Joel’s phone was suddenly in his pocket. "Oakley—" he started, but Valerie cut him off with a sharp jerk of her chin. The carnival lights flickered overhead, casting jagged shadows across her face as she swallowed hard.
"It was Jason Rhee," Valerie said, voice flat. "And your brother."
The silence hit like a punch. Oakley blinked. "My—" His mouth worked for a second before sound came out. "Ethan?" The name cracked in the middle. Behind him, the Ferris wheel creaked to a stop, dangling a car full of shrieking teens directly above their heads.
Jovie's cotton candy stick snapped in her hands. Walker's rainbow-streaked forehead furrowed. "Wait," he said slowly, "Ethan Ethan? As in, 'got suspended for microwaving a frog in bio' Ethan?"12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk8e0pXGy8i
"Who's Jason Rhee?" Amberly asked, only to find out no one would answer her question.
The Ferris wheel's creaking gears filled the silence. Oakley's face cycled through expressions like a malfunctioning slideshow—confusion, disbelief, something dangerously close to betrayal—before settling on blank shock. His fingers twitched toward his phone, then away. "Ethan doesn't—" He swallowed hard. "He's straight."
Joel winced. Valerie opened her mouth, but the words died when a sharp cough cut through the tension.
Behind the popcorn stand, half-hidden by a flickering neon sign, Tyler Henshaw from homeroom lowered his phone with a grin that made Valerie's stomach drop. "Damn," Tyler drawled, thumb hovering over the screen. "Didn't know Oakley's brother swung that way." The red recording light blinked mockingly.
Jovie moved first—grabbing Joel's wrist with one hand and Walker's glitter-streaked elbow with the other, hauling them backward like a lifeguard dragging swimmers from a riptide. "Move," she hissed, already pivoting toward the parking lot's flickering sodium lights. Joel stumbled, his sneaker catching on a discarded popcorn bucket, but Walker didn't resist; his rainbow-streaked face had gone pale under the carnival glow, eyes darting between Oakley and Tyler's smirk.
Valerie lunged after them, then skidded to a stop when Oakley didn't follow. He stood rooted like one of the carnival's tent stakes, shoulders rigid, staring at Tyler's phone as if it were a live grenade. Amberly—baffled but loyal—hovered at his side, her neon pink streaks glowing under the Ferris wheel's bulbs. "Dude," Valerie whispered, yanking at Oakley's sleeve, "we *gotta go*."
Oakley didn't budge. His breathing came too fast, nostrils flaring. "He's—" A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Ethan's *not*—" The sentence died when Tyler's thumb twitched, the phone's screen tilting just enough to show the blurry but unmistakable silhouette of two figures pressed against a locker.
Amberly, piecing it together with terrifying speed, kicked Tyler's shin hard enough to make him yelp. The phone clattered to the asphalt as he hopped backward, but the damage was done—the recording light still blinked, the video undoubtedly auto-saved to the cloud. Valerie saw the exact moment Oakley's brain short-circuited: his pupils dilated, his fingers curled into fists, and his left knee jerked like he wanted to sprint in six directions at once.
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and then Add to home screen.