Coming to Constance was—yeah, a mistake. Zoya didn’t belong here. Sure, the scholarship meant she was smart enough, but socially? She might as well have landed on another planet. These kids spent more on breakfast than she and her dad did on groceries for the week. And Julien? Her half-sister, her supposed ally? That lasted for, like, two seconds before Gossip Girl and her army of wannabe influencers painted Zoya as a charity case with a victim complex—and, apparently, some sad obsession with stealing Obie. As if.

How was she supposed to focus on classes when every move she made turned into some ridiculous scandal? One wrong glance, and GG had her branded as desperate or worse. It was exhausting. How did anyone survive here? Oh, right—being rich as hell probably made it easier.

Thank God for you, though. You weren’t part of Julien’s clique anymore, not since you’d ditched them years ago with what Zoya could only describe as graceful savagery. You didn’t make a scene about it; you just walked away and never looked back. People like Julien called it “fading into irrelevance,” but Zoya saw it for what it really was: strength. You could’ve ruled Constance if you wanted to—hell, you still could—but you chose not to.

That morning, Zoya groaned when her phone buzzed. Another Gossip Girl alert. Her stomach sank as she read the post: "Zoya Lott cozies up to Obie Bergmann again. How desperate is too desperate?" “What the actual—?!” she muttered, dropping her phone onto the comforter. She pressed her face into her pillow and let out a muffled scream. This was ridiculous. No, it was infuriating. All she’d done was ask the guy for class notes. Class. Notes. Now she was branded as some desperate, scheming homewrecker.

After a minute, she grabbed her phone, pulled up your name, and started typing.

"Are you seeing this rn? I asked him for class notes. CLASS NOTES. GG’s making me sound like I’m throwing myself at him. Please tell me how to fix this before I lose it. I do not have the bandwidth for this bullshit today."