The Girl from Harvard, The Boy from the Gutter

PROLOGUE

My best friend was the beautiful valedictorian hopeful, Sienna Ross, but she was in love with the resident bad boy, Jace Maddox.

Jace asked me to set them up so he could confess his feelings for her.

Considering Sienna s future her clear shot at Harvard I never told her.

After graduation, Jace got a new girlfriend.

When Sienna found out, she told me I had ruined her life s happiness and that our friendship was over.

She even posted the story online, painting me as the "frenemy" who couldn't bear to see her happy.

After being cyberbullied, I went to find her.

Instead, she cried as she pushed me off the 18th-floor balcony.

The last thing I remember her saying was, "This is what you owe me, Alice. You ruined me. Don't blame me for this."

Then I opened my eyes.

And I was back on the day Jace Maddox was about to confess.

This time, I agreed without hesitation.

I found Sienna and told her everything.

"He's hot, you're beautiful," I said with a smile.

"You two are a perfect match."

01

"Alice, this is what you owe me," Sienna cried, her face a mess of tears and twisted rage. "You ruined me, so don't blame me for this."

I didn't understand how I'd ruined her.

She had aced her finals, just as everyone expected.

She got into Harvard, the crown jewel of the Ivy League.

Her name was on a banner hung across the entrance of Northgate High for an entire semester, a constant reminder to everyone that Sienna Ross was the brilliant beauty who had it all.

When she was invited back to our alma mater over winter break to speak to current students, she was met with nothing but adoring, envious eyes.

But she told me she wasn't happy.

Because the person she loved most, the school's resident bad boy, Jace Maddox, already had a new girlfriend.

In fact, Jace had made it Instagram official with the class salutatorian, Piper Wallace, the very day after graduation.

When Sienna found out, her heart filled with a bitter resentment.

She cornered me, demanding to know what Piper had that she didn't. Piper, who wasn't as smart, wasn't as beautiful.

It was only then that I told her the truth that Jace had asked me to set them up, that he had wanted to confess his feelings to her right before the college application deadlines.

"It's a good thing I didn't let you go," I had tried to reason with her. "It would have destroyed your focus, messed with your applications, and look he would have just moved on to someone new anyway."

Jace had a history. He d cycled through half a dozen girlfriends in high school.

He only ever dated the smart girls, the high achievers, and his relationships never lasted more than three months.

His whole thing, as he once drunkenly admitted, was watching "the untouchable ice queens" get dragged down from their pedestals.

He wanted to play with my best friend, my brilliant, beautiful Sienna, who had worked so hard her entire life.

Of course, I wouldn't let that happen.

But when Sienna heard my confession, she didn't thank me.

She turned on me.

She accused me of destroying her one chance at true happiness.

Jace, she claimed, was a good person who just didn't know how to love.

If she had been his girlfriend, she would have been the one to save him, to change him, to make him see only her.

I told her she deserved someone better. Someone kind and gentle, someone who shared her values, her goals, who would help her build an even brighter future.

She just sobbed, screaming that she would never forgive me.

She took her story to the internet.

A heavily twisted version of it.

In her post, every word was a dagger, painting me as a backstabber.

The comments section flooded with support for her.

They called me a "frenemy," someone who couldn't stand to see her shine.

Some speculated that I was just jealous, that I secretly wanted Jace for myself, so I sabotaged their chance at love.

They doxxed me, posting my address and my college information online.

I was cyberbullied relentlessly.

My classmates at school started looking at me with suspicion and disgust.

With an army of online supporters validating her every feeling, Sienna's behavior grew more erratic.

Anytime she felt the slightest bit unhappy, she would post another vague, passive-aggressive rant about me.

After countless arguments, I started to question my own decision.

Had I done the right thing?

When she escalated the drama, bringing it to our parents, I knew I had to talk to her one last time.

That's when she pushed me from the 18th floor.

"Alice," she had wept, "who gave you the right to make decisions for my life?"

As I fell, only one thought consumed me.

If I get another chance, I will let go of my savior complex.

I will respect her choices, no matter how disastrous.

And then, impossibly, I did get another chance.

I woke up, my heart pounding, back in the hallway of Northgate High, on the very day Jace Maddox asked me to be his messenger.

02

This time, faced with Jace s request, I relayed every single word to Sienna.

