Summer ended, not with fireworks or fanfare, but with silence. A silence that had lived in my chest since that night—the night Adrian looked at me like I was nothing, like every kiss, every whisper, every promise had been a lie. The night Zaria’s scheme unfolded and left me broken in ways I hadn’t thought possible.
Weeks had bled into each other. My reflection was a stranger: hollow eyes, brittle skin, lips that rarely remembered how to smile. I’d spent hours replaying the betrayal in my mind—Bruno’s smirk, Adrian’s cold fury, Zaria’s phantom grin lurking behind it all. I thought if I picked it apart long enough, I could make sense of it. But I never did.
And now? Summer was over. Classes were starting again. The world didn’t care that my heart still ached like an open wound.
I dragged
