Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 27

"You tell me." I answered.

Warm-up ended in a clatter of tired limbs and breathless bodies. We headed to the shower rooms next to the court, an old chamber of testosterone and chaos. Steam fogged the mirrors like enchanted mists. Towels flew through the air like war flags. Laughter roared from every direction. Someone strutted around like a proud beast, another howled after being hit in the back with a wet shirt.

“Barbarians,” I muttered under my breath as I avoided a rogue towel like dodging flaming arrows.

James emerged from a cubicle, water still dripping from his hair, his expression vacant. A ghost in armor. He moved to his locker like it might offer answers if he stared hard enough.

“Matt, huh,” I said, more to myself than him.

James froze, towel slung low around his waist. “They’re just friends,” he said, not looking at me.

I raised a brow. “I didn’t say anything.”

BANG.

He slammed his locker shut so hard the echo silenced even the wild ones. Heads turned. Even the towel-throwers paused mid-attack.

“She sees him only as a friend at least,” Drake said from behind, softer than usual.

The silence swelled for a beat longer before the noise returned, a little warier this time. I looked at James. His jaw was clenched. His eyes, haunted. Like he was watching a battle no one else could see. I wanted to tell him the truth: heartbreak isn’t just a sword to the gut. Sometimes, it’s a thousand papercuts from things you think don’t matter. Looks. Laughter. The way people say they’d look good together.

But I kept quiet. He wasn’t ready to hear it yet.

James was towel-drying his hair, his reflection barely catching in the mirror, when he muttered it, soft, but sharp.

"They just look good together."

Like a sword dropped on marble, the words clanged in the silence they left behind. I didn’t answer.

What could I say?

I watched him. Water beaded on his collarbone, trailed down like tears slipping off armor. He looked down at the floor, not out of shame, just tired. Like he’d been running through a battlefield barefoot, and no one noticed the blood on the trail. James had always been... James. Loud. Charismatic. Messy, but magnetic. But even knights with the brightest smiles get bent under the weight of the throne.

I know that weight. I’ve worn it too.

Not because of Betty. But because I know how it feels to stand beside Matt and feel like the villain in someone else’s fairytale.

Matt with his clean record, perfect posture, and Sunday-school smile. Matt who never sweated, never broke. Who walked through the world like he owned the script and everyone else was improvising.

I looked at James. He was trying. Trying to be better. Trying to be worthy. And that’s what broke me, because I knew he was. Maybe more than anyone else. But sometimes, being good isn’t enough. Not when the world crowns someone else as the golden boy before you’ve even had your chance to enter the ring.

I sighed, resting my back against the cold locker, letting it chill the thoughts crowding in my head. James wasn’t like the others. He’d dated, flirted, played around, but none of those girls ever made him flinch the way Betty did. None of them ever stood up for him. Not like she had. She didn’t just see the James with the grin or the swagger. She saw the one who curled inward at his father’s voice. Who turned quiet when he talked about his dreams. Who stayed behind after everyone else had given up.