Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Hallway
By Wednesday morning, the bubble had burst across the entirety of Highland Park High School.
Highland Park is a small, wealthy enclave within Dallas where secrets don't circulate through whispers; they detonated across group chats, TikToks, and private Instagram stories. And when three hundred children of corporate titans, oil heirs, and real estate moguls attend a birthday party that ends with security in the scullery and the police called to a million-dollar mansion on Beverly Drive, the fallout is instantaneous.
I walked through the double glass doors of the senior hallway at 7:45 AM.
Usually, Owen and I were invisible. We were the kids who had dropped out of the cross-country team, stopped going to football games, and wore the same three thrifted hoodies every week. We were the ghost kids—the ones whose mother had died and whose father had replaced them with a blonde socialite.
Today, the hallway parted like the Red Sea.
"Is that her?" a girl in a varsity cheer jacket whispered by the lockers.
"Yeah," her friend replied, not even bothering to lower her phone. "That’s Willa. Arthur Vance’s son said she was literally washing his salad plates while Paisley had a four-thousand-dollar ice sculpture."
"Someone posted a clip from Saturday night," another boy muttered. "Reid Mercer was screaming at security in the kitchen."
I kept my head down, clutching my backpack straps, my jaw locked. Owen was already in his second-period auto shop class on the south side of the campus—I had made sure to walk him to his door before coming to the main building. I had spent four years taking the hits for both of us; I wasn't going to let anyone corner him now.
"Willa!"
I stopped at my locker.
Paisley was marching down the corridor toward me.
She looked entirely different from the girl in the pink ballgown. She wore no makeup, her hair was pulled back into an unwashed ponytail, and she was wearing an oversized grey sweatshirt. Her eyes were red and puffy, surrounded by dark circles that spoke of two nights without sleep.
Behind her, three of her usual friends—girls whose mothers had lunch with Taryn at the country club every Tuesday—hung back, watching with wide, calculating eyes.
"Paisley," I said, turning to face her, bracing myself for whatever spoiled, hysterical accusation was about to come out of her mouth. "If you're here to scream at me about your party—"
Paisley didn't scream.
She stopped two feet in front of me. Her lower lip began to tremble. Then, to the absolute horror of her three friends watching from the trophy case, Paisley reached into her canvas tote bag, pulled out a thick, leather-bound box, and held it out to me with both hands.
"What is that?" I asked, not moving.
"It’s Mom’s jewelry box from her vanity," Paisley whispered, her voice cracking loud enough for half the hallway to hear. "She left it on her dressing table when the sheriff's deputies came to serve the temporary restraining order yesterday."
I stared at the box. It was Italian calfskin with a brass lock.
"Why are you giving it to me?"
"Because," Paisley said, tears finally breaking past her lashes and running down her pale cheeks, "I went through the receipts Dad’s lawyers sent to our house. The diamond earrings Mom gave me for my sixteenth birthday... they were bought two days after Grandma Eleanor's room was downgraded to the economy wing."
The hallway went completely silent. The lockers stopped slamming. Even the girls by the trophy case stood frozen.
"I didn't know, Willa," Paisley sobbed, dropping the heavy box into my arms. "I swear to God on my life, I didn't know. I thought Reid was just paying for everything because he loved us. I thought you guys didn't want to see us. She told me you called her a gold-digger to her face and told Dad you wished he was dead."
I held the heavy box against my chest. The leather was cold.
"She lied to you, Paisley," I said softly.
"I know," Paisley cried, covering her face with her hands. "I saw her screaming at the deputies yesterday. She was kicking the front door while they put her in the squad car. She looked... she looked like a monster. And everyone at this school thinks I’m just like her."
Her three friends took half a step backward, exchanging uncomfortable glances, already preparing to abandon her to social death.
I looked at Paisley. For four years, I had hated her. I had hated her perfect clothes, her horse, her teeth, her effortless existence while Owen and I counted dimes for the laundromat. But looking at her now, standing in the middle of the hallway with her soul stripped bare and her mother in a holding cell, I realized she wasn't our enemy. She was just another piece of collateral damage Taryn had used to build her throne.
I took one hand off the jewelry box, reached out, and pulled Paisley's hand away from her face.
"You're not like her," I said, loud enough for her former friends to hear every single syllable. "Unless you keep the jewelry. Which you didn't."
Paisley looked at me through her tears, stunned.
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"Come on," I said, nodding toward the counselor's office. "Let’s go put this in the school safe until Dad’s lawyers can inventory it. And then you're going to sit with Owen and me at lunch."
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