A few days had passed since the night of the Pre-Ball, though the word passed felt too passive, too gentle, for what those hours had actually done to me. They hadn’t slipped by like soft pages turning in a forgotten book—they had dragged, hour by hour, inch by inch, and I had felt each one dig into my chest with the precision of quiet judgment. Ashwood went on, as it always did—bells ringing with cruel punctuality, hallways echoing with gossip, legacy students gliding through the corridors like they owned the dust and air alike—but I moved through it all like a ghost poorly pretending to still belong among the living.
And Ingrid—Ingrid was silent.
Not the kind of silence that meant she was too busy or tired, not even the ice-cold detachment she wore when she was trying to punish someone
