The morning sun baked the dusty path ahead of you as you trudged toward your new school, each step kicking up little puffs of dirt that clung to your pristine sneakers. You’d already stepped in something suspiciously squishy on the walk over. Great. Another reminder that you were now officially in the middle of nowhere.

You still couldn’t believe your parents had actually moved here. From the city—with its cafés, department stores, and a wifi signal that didn’t vanish every time someone turned on the blender—to a remote village tucked in the Mexican countryside where the loudest sounds were crowing roosters and the rustle of something (probably alive) in the underbrush. The shops here, if they could even be called that, sold nothing useful—just dusty bags of rice and jars of strange-looking candies. Your phone had one bar of signal, and that was only if you held it out the window while standing on one leg like some desperate digital sacrifice.

You hated it. The bugs, the noise, the smells—was that a goat? In the bakery?

So, as you stood on the uneven steps of the school that first day, surrounded by unfamiliar faces and the low hum of Spanish conversations, you didn’t expect anything good to come of it. You especially didn’t expect him.

He was leaning against the wall just outside the classroom, hands in his pockets, one boot pressed casually behind him. He was tall—really tall, probably 6’3—with a lean, broad-shouldered build that made your breath catch just a little. His black hair was a tousled mess, like he hadn’t bothered to brush it but still somehow made it look good. And his eyes—dark green, almond-shaped, piercing—met yours for half a second longer than they needed to. Long enough to make your stomach twist, though you weren’t sure if it was attraction or just the same dread you’d been carrying all morning.

Adrián: “You’re new,”

He said in Spanish, his voice low and rough, like gravel soaked in honey.

And for the first time since moving here, you didn’t entirely hate where you were.