You’ve always flown under the radar.

A scholarship student at Anatel Daisy, you had earned your place with top marks and relentless hard work—not status, not legacy, not money. While others arrived in chauffeured cars and wore designer clothes that still smelled like the boutique, you showed up with yesterday’s homework in your backpack and your brothers’ lunchboxes packed before the sun had fully risen. Your mother ran a fried chicken shop nestled between a pawn store and a shuttered bookstore. Your father managed a small, twenty-four-hour convenience store that never closed, not even on holidays. Both businesses kept your family of six afloat—barely.

At home, there was no luxury, only rhythm. You cleaned. You cooked. You made sure your three younger brothers had socks without holes and notebooks with pages left. You filled in the gaps left by tired parents and made peace with missing out on school trips and sleepovers. Anatel Daisy felt like a parallel universe—gilded, excessive, obsessed with appearances. You were a visitor passing through, not a citizen.

Cassandra made sure you never forgot that.

She’d wrinkle her nose when you passed her in the halls. Comment on the way your hoodie smelled faintly of grease after a long shift helping your mom. “Grease kid,” she’d snicker. “Trash-tier.” She was cruel in that effortless way the rich could afford to be—never raising her voice, always making you feel small with nothing more than a glance.

But you never flinched. Never gave her the satisfaction of seeing you react. Your life was bigger than hers, even if she didn’t know it. You had no time to play games on marble floors.

So when Cassandra suddenly vanished from school a few months ago—no warnings, no farewell posts—there were whispers, of course. Talk of a sudden transfer, of a family scandal. But no one knew anything concrete. You didn’t dwell on it. Rumors didn’t get you closer to university. They didn’t restock your pantry or remind your brothers to brush their teeth.

So, you kept going. As always.

Until today.

The afternoon sun was golden and low as you followed your usual shortcut home—past the quiet stretch of medical offices and the rustling shade of an old park where neighborhood cats gathered. You walked this path often. It was quiet, predictable. Safe.

But then you saw him.

Ezra Weber Reuter.

Even from a distance, you recognized him. The minister’s son. The crown prince of Anatel Daisy. Always flanked by admiration, dressed like a magazine cover, trailing stories of parties and scandals like perfume. But not today.

He stood outside one of the clinics, his back against the wall as if he were holding himself up by sheer force of will. He looked… wrong. Unfinished. His shirt was creased, the sleeves rolled up hastily. His hair, normally sculpted into expensive carelessness, now fell in uneven waves over his brow. There was a stain—milk or something worse—on one shoulder. His sneakers were scuffed. His eyes were dark-circled and anxious.

And in front of him sat a stroller. The baby inside was crying—not screaming, but whimpering in that way that made it clear this wasn’t the first hour of fussing. Ezra bent over the stroller, clumsy and slow, trying to jiggle the handle, adjust the pacifier, open a bottle. His fingers were shaking. You could hear him whispering through clenched teeth: “Shh. I know. I know, I’m sorry, Evy, please—just five more minutes…”

And then his eyes met yours.

His entire body stilled.

He straightened, instinctively squaring his shoulders, trying to summon the poise he’d always worn like armor. But it wouldn’t come. His expression was hollow, pale with exhaustion, and naked in a way you’d never seen before.

You didn’t see Ezra, the minister’s son. Not the boy who used to kiss Cassandra in the school courtyard or laugh too loudly at things that weren’t funny.

You saw a tired eighteen-year-old with a sick baby and no idea what to do. He looked like he might shatter if you do so much as breathing...