Maria:
The school looks exactly the same.
That is the first thing that settles in my chest as the car passes through the gates. The stone, the symmetry, the way everything feels permanent, like it was built to outlive the people who move through it. Nothing here ever really changes. It just gets refined. Polished into something even more untouchable.
Lily leans forward beside me, squinting like she is trying to see everything at once.
“This is where we survived?” she says.
“Survived is dramatic.”
“I was academically traumatized,” she replies. “Advanced literature nearly took me out.”
“You cheated.”
“I collaborated.”
I glance at her and shake my head, but I am smiling. It comes easily, which surprises me.
For a second, it feels like we are just… here. Not performing anything. Not
