never lived through whatever "reborn" was supposed to mean. I couldn't get inside his head. I just knew what he was setting on fire.

On my way past, he smiled at me, gentle and certain, and ruffled my hair like he'd done a thousand times. "Sorry. Let me be brave once." [Sorry for WHAT?

The only person you owe anything to is our girl.] [Did you forget the five years she cost you last life?] [Manipulative bitch. Working his sympathy on purpose.

Take the L and leave.] Eight days until the enrollment deadline. For eight days I didn't call him. Didn't text. I just kept hoping his brain would boot back up.

A few days in, I was climbing the walls, so I went down to the corner store for a popsicle. Mrs. Barlow was out front at the card table.

The comments panicked before I did. [IS SHE GOING TO TATTLE? God, that's evil. Can't change the ML's mind so she runs to his mom.] [Don't fall for it, Mrs. B.

Our girl's giving you eight fat grandbabies someday.] [Drop the act, villainess. We KNOW you can see us. Do NOT tattle.] Please. They gave themselves way too much credit.

I knew exactly where my lines were. Trevor was hiding it from his mother. Why would I volunteer to be the villain of that story? I'd learn soon enough.

In the script those glowing comments had already written, it didn't matter whether I opened my mouth or kept it shut, whether I meddled or walked away.

I'd already been cast as the villainess. The one who was supposed to get off the stage.

Chapter 2 I opened the freezer case and pulled out two popsicles, then went up to the register. Mrs. Barlow saw them in my hand and plucked one right out. "Two?

One for you, one for my Trev?" She smiled. "Sweet girl. But you're both grown now. You should start thinking about boundaries." I stood there. My brain didn't catch up.

Trevor's dad died when he was small. Mrs. Barlow raised him by herself, and everyone on the street knew what it had taken out of her.

When they first moved in, my parents fed them at our table more nights than not, because that's what you do for new neighbors. She used to call me her second daughter.

When the market marked down the snacks she couldn't afford at full price, she brought all of them to me. Every morning, out the door: Trevor, look after your little sister.

When a kind person turns, the first thing you doubt is yourself. She laughed, a little embarrassed. "Wren, honey, you're a young woman now.

You can't just wander into my house like you used to. It doesn't look good for you. You understand." Gentle. Considerate. It made my skin crawl.

The comments were in tears laughing. [HAHAHA did you hear that, villainess?

That was aimed at YOU.] [Check your own test scores before you look at a valedictorian.] [The ML ends up with a CEO's daughter or some genius girl. Who is Wren Hale?

Just a simp throwing herself at a mommy's boy.] I took half a step back. Kept my chin level. "Understood, Mrs.

Barlow." She relaxed. "Having him look after you, that was me treating you like a second daughter. Don't read into it.

My Trevor doesn't date the girl next door." "And as for who he marries, I have my standards. You're a lovely girl, Wrennie.

But for my Trevor, you're just a little short." Something in me hit its limit. "Mrs. Barlow." I looked right at her. "Both popsicles were for me." Her smile got stuck.

She couldn't hold it and she couldn't drop it. She just stood there with it on her face.

I got about twenty feet before the voices came drifting back over the shuffle of cards. "Mouthy. Nobody's ever going to marry that." "What's she so proud of anyway?

Scored under my boy. They all say girls peak early. She won't hear it." I got home with my mouth cold and everything under it colder. Maybe that's the price of growing up.

People you've known your whole life put on a different face, and all you can do is take it. The next day the class president called about the graduation party. "Everybody's coming.

You have to be there.

We've got a surprise for you." I pushed open the door of the restaurant's private room right on time, and my best friend from class grabbed my arm. "Where's your other half?

Why isn't he with you?" "Valedictorian's girlfriend. You two going to the same school or what? Same school and you're the campus couple.

Different schools and it's long distance, sorry." The comments came back in one solid wall. [Shameless.] [Shameless.] [SHAMELESS.] I opened my mouth to correct her.

The class president shouted first. "Get ready!" The lights died. The room went black.

Then the string lights came up in six colors, and fifty people lifted party poppers over their heads. The door swung open. Trevor stepped through. POP.

Confetti came down thick enough to bury every glowing comment in the room. "TOGETHER! TOGETHER! TOGETHER!" A red banner unrolled across the back wall. WREN & TREVOR. FOREVER.

The room kept cheering. Trevor and I looked at each other across all of it, and neither of us said anything.

Then Jodi Vance leaned out from behind his arm, both hands wrapped around his elbow. "Aww, Trev.

Are you confessing to Wren tonight?" Chapter 3 "If you're confessing, this crowd isn't nearly enough hype." Jodi beamed around the room. "Good thing I brought some of my friends.

See? I think of everything." [My poor girl, putting on a brave face.] The chanting stopped like someone had cut a wire. The whole room stared at Trevor's hand.

At Jodi's fingers laced through it. You'd have to be an idiot to miss it now. My best friend got there first. "Trevor.

What the hell is this?" The class president wasn't smiling anymore. "Dude. You said you had good news to announce.

This is your good news?" Trevor took a breath and stepped forward like a man walking into weather. "Everybody.

What I wanted to tell you tonight is that Jodi and I are together." The air filled up with red hearts