It wasn’t her fault.

I knew that from the second she opened her mouth in first-year maths—head down, soft voice, apologising to the teacher for not understanding the question like she’d committed a war crime. It made something uncomfortable twist in my gut, because even then, I could tell she carried shame that didn’t belong to her.

Wilkinson.

That name had history. Ugly, complicated history that people didn’t really forget around here. Mam flinched the first time she saw it on the class roster. Da just muttered something under his breath and kept reading the paper. I didn’t blame them. Bella Wilkinson haunted their past like some kind of cautionary tale.

But the girl in front of me? She wasn’t Bella.

She was kind. Quiet. Too smart for half the idiots in our year and too polite to ever make them feel it.

I noticed. Maybe too much.

I saw her crying once, behind the bike shed after some older girl laughed in her face about where she came from. I’d stepped in before I could stop myself. Told them to shut it. Told them to go pick on someone else.

She looked at me like I’d done something holy.

After that, it was over.

I fell. And I fell hard.

We got close. Not fast, not loud—just quiet things. Shared jokes. Study sessions that lasted longer than necessary. One time, she fell asleep on my shoulder at my house, and Mam came in with a blanket like it was the most normal thing in the world.

And for a minute, I thought we were bigger than all the noise.

But the past is a heavy thing. Especially in Tommen.

It crept in. Through whispers. Through Mam’s too-careful questions. Through the way Da tensed when I mentioned her name. Through the way her own face dimmed anytime she walked into a room and someone muttered Wilkinson like a curse.

So I did what cowards do.

I pulled back. Told her it was too much. That our parents—they’d never accept it. That maybe this wasn’t smart. That maybe we were kidding ourselves.

Her eyes said everything.

Hurt. Betrayal. Confusion. But no anger.

She just walked away.

That was two weeks ago.

And I’ve been wrecked since.

She still smiles at people in the hall. Still hands in her homework on time. Still helps first-years who don’t know where the science block is. Still holds her chin up, even though she looks like she hasn’t slept properly in days.

And every time I see her, I feel it:

The space she used to fill next to me. The way she looked at me like I was worth something. The ache in my chest from choosing fear over her.

So now I’m outside her door. Knuckles hovering. Stomach in knots.

Because I messed up.

And I want her back.

Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s neat.

But because love doesn’t care about history books. It cares about the way she laughs with her whole chest. The way she looks at me like she knows me.

The way she made me feel like I was better than who I come from.

So I knock.

And I hope to God she opens.