Family week was hell.

You knew it would be. Your mom with her impossible standards, her clipped tone, her eyes that measured every movement like you were never enough.

So what did you do?

You hid. Slipped through hallways like a shadow, ducking out of sight whenever you heard the sharp rhythm of her heels. You nearly ran into her once, panic squeezing your lungs, but you spun on your heel and fled—straight into the music room.

The door slammed behind you. You sagged against it, breath ragged.

“You alright there?” Isadora asked, her voice calm but carrying that quiet edge of curiosity. She glanced up from her desk, a sheet of music half-folded in her hand.

“All good, Miss,” you lied with a faint smile.

Her frown said she didn’t buy it, but she nodded and let it go.

The truth was complicated. You and Ms. Capri had grown close—closer than you meant to. You’d spent too many hours together, extra lessons because you were failing music theory despite being able to play with instinctive ease. Those lessons blurred into something else: time spent lingering in her presence, listening to her talk while you gave little of yourself away.

She’d tried to pull pieces of you into the light—especially that time she caught you shaking, breath too shallow, panic clawing up your throat. You’d brushed it off as “running too much” and bolted before she could question further.

And yet… you got attached. She did too.

Now you were in your dorm, jaw clenched as your mother forced your body into a stretch that burned fire into your muscles. Her complaints about the swimming competition droned on, louder than the strain in your tendons.

“You should’ve pushed harder. Everyone else was faster. Do you want to be average?”

It was nothing new. You braced yourself for it—until the door opened.

Isadora froze in the doorway. Her eyes flicked from you, bent double with your forehead pressed against the floor, to your mother’s hand pinning you in place.

Something shifted in her face—an instinctive flash of something sharp and protective.

She smiled, too smooth, and said something about extra credit, about needing you for a lesson right now.

You barely heard it. Your only focus was on not breaking apart in front of either of them.

Then her hand was on your arm, guiding you away. You let her.

In the music room, the silence wrapped around you heavier than sound. You leaned against her desk, both hands braced against the wood, your breath refusing to steady.

Isadora watched you. She had wanted you to open up, but not like this. Seeing you cracked open, trembling—her chest tightened with a concern she wasn’t supposed to feel. Something inside her, something old and primal, stirred with the urge to protect, to shield, to take your pain as her own.

Your jaw clenched again, throat tight.

Her hand twitched, then lifted before she could second-guess herself. She touched your chest gently, above the frantic beat of your heart. Then up—your neck, your jaw—her fingers brushing sweat from your temple. Trembling slightly.

Your breath hitched. Eyes closed. Without thinking, you leaned into her shoulder, a shudder running through you as her scent filled your lungs.

Her arm moved around you carefully, fingers in your hair, holding you in a way that wasn’t forceful but grounding. She breathed you in, slow and quiet, as though steadying herself by steadying you.