But her reaction was strange.

Hesitant.

"Alice," she asked, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, "does he really like me?"

In my past life, my need to meddle, to play the protector, had cost me my own life.

I had treated Sienna not just as a best friend, but as family.

My intention was never to see her fail; it was a desperate fear that she would throw her incredible future away.

I couldn't stand by and watch her make a catastrophic mistake.

And for that, she hated me to the point of murder.

I had been so blind.

I never noticed the flicker of resentment in her eyes whenever Jace was with someone else.

I never saw the longing gazes she sent his way when she thought no one was looking.

I don t know when she fell for the reckless bad boy.

But I suspect that in her perfectly curated, rule-abiding life, Jace was the only thing that felt real, the only one who broke the mold.

She was the perfect daughter, the perfect student.

She couldn't bring herself to shatter that image and approach him herself.

So she was waiting for him to make the first move.

And in our first life, I had snuffed out that flicker of hope.

She hated me for it.

She resented me for it.

Now, I finally understood.

If this was the life she wanted, then she would be the one to choose it.

Last time, my grand speeches about her future were nothing but noise to her.

This time, in response to her question, I just offered a cold smile.

"He's hot, you're beautiful," I said.

"You two are a perfect match."

03

As I expected, she went to meet him.

When she came back to our dorm room that night, her face was flushed with a radiant glow.

She pulled me onto the small balcony, her voice a hushed, excited whisper.

Jace had taken her for a ride on his motorcycle.

A beat-up, vintage Honda that rumbled like a beast.

She said she felt so free, clinging to his back as they sped up the coast on Route 127.

She described the sunset over the water in Gloucester, the fiery streaks of orange and pink painting the sky.

She talked about the boy with the wind in his hair, a rebellious smirk on his face.

"I've never felt anything like it, Allie," she confessed, her eyes shining. "It was... more real than anything."

I listened quietly, saying nothing.

I assumed they were official, and I was about to turn back inside to my textbooks.

But Sienna grabbed my arm.

"I haven't said yes yet," she confessed, her voice dropping again. "Allie, his grades& they're not great. Do you think we have a future?"

See?

Even then, a part of her knew.

She knew the chasm that existed between their worlds.

After this second chance, I thought she would dive headfirst into her grand romance without a second thought.

But she was still calculating.

Still hedging her bets.

After that night, she started skipping our evening study sessions to go out with Jace.

She d come back late, her cheeks flushed, a dreamy look in her eyes.

I knew she was falling.

How could she not?

Jace's world was a thrilling, dangerous escape from her own.

It was new.

It was exciting.

And now, she could finally reach out and touch it, live out the fantasy she'd only read about in novels.

I wasn t surprised that she was drawn to his type.

She had always loved those K-dramas with the charmingly dangerous male leads, the stories where the school's bad boy falls for the good girl.

She romanticized the idea of the fearless delinquent who, day by day, is tamed by love, who transforms for her, who becomes utterly devoted, with eyes only for his girl.

That, I realized, was the ending she was writing in her head.

And she truly believed she would be the one to make it come true.

So, when they made their relationship Instagram official just weeks before the SATs, I felt no surprise at all.

Only a quiet sense of resignation.

But the other two girls in our dorm room were utterly baffled.

"Is Sienna out of her mind?" one of them asked me, her face etched with disbelief.

04

She wasn t out of her mind.

She was simply basking in the glow of a new kind of adoration.

At Northgate High, she was the academic queen, constantly surrounded by teachers and students who praised her intellect.

With Jace, she was the bad boy's girl.

His friends, a ragtag group of burnouts and skaters, started calling her "Queen," their voices a mix of respect and awe.

She thrived on it.

And in her newfound glory, she seemed to forget the single most important event on her horizon.

The SATs.

With two weeks to go, she announced she was going home for "intensive prep," a common excuse our guidance counselor approved for top students needing a break from the high-school pressure cooker.

But Sienna wasn't studying.

She was spending every waking moment with Jace.

She had finally gotten what she wanted.

One of our roommates, Jenna, couldn't stand it.

She insisted that as Sienna s best friend, I had to call her, to talk some sense into her.

I refused.

This was her choice, her life.

Jenna, unable to let it go, called Sienna herself.

Through the phone, I could hear the faint sounds of loud music and a jumble of male and female voices in the background.

