Paxton’s POV
The moment I finished my announcement, my eyes instinctively searched for Haley in the crowd. She had been sitting there, her usual spot with Mara, her ever-present shadow. But when I turned back to look, she was gone. It felt like a flash—a trick of the mind. She had been there just seconds ago, hadn’t she? My chest tightened as panic threatened to surface. My grip on the microphone faltered, and before I realized it, I had set it down and abandoned my place on stage. My mind wasn’t on the crowd or the buzzing conversations that followed my bold declaration; it was on Haley.
The memory of her laugh earlier still lingered in my mind. For a split second, I had felt hope—pure, unfiltered hope that maybe she was warming up to me, maybe she had started to see me the way I saw he
