They didn’t need to say a word.
Not when their silences did the talking for them.
The first time I walked into the common hall that morning, the air shifted. Slight. Almost imperceptible. Like a ripple through still water. A few heads turned. A few glances darted my way and vanished just as fast.
But I felt it.
Like a cold hand on the back of my neck.
Like I didn’t belong anymore.
Not because I’d broken the rules. Not because I’d done something wrong.
But because I had dared to hope. And failed.
Because I’d reached toward something, someone, I should’ve known was never mine.
And now?
Now I was the girl who lost.
They didn’t say it to my face, of course. No one was cruel enough to call me that outright. But the title hung over me like smoke in a windless room. Clinging
