The Ruined Bride of Velvet Nights by Brick Moving Ant

Chapter 18

Taplyer and Kartini bergke up the following week

sew tad appeared on the school Discord almost immediately.

didrs same dames, but the implications were crystal clear:

I was getuned as the obsessive ex who couldn’t let go, who deliberately sabotaged his relationship with Katherine, who used my body to manipulate fum back into my life.

Through everyone was ordered to by initials, it was painfully obvious who was being discussed.

The post cluded eerily specific details about past interactions with Zephyr.

Katherine’s digital fingerprints were all over it.

I read the entire thread during lunch and felt… nothing.

Tavas out, letting go of someone becomes surprisingly easy once you actually decide to do it.

When you finally peel someone else’s name off your heart, you discover your own voice had been there all along

I’d reclaimed nyself, and that was worth more than any relationship.

During AP Cals, a girl 1 barely knew passed me a note asking if it was true I’d “stolen Z back from K.”

Fed up with the high school drama, I made a public post that evening:

Phoebe. [Going offline to focus on finals and college prep. Stop tagging me. If you can solve this problem, maybe then we can discuss my personal life]

hardest differential equation

people posting “?” and calling me everything from “ice cold” to “academic

replied with a

of Velvet

43.6%

Chapter 13

[Does your desk partner pass the test?]

[You’ve definitely seen

[Give me your hardest problem then. I’ll earn

Me: [–]

commented too: [See you at UC

Davis–the school I had once rearranged my entire

that meant absolutely nothing to me

the app

stopped his

desk began accumulating carefully selected gifts–cherry–flavored everything, indie band merch I’d once mentioned

of it to the freshman mentor program.

through borrowing his friends‘

with Sid, sometimes swearing nothing physical had happened with

photos of the rabbit plushie sitting on his nightstand, claiming he’d “taken it back where

each number methodically.

once typed a

gossip mill churned out a romantic narrative: after my dramatic

an epiphany.

earn a spot at UC Davis, planning to prove himself worthy