Cole

I stare at my phone in disbelief as I try to process what just happened. Who the hell leaked the interview and photo? I can't believe Melody thinks I would do something like that. I try to call and text Melody for another ten minutes but it's hopeless. She's clearly not going to respond.

I pace back and forth in my room, trying to expel the built up stress in my body. Thoughts are racing through my mind a mile a minute. What am I supposed to do? My phone suddenly lights up and I quickly dash over to my desk to grab it. I groan when I look at the screen and disappointment washes over me. I debate not picking up for a moment.

"What a way to announce it, Cole." Trisha immediately laughs when I pick up. "What happened to Melody wanting to keep herself private?"

"Hi to you too," I grumble. "Sis...I'm really not in the mood to talk about this."

She ignores me. "It looks like she has some competition."

"What are you talking about?"

"Check your Instagram," she chuckles.

Why? I have four, five photos at most and like a hundred followers from what I remember. I finally manage to log in after several failed attempts to remember my password.

My eyes widen at the thousands of notifications. I feel an uneasy pit growing in my stomach as I skim through some of the comments. Heart eyes emojis, drool emojis, and water droplet emojis, mostly from girls my age. The discomfort is quickly replaced by anger though, when I see comments saying hurtful things towards Melody. I quickly disable my account.

"Unbelievable," I groan. "I don't know how this happened Trish, things between us were private. I didn't share any of this stuff with them. Now Mel's mad at me."

"Ah," she says softly. "I'd say get to the bottom of this ASAP, and find some way to prove you'd never do something like this. I believe in you Cole!"

"Thanks, sis."

-----

"Alright, who the hell is responsible for this?" I growl as soon as I enter the meeting room. I toss a stupid tabloid magazine I bought from the drugstore onto the table. The same god damn picture from Sunday is on the cover. Underneath is the headline,

Tabloids are a disgrace to journalism. They're the lowest of the lows, filled with lies and gossip.

Everyone stares at the magazine, looking dumbfounded. "None of us have any idea how this happened Cole." Francine looks at me sympathetically.

"We didn't even realize you two were close," Andrea adds.

I tiredly collapse onto one of the chairs. I'm exhausted. I spent all night trying to figure out where they had gotten their information from - obviously with no success.

"Morning everyone," Michael greets us as he steps into the meeting room. He sees the tabloid on the table. "Wow, they got that published much earlier than I expected."

My blood boils and I quickly stand up. "You did this?!" I shout, stepping right up to him.

Andrea gets up too and grabs my arm, keeping me from grabbing Michael by the neck. We've learned through unfortunate experience that a mediator is necessary before arguments turn physical. For a newspaper team, we have a lot more fights than people would think.

Michael looks at me calmly. "Well, yeah."

How is he so nonchalant about this? "Why? How?" I demand.

"I figured you wanted me to when I saw the picture."

"How?"

He looks at me like I'm an idiot. "You uploaded it to our cloud. Since you said you didn't want the interview published in our newspaper, I presumed this meant you wanted to sell the story."

"I didn't upload it." I furrow my brows.

"Is your camera roll synced to the wrong cloud?" Andrea asks.

I quickly look at my phone, and my stomach sinks.

Yup.

I accidentally have my photos synced to The Green and Gold's cloud, rather than my personal one.

I curse loudly and collapse back onto my chair. I lay my head on the table and squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe this is all just a nightmare.

"Look on the bright side Flynn," Michael says as I hear him walk to the other end of the table. "I got ten grand for that story. The newspaper is saved."

"Whoop-de-do," I moan. So it really is my fault that Melody's life is in shambles. It's all my fault. I pick up my backpack and trudge to the door. "I'm taking the day off." There's no way I'm going to be able to focus during any of my classes today.

I walk slowly down the street, past the stretch of sorority and fraternity houses on this block. Kappa Sigma's is at the very end. My footsteps slowly crunch through the half melted snow on the ground. Like usual, no one bothered to shovel it. I stare at the ground as I walk, looking up takes energy that I don't have right now. I'm focused on what I can do now to fix things, if that's even possible at this point. Melody isn't responding to my calls, I wouldn't be surprised if she's gone by now.

It's really happening, she's leaving. I was expecting us to be under wildly different circumstances when this day came, but here we are. I didn't even get to properly say goodbye. I'll never get to hear her soft sweet voice or contagious laugh, see her adorable smile, feel the warmth of her body next to mine on the piano bench ever again. My heart feels like it's been ripped out of my chest and stomped on.

Melody made me feel in one month what any other person in one year couldn't. All of that mayhem, and for what? For things to end like this?

It's fucking unfair, how much time we can invest in one person only to end up as strangers again.

"Cole Flynn!" I hear an angry voice shout. Alyssa is furiously storming out of Alpha Delta Pi's house and she's quickly coming towards me. She gives me a hard shove when she reaches me, nearly knocking me over. "How dare you do that to Melody!"

