Mia’s POV
By the time the final bell rang, I felt like my bones no longer belonged to me.
The classroom slowly emptied around me, chairs scraping against the floor, laughter echoing in bursts as students rushed toward the freedom waiting behind the walls of the classroom. Usually I would have felt relieved.
But today, I only felt tired.
Not the kind that sleep fixed easily.
But the deeper kind.
The kind that clung quietly to the edges of my thoughts and made simple things feel heavier than they should.
I rested my chin on my palm, staring blankly at the notes I had stopped understanding halfway through the lecture.
It was my last class.
I should have felt lighter.
Instead my mind was drifting to things that I could not explain and feelings that I could not place.
To a str
