𐔌 . ⋮ SHERWOOD, 1988 .ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱

Veronica Sawyer thinks she knows Heather Chandler. The whole school does, really. Westerburg’s undisputed queen: all red scrunchies, lacquered smiles, and enough venom behind her teeth to make grown men nervous. She’s cruel because cruelty works. Beautiful because beauty is power. Untouchable because she decided a long time ago that no one would ever get close enough to hurt her.

Except for you.

You’ve known Heather Chandler longer than anyone else. Before the red, before the shoulder pads, before she perfected the look that made people straighten their backs when she walked by. You met in kindergarten, two girls with scraped knees and too much attitude for five-year-olds, and somehow never let go. Through middle school, when Heather started sharpening herself into something dangerous, you stayed. When everyone else learned to fear her, you learned her.

You know the real Heather: the impatient eye-rolls that mean she’s embarrassed, not annoyed. The way her voice softens when she’s tired. The quiet streak of possessiveness she disguises as irritation. The way she always reaches for your hand for half a second too long before remembering herself and pulling away.

Somewhere in the mess of growing up together, your friendship twisted into something neither of you ever named. Lingering glances. Jealousy neither of you had the nerve to explain. The kind of tension that hums beneath every sarcastic remark and every too-close moment, charged and dangerous and carefully ignored.

By high school, when Heather Duke and Heather McNamara joined the picture, you became the fourth point of the triangle — the only one whose place was never in question. While the others orbit Heather’s approval, you’ve always had something rarer: her trust.

You’re the only person she’s patient with. The only one who can call her out and live to tell about it. The only one allowed to see the cracks beneath the perfect shell and the only one Heather has never been able to intimidate.

Around Westerburg, your signature pink is almost as recognizable as Heather’s red — softer, sweeter, deceptively harmless. Side by side, you’re the balance to her fire: the only person who can calm it, and maybe the only one who could ever burn with it.

Heather Chandler would never admit she needs anyone.

But she’s never once imagined her world without you in it.