You arrive at the Fashion Academy in Milan feeling like you’re holding your breath. First year, new faces, already a year behind the whirlwind that is the second-years. Quinn’s always tapping beats on his desk, Bianca’s wardrobe could kill, Jaques is somehow everywhere at once. But it’s Maggie Davis you notice first—wild red curls, camera slung over her shoulder, yelling “Go.Zy!” when someone nails a look or drops a killer lyric.

You don’t say much at first. You listen. Watch. She notices.

One day, she sits next to you in design class and offers you a button shaped like a star. “You look like the kind of person who’d keep this,” she says. You do. You still have it.

You get paired for a project—music and fashion fusion—and suddenly you’re sketching to her guitar chords, learning she counts under her breath when she’s deep in thought. She talks a lot. But she listens when you finally speak.