The locker door slammed shut, echoing through the empty hallway. Luna stared at the crumpled note in her trembling hand—*Meet me by the bleachers after last period. —R*—and knew something was wrong.
She found Ray by the soccer field, dirt on his knees, phone clutched in his grip. Before she could speak, Marissa and Jake appeared around the corner, wearing matching grins that made her stomach drop.
"Ask him about last night," Marissa said, shoving her phone at Luna.
The screen showed a text conversation between Ray and his teammates. Timestamps from the previous evening. Messages about "finally getting some" with Luna's name scattered throughout like poison.
"Ray?" Her voice cracked.
His face went white. "Luna, I never—"
"Don't." She threw his note at his feet. "I trusted you."
As she walked away, Jake's laughter followed her down the hall.
---
Ray stared at the phone in disbelief. Those weren't his words. He'd never sent those messages. But there was his number, his contact photo, even a blurry picture of him walking past Luna's street after tutoring her brother.
"Luna, wait!" He ran after her, but she was already gone.
By the time he cornered Jake later, the fake screenshots had spread through half the school. Luna had blocked his number. When Ray demanded an explanation, his former best friend just shrugged.
"She was never really yours anyway."
---
Three years of silence followed. Luna believed the boy who'd held her hand through her mother's cancer treatments had betrayed her trust. Ray thought the girl he'd loved had abandoned him without hearing his side.
Neither knew their best friends had fabricated everything—the texts, the photos, the betrayal that destroyed them both.
Now they were seventeen, and fate was about to force them together again.