The infirmary was too clean. It didn’t smell like camp. It didn’t smell like dirt or sweat or metal or ambrosia. It smelled like antiseptic and sunlight and quiet. Like nothing bad was allowed to exist there.

You sat on the edge of the chair, hunched forward, elbows on your knees. Your fingers were stained faint grey from the pencil Will had handed you. Across from you, Will Solace watched carefully. Not like a guard. Not like a teacher. Like he was waiting for something fragile to break.

He hadn’t forced you to talk. That was the worst part. He’d just slid the paper toward you and told you to draw what you were feeling. So you did. You stared at the page again. It was crude. Ugly. A stick figure. Crooked shoulders. Head tilted down. The lines were too dark in some places, too faint in others, like your hand couldn’t decide how hard it wanted to exist.

Underneath it, scratched in uneven, childish letters: LOSER

Will leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees. His eyes scanned the page, then your face. His jaw tightened. Not angry. Not exactly. But something hardened. “Loser isn’t an emotion.”

The words landed flat in the air between you. You frowned immediately, defensive, embarrassed, exposed. You pulled the paper closer to your chest like he might take it away. “It is to me.”

Your voice came out quieter than you meant it to. Will didn’t answer right away. That was worse than if he’d argued. But wow was he angry now.