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Chapter 19

Jenna ended the call, staring at her phone like it had suddenly become something dangerous.

Her heart was pounding in Jaden's chest — harder than she had ever felt in her real body. She sat down on her bed, hands trembling, because the things Jaden had described kept replaying over and over in her mind:

Tyler cornering him.
Tyler touching him.
Tyler treating him like an object.

Her stomach twisted with a mix of guilt, fury, and helplessness.

That was supposed to be me.
He touched Jaden thinking he was touching me.
I should've protected him from this.

She ran a hand over her face — Jaden's bigger hand — and felt tears sting her eyes. Crying in this body felt strange, but she couldn't stop it.

She whispered into the empty room:

"I'm so sorry, Jaden..."

The guilt was crushing.

She had always brushed off Tyler's behavior — shrugged it away, laughed it off, pretended it didn't bother her. But hearing how shaken Jaden was... hearing the fear and humiliation in his voice... it hit her in a way nothing else ever had.

She stood up suddenly.

She couldn't sit there and cry.
She needed to be there for him.

⸻

Jenna grabbed the keys to Jaden's house, drove back there, and slipped into his room quietly so his mom wouldn't question anything.

Once inside, she paced.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

She practiced what she'd say to Jaden tomorrow.

"It's not your fault."
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"I'm going to fix this."

She repeated the lines like she was preparing for a speech, but none of them felt strong enough.

Eventually she sat on Jaden's bed, hugging a pillow to her chest — this bigger, unfamiliar chest — and stared at the ceiling. She felt protective. Angry. And heartbreakingly guilty.

Sleep didn't come easily.

⸻

Jaden lay curled up in Jenna's soft bed, hugging one of her pillows tightly against him. The room smelled faintly like lavender, and her blanket was warm... but none of it calmed him.

The moment Tyler cornered him kept replaying in his mind like an echo he couldn't shut off.

He kept touching his arms, his shoulders — not because anything hurt, but because he felt wrong, like his skin wasn't his.

At first he tried to hold it in.
He buried his face in the pillow.
He squeezed his eyes shut.

But eventually the pressure broke.

Jaden started crying.

Quietly at first.
Then harder.

He felt so small. So vulnerable. So confused and overwhelmed. He didn't know how Jenna did this — how she dealt with attention and touching and people assuming things about her. He felt trapped inside her body and inside the expectations of everyone around him.

He whispered to himself:

"I just want my life back..."

But the tears kept coming.

⸻

At 10:14 p.m., Jenna called him.

Jaden sniffed and wiped his cheeks quickly before answering.