Drea Torres didn't just do revenge. She excelled at it. It was practically her love language. There was a formula to it—pain, planning, perfection. She'd made a name for herself with it, reengineering the entire social structure of Rosehill with nothing but thrifted couture, biting wit, and a smile that could cut glass.

But what happens when the person you want to destroy is the one who knew you best?

That part… she hadn't quite figured out yet.

It was a week after the implosion. After the party. After the screaming match in the middle of the quad that left everyone at school clutching their metaphorical pearls and Drea's entire social empire in flames.

She stood at her locker now, staring at the little magnet photo strip still pinned inside. Two faces, four poses: Drea with her tongue out, and Eleanor (no, not Eleanor anymore—just some girl), laughing beside her.

Drea slammed the locker shut.

"Jesus," Russ said, appearing beside her like a horror movie jump scare. "Was that the door, or your soul trying to escape your body?"

"Don't start with me," Drea muttered, adjusting her sunglasses even though they were indoors.

Russ raised his eyebrows. "Still no contact?"

"No. I blocked her on everything. She tried to Venmo me for a latte, and I declined it just out of spite."

"Okay, that's petty even for you."

"I invented petty," Drea hissed. "And don't make me remind you whose side you're on."

"I'm Switzerland."

"Switzerland is a coward."

"Switzerland is neutral."

"Same thing."

After school, Drea was laying facedown on her pink velvet couch, still in her uniform, scrolling mindlessly through Instagram. Every other post seemed to involve Eleanor: Eleanor at the student council fundraiser, Eleanor at volleyball practice, Eleanor laughing way too hard at something Max said in the courtyard.

Drea threw her phone across the room.

"Drea!" her mom called from the kitchen. "Did you just break another case?!"

"It's fine!" Drea yelled. "It's the phone. The case is the least of its problems."

Her mom poked her head in. "Sweetie, this mood? You've been in it for a week. And we're running low on ice cream."

"I don't want ice cream, I want justice," Drea muttered into the couch cushions.

"Okay," her mom said slowly. "Do you want justice with chocolate chips or no chocolate chips?"

The next day at school, it felt like the hallways had been rigged for emotional sabotage.

There she was. Eleanor. Wearing Drea's favorite leather jacket—well, technically Eleanor's now, after the Great Closet Division—and walking next to Max, of all people. The fake feminist prince of Instagram.

"Oh, hell no," Drea said, stopping in her tracks.

Russ sighed. "Don't do anything rash."

"I'm not. I'm doing something calculated."

"That's worse."

But Drea didn't hear him. She marched up to Eleanor and Max like she was on a mission from God—or at least Anna Wintour.

"Nice jacket," she said, smiling sweetly. "Did you dig that out of the pile of things you betrayed me for?"

Eleanor blinked. "Wow. Bold of you to talk to me after what you did."

"What I did?" Drea laughed. "Oh, you mean the part where I trusted you with everything and you used it to stab me in the front?"

Eleanor crossed her arms. "I told the truth."

"No," Drea snapped. "You told your version of the truth. You told a truth soaked in self-pity and dramatics, which, congrats, you finally figured out how to market!"

Max awkwardly looked between them, like someone caught between two lawyers mid-trial.

"Uh, should I leave?" he offered.

"Absolutely," both girls said in unison.

Lunch became a battlefield.

Drea sat at her usual table, which felt eerily empty now. Her old crew—Tara, Meghan, Gabbi—were "splitting their time," which was code for "avoiding emotional fallout."

"She's rewriting history," Drea muttered, stabbing her salad like it was an ex. "Suddenly, I'm the villain in her little sob story."

"You were literally doing a revenge plot," Russ reminded her.

"It was mutually agreed upon vengeance," Drea said. "We were like the Avengers if the Avengers had better outfits and more internalized rage."

Russ chewed slowly. "Maybe this is just… fallout. Like, two people got too close, too intense, too everything, and something had to break."

Drea looked up at him. "Whose side are you on, again?"

"Still Switzerland."

She didn't want to admit it, but the silence from Eleanor hurt more than anything. There was a very specific kind of heartbreak reserved for best friends.

Romantic breakups were messy, sure. But best friend breakups? That was soul-level devastation.

Eleanor had been the one who saw her when she was raw, messy, ugly crying over the SATs, screaming into a pillow about her scholarship stress. They'd danced in Drea's room to Charli XCX like they were the main characters in a movie no one else was cool enough to watch.

Now? They couldn't even make eye contact without venom.

One night, Drea opened her notes app and started typing a text.

"I miss you. This sucks. I'm still mad, but I also keep thinking about how we used to share fries like it was religion. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't care. So. Yeah. Whatever. Or not. I don't know."

She stared at it. Read it over. Deleted it.

Instead, she texted Russ:
"I want to egg her house."

Russ replied immediately.
"Can we not? Last time it got in my hair."

A week later, Drea was walking past the art studio after hours, headphones in, when she spotted Eleanor through the window. She was painting. Alone.

Drea hesitated.

She could walk away. She should walk away.

But instead, she opened the door and walked in.

Eleanor turned, startled.

They stared at each other.

"Still doing tragic girl art, I see," Drea said, trying for her usual edge.

Eleanor set down her brush. "Still angry enough to spy through windows?"

"I wasn't spying. I was… dramatically contemplating our fallout."

Eleanor gave a soft laugh. "That tracks."

Silence stretched.

"I hated losing you," Eleanor said finally. "Even when I was mad. Even now."

Drea crossed her arms. "You still hurt me."

"I know."

"I don't trust you."

"I know."

Another pause.

"But I miss you too," Drea added, almost in a whisper.

"I didn't mean for it to end like this," Eleanor said. "But I don't know how to undo it."

"You can't," Drea replied. "You can't undo it. But maybe you can do something else. Like… whatever comes after."

Eleanor looked down. "What does come after?"

Drea sighed. "Honestly? I have no idea."

Then, without meaning to, Drea sat on the stool across from her. The silence was different now. Less electric, more familiar.

Eleanor handed her a paintbrush.

Drea took it.

They didn't say much after that.

Sometimes, in the ashes of betrayal, there's nothing left to do but make weird, messy, potentially ugly art together.

Or at least paint a picture of what forgiveness might look like.

One brushstroke at a time.