mine From The Beginning Was Always MeLOVE. OBSESSION, REVENGE.SOME MONSTERS WEAR PRETTY FACESDARK ROMANCE THRILLER

Gennie was the kind of girl people noticed before they understood why. She was beautiful in a way that made people cruel. Long black hair framed her face like ink spilled over porcelain, soft and dark and impossible to ignore. Her features were sharp, delicate, almost dangerous in their perfection. A slim face, unreadable eyes, lips that never smiled long enough for anyone to remember it. She looked like the kind of girl people wrote poems about and ruined in the same breath. Everyone in class knew her name. Not because she spoke. Because she didn't. Gennie was always first. First in every exam. First in every result. First in every ranking pinned to the classroom board like a quiet warning to everyone else. She was the girl teachers praised, the girl students watched, the girl no one liked. Not really. The girls hated her in the effortless, practiced way girls hated beautiful things they could not become. They whispered about her in corners and laughed when she passed, their voices low and poisonous. "She thinks she's better than everyone." "She's so weird." "She acts like she's too good to talk." The truth was simpler. Gennie just didn't care enough to answer. She had learned silence early. Learned it was safer to let people think whatever they wanted than give them something real to destroy. So she kept to herself. Sat in the same seat by the window. Ate lunch alone. Studied between classes. Went home without looking back. She made herself small. Unreachable. Difficult to touch. It never stopped them. The boys were quieter about their cruelty. That was what made them worse. They smiled at her like they were being kind. Leaned too close when they spoke. Let their hands brush against her shoulder in crowded hallways and laughed when she flinched. One of them liked standing behind her chair. Another always found excuses to touch her wrist, her arm, the ends of her hair. Like touching something beautiful was a right. Like her silence was permission. Gennie never reacted. That was what they hated most. She never gave them anger. Never gave them tears. Never gave them anything. She only moved away. Shifted her chair. Walked faster. Pretended not to hear the laughter that followed. Ignored them. Ignored all of it. Because naming fear made it real. And Gennie had spent years surviving by pretending nothing could reach her. By the last period, the classroom was loud with the usual noise—chairs scraping, laughter, the sharp buzz of too many voices trapped in one room. Gennie sat by the window with a book open in front of her, sunlight spilling across her desk in pale gold. She was reading, or pretending to. It was hard to focus with someone standing too close. "Why do you always ignore people?" She didn't look up. The voice belonged to Rohan. Loud. Smug. Annoying in the way boys became when no one had ever told them no. His hand dropped onto her desk. Then closer. Too close. Gennie's fingers tightened around her pen. "Move," she said quietly. It was the first thing she had said all day. Rohan grinned. The boys around him laughed. "What was that?" He leaned down, invading her space like he had every right to it. His hand brushed the edge of her hair, slow and deliberate. A warning. A test. A reminder. Gennie froze. The room did not. Someone snickered. Someone whispered. No one stopped him. Rohan tilted his head, smiling like this was funny. "You should talk more. Maybe people would like you." Then a chair scraped sharply across the floor. The sound cut through the room like a blade. Everyone turned. A boy stood from the back corner of the class. Tall. Quiet. Unfamiliar in the way storms were unfamiliar before they broke. He had transferred two weeks ago and barely spoke to anyone. Kept to himself. Slept through lectures. Never smiled. The kind of face people avoided reading twice. Until now. His gaze moved from Rohan's hand— to Gennie. Then back again. And something in his expression changed. Not anger. Something colder. Rohan laughed under his breath. "What?" The boy said nothing. He walked forward slowly, each step too calm to be harmless. The room fell silent. He stopped beside Gennie's desk and looked at Rohan like he was something unpleasant stuck beneath a shoe. Then he spoke. "Take your hand off her." His voice was quiet. That was what made it dangerous. Rohan straightened, grin fading. "Why?" The boy's eyes did not leave him. "Because," he said, "I won't ask again." And for the first time in a long time— someone in that room looked at Gennie like she was not prey. He looked at her like she belonged to something far worse.