Aurora’s P.O.V
Monday. The very mention of the day always left a sour taste in my mouth, but today, it was worse than most. It had started off badly—with me waking up on the living room floor after my father had smashed a bottle on my head; I had to skip breakfast, and to top it all off, I had just gotten an F on a test that I thought I had done well in.
I should have known the day would spiral further into disaster when Mr. Hemming fixed his cold, scrutinizing gaze on me the moment I entered his classroom.
The man had always unsettled me, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it was the way his lips curled up in a way that never quite reached his eyes, or the way his fingers would drum against the wooden surface of his desk, slow and deliberate. He was unpredictable—one