Her normally bright green eyes look dark and murderous. "I-I can explain!" I quickly stammer before she destroys me. "It was an accident!"

"An accident?" she scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Forgetting to tie your shoes is an accident. Dropping your phone is an accident. I'm sure you were an accident. Hurting Melody like that doesn't just happen by accident!" Her cheeks are red, and I highly doubt it's from the cold.

She takes a step closer to me and I immediately take a step back. An angry Alyssa is no joke. "Michael sold the story!" I quickly say.

She furrows her brows. "What?"

My heart pounds as Alyssa shoots daggers at me with her vicious glare. "Melodyagreedtodothatinterview-"

Alyssa quickly clamps her hand over my mouth. "In English please..."

I take in a deep, slow breath. Having a heart attack right now isn't gonna help anybody. I somehow manage to spew out everything that's happened in one breath. I take a moment to catch my breath, feeling slightly lightheaded.

Her expression has softened by the time I finish explaining. She looks up at me with a slightly guilty expression. "Ah I see. I'm uh, sorry for yelling at you like that Cole," she apologizes sheepishly.

"It's alright." She's just looking out for Melody. Hell, I'd be just as mad if I knew someone had hurt Melody.

"Well what are you going to do? Can I do something to help?" she asks hopefully.

"Could you try getting in touch with her? She isn't responding to me."

Alyssa quickly pulls her phone out. She walks down the block with me as she calls a couple times. "They're going straight to voicemail. Her phone is probably off." Alyssa winces. "I'm really sorry Cole. She's bound to eventually find out though, right?"

"She's flying back today. If she finds out after she's gone, it's going to be too late by then," I sigh.

I can't expect her to want to fly thousands of miles back just to see me. She clearly has more important things on her plate. I would go to her but I'm knee deep in student loans. There's no way I could afford a ticket to a state like California.

"Could we go over to her place?" she suggests.

I shake my head. "I asked if I could yesterday. I've never heard her sound so angry as when she said no." I can't imagine that showing up would do anything but make things worse.

We stop in front of Kappa Sigma's house. "I'm sorry Cole." Alyssa softly pats my arm. "I really wish there was something I could do."

Maybe this was inevitable. The odds have been stacked against me since the very beginning, since the moment she slammed the door in my face. Maybe she wasn't the one for me.

But God I had hoped it was her.

"Thanks for trying," I mumble quietly as I head towards the front door.

As I slowly walk down the hall towards my room, I hear Cara's voice coming from Mark's bedroom. The gears in my mind start to turn as I begin formulating a plan. I knock on the door and hear some shuffling before Cara opens it.

"Oh, hey Cole," she greets. Her hair is a mess and I'm pretty sure her shirt is on backwards.

"Cara, I need help with the piano again," I say quickly.

She frowns. "I thought I already said no."

"I'll pay you triple!" I beg. God, did I seriously just beg? She raises an eyebrow but I quickly explain my situation and plan.

Her expression gradually softens when I speak about Melody. "I'll do it... free of charge."

"Thank you," I sigh in relief. "I'll meet you in the music building in half an hour." I quickly rush into my room and take out my phone to make a call. Please pick up.

"You have a lot of explaining to do, Cole." Mr. Carter's voice doesn't sound angry, he sounds disappointed, which definitely feels ten times worse.

"Mr. Carter, it's a long story but it's not my fault, I swear!" I quickly explain the story - there's no time to waste. "Could I talk to Melody?"

"Let me try to get her on the phone." I hear knocking on a door and muffled talking. "She's locked herself in her room and doesn't want to talk or listen," he sighs. "She's not just mad Cole, she's scared. Ms. Aria has handled her problems all on her own for years, this might be the first time she can't."

I feel my heart break. "Can't you talk to her?"

He chuckles dryly. "You haven't seen how stubborn the girl really is. I'm very sorry Cole, I wish there was something I could do."

"I...I have a plan," I begin nervously.

"I'm listening."

-----

"Never thought you'd do something like this Flynn," Cara remarks as I return to the practice room. I place two Chinese takeout containers on a table and she drags her chair over from the piano. She glances at her phone. "I can't believe we've been practicing for nine hours straight."

Neither did I. If someone had told me a month ago that I'd be doing this, I would've laughed in their face. Is this what having real feelings feels like? The things that girl has done to me, I feel like a completely different person.

"Me neither," I murmur before shoving some noodles into my mouth.

She hesitates for a moment before speaking. "It's honestly kind of nice, you know? Seeing you care about someone like this." She gently pats the back of my hand and gives me a soft smile.

I was admittedly kind of an asshole when the two of us dated. I didn't deserve someone as kind as Cara. I definitely owe her big time for this. "Thanks Cara, and thank you for helping me."

"How much time do we have left?"

I check my phone. "Three hours or so."

Cara gives me a sincere smile and squeezes my hand. "I really hope this works out for you, Cole."

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I hope so too 🤔

Thanks for reading!