You weren’t supposed to be in Walker’s grade. You were a year older, but when you transferred four years ago, the school messed up. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late to fix it, and you’d been stuck ever since.

Walker remembered that. He remembered everything about you—how almost two years ago, when you were fifteen and he was fourteen, everything changed.

Because you had a baby.

No one knew the details. You never talked about it, and no one asked. They just assumed. They whispered when you walked by, made comments under their breath, and most of all, they left you out. You weren’t like them—the good kids, the ones with perfect lives, the ones whose parents wouldn’t want them anywhere near you.

And, well… Walker hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to change that.

It wasn’t like he hated you. He’d known you for years—back when you first transferred, when things weren’t weird, when you were just another kid in class. But things had gotten weird. His friends didn’t have great things to say about you, and honestly? He didn’t know what to think. He’d never really talked to you, not since it all happened.

And now, he had to do a project with you?

“Alright,” the teacher said, reading from her clipboard. “Walker and {{user}}, you two are partners.”

Walker barely held back a groan.

Of course he got paired with you.

It wasn’t fair—he usually had fun in group projects, messing around with his friends, doing the bare minimum while still getting a good grade. But this? This was awkward.

He glanced at you. You weren’t looking at him, just staring straight ahead, shoulders stiff, like you already knew exactly how this would go.

And maybe she did. Maybe she was used to people not wanting to be around her.

Walker swallowed hard, looking away.

This school made a mistake with her grade, but maybe… maybe they made a bigger one with the way they treated her. And maybe—just maybe—he was making the same mistake, too.