Sienna's laugh was sharp, dismissive. "Seriously, Jenna, stop meddling. I could skip the next month and still ace my finals. Maybe worry about yourself."

A chorus of laughter erupted from her side before she hung up.

Jenna stared at her phone, her face flushed with anger and hurt.

"I'm never sticking my neck out for her again," she muttered.

I just patted her shoulder and told her to focus on her own exams.

Finally, the day of the SATs arrived.

Sienna showed up, a completely transformed person.

Her hair, once a natural, glossy brown, was now a shocking shade of wine-red, pulled back into a high, tight ponytail.

She wasn't wearing her usual uniform or a modest sundress.

Instead, she wore a cropped top that hugged her waist and a pair of denim shorts so short they barely covered her thighs.

As she sauntered to her seat, she turned heads.

She didn't care.

She casually took a bottle of water from Jace, who was leaning against the doorway, and offered him a confident smile.

After all, her foundation was solid.

Even with weeks of slacking off, her raw intelligence meant she could likely still pull a score good enough for a top-tier school.

After the first day of testing concluded, a local news crew was waiting outside, interviewing students.

They gravitated toward Sienna, her striking looks making her a natural focal point.

She flashed a smile as brazen as Jace's.

"The questions? Not that hard for me," she said to the camera. "Make sure you come back for a solo interview with me next time."

The implication was clear: she was confident she would score high enough to become a local celebrity, a genius girl whose effortless brilliance would be the stuff of legend.

They would dig up this interview, and it would be proof of her incredible, audacious talent.

It could have been a great story.

But then came the disaster.

05

The last section of the exam was English.

I noticed that ever since she drank from the water bottle Jace had given her, she had been pressing a hand to her stomach.

She was rubbing it, a subtle, pained expression on her face.

Finally, about halfway through the section, she couldn't take it anymore.

She raised her hand and asked the proctor for permission to use the restroom.

When she came back, her face was pale, ashen.

The pain clearly hadn't subsided.

For the rest of the time, she wrote her essay hunched over in a twisted, unnatural position.

I glanced over once, then forced my eyes back to my own paper.

I kept writing.

When the final bell rang, she remained at her desk, long after the room had emptied of cheering, relieved students.

I packed my things, ready to leave through the back door.

But then she called my name.

"You've changed, Alice."

I froze, my hand on the doorknob.

Outside, the hallway was a chaotic symphony of celebration.

But inside the quiet classroom, Sienna and I were locked in a silent standoff.

From the day I had stepped back, I had stopped playing the role of her caretaker.

I no longer asked if she d eaten breakfast.

I didn't text her to see if she wanted to walk home together.

I never mentioned her relationship with Jace to my parents.

I saw the wild, defiant photos she posted on her Instagram feed with his crew and scrolled right past without a single like.

But I did remember the post from the night before the exam.

A group photo from some loud party.

Her caption read: "Out with the old, in with the new. That's what friends are for."

Jenna had seen it too.

She had asked me if Sienna and I had a falling out.

I just shook my head, saying nothing.

"You know, Alice," Jenna had said quietly, "you were like her personal assistant. She got so used to you revolving around her that now that you don't, she thinks it's all your fault. Honestly, she's an ungrateful leech. I think we're all better off without her."

Jenna was right.

For as long as I could remember, Sienna had been the delicate, beautiful princess, and I was her plain, ordinary sidekick.

It started when we were five.

A neighborhood boy had made her cry, and I was the one who marched over and pushed him away.

She had wiped her tears, pulled a piece of candy from her pocket, and looked at me with those big, pleading eyes. "Alice, I'm not brave like you. Can you protect me from now on? I'll give you candy."

For one piece of candy, I had protected her for thirteen years.

And my one act of defiance, my desperate attempt to save her from a manipulative predator, had planted the seeds of a hatred so deep it would eventually lead her to kill me.

If not revolving around her meant I had changed, then fine.

I had changed.

I had died once already.

She had made her choice.

All I could do was respect it.

"I don't know what you mean," I said, my voice flat.

I knew Sienna too well.

This was her way of baiting me, of needing me to be the one to show concern, to notice her pain, to fix her problems.

But I wouldn't.

Not anymore.

I feigned ignorance of her pain, of her silent plea.

"The SATs are over," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "You're free now."

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