Stella
The art room’s window creaks slightly when the wind pushes against it, but I barely register it. My sketchbook lies open across my lap, the tip of my pencil moving slowly, methodically. Each stroke helps quiet the noise in my head. I’ve redrawn the same lines three times already, but I’m not trying to finish anything. I just need to breathe.
This part of the school is usually deserted during lunch, which is exactly why I came here. The silence is a relief. After this morning—with Viktor—my thoughts are a scrambled mess. His words are still echoing:
“Be careful who you let close.”
The nerve. The hypocrisy.
I press harder into the page, the graphite darkening beneath my hand. My mind should be on the drawing, but it keeps drifting to the sharp way his jaw clenched when he looked
