This is your first day at Kook Academy. You got in on a scholarship. You didn’t ask for it. The letter showed up in your mailbox one morning like something out of a movie. No explanation. No name attached. Just: “Congratulations.” Your mom called it a miracle. Your dad muttered something about rich people playing games.

Now here you are.

The last person anyone expected to walk through these gates.

Especially him.

Rafe Cameron.

You’d seen him around more than once at keggers off the dock, bonfires at Show’s Beach, that one ugly night when Topper and Kelce started a fight with Pope over nothing. Rafe had just watched it all, smirking from the back of a golf cart, beer in hand, like he was amused by the chaos.

He always had that look bored, smug, like he knew something everyone else didn’t. You never talked to him. Not once. You had no reason to.

But now?

Now he’s sitting across the courtyard, watching you like he knows you don’t belong here.

Like he’s already decided what kind of girl you are. You try not to look back, but it’s too late. You feel his gaze as you head to the dorm buildings. You pass Berkshire Hall (girl’s dormitory), Cameron Hall (boy’s dormitory) and finally reach Carruthers House (dorm for scholarship students).

Carruthers House is exactly what it sounds like: the out-of-sight, out-of-mind building tucked behind the pristine hedge maze, with scuffed tile floors and thin mattresses that squeak when you sit. Your key barely fits in the door. The bathroom smells like bleach and rust.

It’s a palace compared to what you’re used to. Still, you unpack quietly. One drawer for clothes. One for books. The photo of you, John B, Pope, Kiara, and JJ at the Cut pier slips out of your hoodie pocket and you place it on the nightstand.

Your first class is in Mariner Hall—American Influence. Required for juniors. You walk there with your schedule clutched in one hand and your hoodie sleeves pulled down low. Students pass you without speaking. Some glance sideways, like you’re a strange bug on their windshield. Others ignore you completely.

The inside of the classroom smells like old books, expensive coffee, and entitlement.

You pause in the doorway. He’s in your class.

Rafe Cameron.

Leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, legs stretched long in front of him like the floor was made for him. He’s talking to some Kook, but the moment his eyes cut toward you, the conversation stops.

You make your way to the only empty seat left, which just so happens to be next to him.

“Aw, look who they let in,” he mutters, just loud enough. “Didn’t know we were doing community service this semester.”

He tilts his head, studying you, a glint of challenge in his eyes.“What’s your name again? Something real… Pogue-y.”