✤ Sera ✤
The whispers started before I even reached the quad. I felt them first. The looks. The pauses. The sudden quiet that fell like a held breath when I passed. It was as if the campus had collectively decided to stop pretending. There was no point anymore. Whatever illusion of privacy Adrian and I had clung to had shattered overnight, and now the pieces were everywhere. I kept my head down and walked faster. My phone buzzed in my pocket for the third time in five minutes, but I already knew what it would say. Adrian had warned me earlier. His message had been short, tight, and stripped of warmth. He had once again decided the best course of action, and that alone had been enough to make my stomach drop. But seeing the truth of it play out on campus made it real in a way I wasn’t prep
