He Broke Me For The Girl Who Bullied Me Chapter 07
After nine years, I ripped open every old wound for the world to see.
I laid it all bare.
I named Celeste publicly. I detailed every act of abuse — the high-school bullying, the manufactured rumors, the ice water, the frame-up, all of it. Then the five-year deception she and Ethan had orchestrated.
I dragged every nightmare I’d carried for years into the light.
Screenshots of the group chat. Old classmates from high school began corroborating my story in the replies. Celeste’s follower count started hemorrhaging by the hour.
She had built her empire on the old-money it-girl fantasy — and now all that adoration curdled into disgust and turned against her.
Her family threw everything they had at killing the story. Hired a crisis PR firm. Sent lawyers. Sent middlemen offering settlements.
I didn’t meet with any of them.
Ethan kept the post at the top of the trending page. Kept it there.
Until Celeste’s reputation had been reduced to ashes. Until the DA took the case. Until a jury convicted her of aggravated assault causing the loss of a pregnancy, and the judge gave her three years in state prison.
Only then did I let myself exhale.
The years of my youth had rotted in the dark. But even so — late, so late — a shaft of sunlight finally made it in.
I checked myself into a private recovery clinic for the next several weeks.
Private room. Nurses checking in on me every few hours.
Ethan brought me something different to eat every day.
He kept a smile on his face when he saw me. But he couldn’t hide the exhaustion in his eyes.
I knew he was taking hits for this. Publicly. Financially. Professionally.
Good. Let him.
The day I was discharged, I dressed slowly.
Ethan spoke up, tense.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
He exhaled, relieved, and reached for my wrist.
“Come on. If you don’t get back soon the plants are going to die. I can’t keep them straight — I don’t know which ones want more water and which want less —”
“Ethan —”
“Oh, do you want a dog? I remember you saying you wanted a Border Collie. We’ve got the yard for it, at the estate —”
“Ethan —”
“You wanted a walk-in closet, right? I had a designer draft something. You come home and tell me if you like it —”
“Ethan. Listen to me —”
“I don’t want to listen!”
He didn’t look up. Hot tears fell onto the back of my hand.
He inhaled, unsteady, and asked in a wrecked voice.
“Do you have to be this cold? You used me until you didn’t need me anymore, and now you’re leaving?”
“Audrey. I know I lied to you. I know I’m a piece of shit.”
“But those years we spent together — they were real to me. I meant every bit of it.”
My eyes drifted down. Landed on his wrist.
He was still wearing the watch. The one his friends had called clearance-rack garbage.
The strap was worn at the edges. I remembered — every night he used to hold it under the lamp and polish it, careful as if it were an heirloom.
I used to tease him about it.
“What are you worried about? When it breaks I’ll just buy you a new one. A nicer one!”
And he’d just smile, and promise.
“I’ll buy you a nicer car too.”
The little memories — the ones that used to make me smile without meaning to — had lost all their warmth the second the truth came out.
Now they were something else entirely. Faded black-and-white. I couldn’t tell anymore what had been real and what had been an act.
Ethan was still talking.
“The internet’s torn me apart too. My family’s stock has tanked.”
“Drey. I’m getting what I deserve. Don’t just leave. Please don’t do this to me —”
He was sobbing. Really sobbing. Repeating I’m sorry, I was wrong, forgive me, forgive me —
I pried his fingers off my sleeve, one by one. Picked up my suitcase.
At the door, he called out to my back.
“Audrey!”
“That day at freshman convocation — when you got up and gave the speech — I fell for you right then. I fell for you.”
“I didn’t chase you just to get back at Celeste. I chased you because I wanted you.”
My feet slowed.
“Ethan. I can’t tell anymore what’s true when you say it and what isn’t.”
“So I’m just going to assume none of it’s true. At least that way I don’t have to get hurt again.”
I opened the door and walked out without looking back.
Behind me, muffled crying.
But it didn’t slow me down. And I didn’t turn around.