Chapter 5
1089 Words
ASHLEY'S POV
The hallway had been alive with noise a second ago. Then, people were laughing and whispering. But the moment Lucas stepped in, everything went quiet.
He had that kind of aura.
It was like the air shifted, making everyone drawn to him.
Everyone was drawn to him. He had this mysterious aura that made people always wonder who he was really and what he was thinking. It didn't help tjat be was drop dead gorgeous. And the star hockey player.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. Heads turned. Conversations cut off mid-sentence. The crowd parted, as if no one wanted to be in his way.
But I couldn’t move.
My chest tightened. At the sight of him, my stomach twisted into knots I couldn’t untangle. He was taller than I remembered. His broad shoulders filled out the crisp lines of his uniform. His dark hair fell just slightly into those cold eyes. He didn’t even have to try. His presence alone commanded attention.
And then his eyes landed on me.
His gaze was direct. As though the world wasn’t even here, as though everyone else had vanished, leaving only the two of us in this suffocating hallway.
I couldn’t breathe. My throat closed up. My heart raced painfully fast.
Lucas.
In my last life, he had been the one who avenged me. The one who carried my pain long after I was gone. The one who burned my enemies to the ground when no one else even remembered me.
And now… here he was. Looking straight at me.
Before I could even begin to understand what that meant, Jack’s laugh cut through the silence.
“Well, well,” Jack said loudly. His smirk twisted back into place. “Careful, Ash. You’ll scare him off with that stare of yours.”
The crowd laughed on cue. They leaned into his words as usual. Jack’s voice grew bolder as he spoke. He lived for the attention.
Bastard.
“New obsession?" he asked in a mocking tone" Couldn’t have me, so now you’re chasing after Lucas? Pathetic. He would never notice you. No one will.”
Laughter echoed through the hallway again.
. Someone muttered, “She really thinks she has a chance?” Another spokeNot in a million years. She thinks she's hot s**t just because she got skinny.”
Heat spread across my cheeks. My hands itched to ball into fists. The old me would’ve curled in on herself, stared at the floor until it all went away. But I wasn’t that girl anymore. I forced myself to stand tall, even though every word burned like acid on my skin.
And then—
Lucas turned his head.
Slowly..
The atmosphere shifted again, sharper this time. . He looked at Jack. He didn’t speak, not yet, but that look…
Jack faltered.
His laugh faded a bit, choking halfway out of his throat. His smirk wavered. The confidence that always carried him shrank under Lucas’s glare. For the first time, Jack looked unsettled.
The hallway fell into uneasy silence.
Then Lucas spoke.
His voice was low and quiet enough that it should’ve been missed—but nobody could miss it.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
I blinked. For a heartbeat, I thought I’d imagined it. But no, his eyes were still on me. His words were meant for me and me alone.
Heat rushed through me. My chest tightened. My pulse raced in my ears.
Lucas. Was… was he actually speaking to me?
I swallowed. My mouth was suddenly dry.
“I—” My voice cracked, too soft. I tried again, forcing out something, anything. “I’m fine.”
The words tumbled out awkwardly. My heart was sprinting.
He spoke to me. In front of everyone.
And everyone noticed.
I could feel the stares drilling into my skin. I could hear the whispers spreading again—only now, they were different. They sounded curious, suspicious and envious.
Of course, Kathy couldn’t stand it.
Like a viper, she came in. Her heels clicked as she slid into the space beside Lucas. With a smile, she looped her arm through his, clinging to him like she belonged there. Her smug smirk found me instantly.
“Well,” she purred “isn’t this sweet? Ashley craving attention again.”
The laughter picked up.
Kathy leaned in closer to Lucas, tilting her head so her words carried loud enough for everyone to hear. “Don’t waste your time on her, Lucas. She’s just desperate. Always has been.”
My heart clenched. The whispers stabbed deeper, feeding the lie she spun. I could feel my face heating.
But then—
Lucas’s jaw tightened. He reached down, peeled Kathy’s hand from his arm, and let it fall.
The sound of it—her gasp, echoed through the hallways.
The hallway erupted.
The place became filled eith gasps and shocked munurs. Everyone's eyes had widened.
“Did you see that?”
“He brushed her off.”
“Lucas never lets anyone touch him…”
“He rejected Kathy?”
The whispers twisted, shifting direction. Suddenly, I wasn’t just the butt of the joke. Suddenly, I was in the middle of something bigger.
My chest squeezed. I was torn between dread and something dangerously close to hope.
Because after shaking Kathy off, Lucas’s eyes found me again. And this time… they stayed.
They stayed long enough to make my breath hitch.
Long enough to make my stomach twist into knots.
Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.
The crowd parted in silence, watching him go, as if his presence alone had left a mark none of them could ignore.
And I… I stood frozen. My body buzzed with something I couldn’t name.
When the spell broke, Jack tried to laugh again, though his voice cracked “H-heh… what was that about, huh? Don’t get your hopes up, Ash. He was probably just… annoyed.”
No one laughed with him. Not really. The energy had shifted. His words fell flat and they soundef hollow even to him.
He glared at me, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. My chest still ached with too many emotions, too many whispers around me.
I slipped out of the crowd with quick steps.
Every eye still followed me. I could still feel every whisper behind me.
But all I could think about was the way Lucas’s eyes had lingered.
And how, for the first time, Jack’s voice hadn’t mattered at all.
- Writer
