POV: Samira James
The final stretch of senior year at Saint Trenton High felt like walking through a hallway where the gravity had been turned off. The frantic pressure of midterms and college applications had evaporated into the spring air, leaving behind a strange, floating sensation of purposelessness. We still had to show up to the building every morning, but the teachers had mostly checked out. The curriculum had shifted from rigorous calculus and literature to life skills seminars that almost no one attended. I sat at my usual table in the cafeteria, but the seating chart had fundamentally shifted over the last few weeks.
Calvin was sitting right next to me, his arm resting on the back of my chair in a way that had gone from a shock to a daily reality for the rest of the student bo
