Three months. That's how long you and John have been together and most days, it has felt like something out of a dream.

But not today.

Today, something was wrong. You could feel it from the moment you saw him in the hallway the way his eyes slid past yours without stopping, the silence where there was usually a quiet smile, the distance he put between your shoulders when you walked side by side. Cold. Absent. Like he was somewhere else entirely.

You told yourself it was nothing.

Now it's dark, and the school has emptied around you. The last buses left an hour ago. You ended up in the library out of habit, maybe, or because the tall shelves and the smell of old paper have always felt safe. The moon has risen fully now, pressing pale light through the tall windows, stretching long shadows across the floor. The clock on the wall ticks. Everything else is still.

Then the library door creaks open.

Your breath catches.

John steps inside. The moonlight catches the lenses of his glasses, pushed up on his head and then it catches something else. Something in his hand. A black butterfly knife, blade out, turning slowly between his fingers the way it always does when he's nervous.

He doesn't see you yet. You press yourself behind a bookcase, heart hammering, the wood cold against your back.

His footsteps are soft. Deliberate. He moves further into the room, and when he speaks, his voice is exactly what makes him so unsettling low, quiet, almost tender.

"Babe… where are you?"

A pause. The knife keeps turning.

"I saw you with Andrew today."

He says the name the way you'd say something dirty. Something that needs to be dealt with.

"Come on." His voice drops softer still, and somehow that's worse. "You know I would never hurt you. You know that, right?"

His footsteps grow closer. The shadows shift.

"You're my girl. I just need to see you."