Rules were made to be broken.

ARIA'S

ÀRIA POV :

She noticed him before she wanted to.

That annoyed her.

Damon had a presence that made rooms feel smaller, like the air adjusted itself around him. He didn’t try to be noticed. That was the problem. People like that always drew attention without effort.

She told herself she didn’t care.

But then he spoke.

Not loudly. Not arrogantly. Just controlled. Like every word was chosen carefully, like he never wasted energy. It wasn’t what he said that stuck—it was how little he revealed.

She liked understanding people. Reading them. Figuring out what made them tick.

Damon didn’t give her anything to work with.

That made her curious.

Back in class, she pretended to focus on her notes, but her thoughts kept drifting. He sat behind her, quiet, unreadable. She could almost feel his awareness—sharp, alert, guarded.

When their eyes met earlier, she hadn’t planned it. It just… happened.

And he looked away first.

That surprised her.

Most boys stared too long. Smirked. Tried too hard. Damon didn’t. He pulled back like closeness was dangerous.

At lunch, her friends talked around her—laughing, gossiping, debating nonsense—but she wasn’t really there. Her mind replayed his voice. Calm. Cool. Slightly rough.

“Earth to you,” one of them teased. “You’ve been quiet all day.”

She smiled faintly. “Just tired.”

A lie. But a harmless one.

She wasn’t scared of him. If anything, she felt… challenged. Like he saw the world differently, like he carried something heavy and refused to put it down.

When she spoke to him in the hallway, it wasn’t bravery. It was instinct.

Curiosity had always been her weakness.

The way he turned to face her—slow, measured—told her he wasn’t used to people questioning him. His eyes weren’t cold like rumors claimed. They were sharp. Careful. Tired.

Interesting.

When he warned her about trouble, she almost laughed.

She’d dealt with trouble before. Damon didn’t scare her—he intrigued her.

As she walked away, she felt his stare linger, even though she didn’t look back. Her heartbeat was steady, but her thoughts weren’t.

She didn’t know his story.

Not yet.

But she had a feeling—

whatever Damon was hiding, it wasn’t simple.

And for the first time in a long while, she wanted to know more.