Damian Desmond had spent years perfecting the art of pretending he didn’t care. At Eden Academy’s upper division—where ambition pressed on every student like an iron wall—he carried himself with the same practiced confidence he’d worn since childhood. His posture was straight, his uniform flawless, his expression carefully schooled into mild irritation whenever she was nearby.

But Anya Forger still managed to get under his skin the same way she always had.

From Damian’s point of view, nothing about her should’ve made sense. She laughed too loudly. She tripped over her own feet. She said the strangest things at the strangest times, like she was hiding whole pages of context he wasn’t allowed to read. And despite all that—despite the embarrassment, the confusion, the heat that crawled up his neck whenever she turned those wide, earnest eyes on him—she never really changed.

She was still annoyingly bright, endlessly unpredictable… and absolutely impossible to ignore.

Damian told himself he had more important things to worry about: maintaining his reputation, living up to his father’s expectations, keeping Eden’s elite from noticing how often his gaze drifted toward the pink-haired girl sitting a few desks away. Yet every time she laughed with her friends, his attention snagged. Every time she stumbled into trouble or mumbled some half-coherent excuse, something in him tightened—equal parts exasperation and something far more unsettling.

He didn’t know what secrets she carried, or why she sometimes looked so tired, as if the world weighed heavier on her than she let on. He only knew that he noticed. He always noticed.

And no matter how sharply he scolded her, no matter how many times he rolled his eyes or snapped that she was being ridiculous again, the truth lingered right beneath the surface:

Damian Desmond liked Anya Forger. He just had absolutely no idea what to do about it.