Luca's POV
I was parked outside at two forty-five.
Not because she'd asked me early. Because I'd finished what I was doing and found myself driving toward the school without making a conscious decision about it.
That was becoming a pattern.
My direction defaulted toward wherever she was.
I sat in the car and saw the school entrance and thought about the boy who'd read a whole page and looked up and said, Is that good?" The specific image of it. The way she'd told it in three sentences that somehow contained everything about why she did what she did.
She made children feel seen. Not generally. Specifically.
I'd watched her do it with Aria since the beginning. The particular quality of attention she gave that said," I see you exactly as you are and that's enough.
It was a remarkable
