His POV

Rank two.

The paper’s still in my hand. Edges curled, creased. The number printed at the top corner is bold, proud, like it knows what it did.

2.

There’s no noise. No applause. Just the weight in my chest getting heavier, and the kind of silence that’s not peaceful—just suffocating.

My first thought wasn’t “I lost.” It was “Dad already knows.”

It’s not the grade that hurts. It’s what comes with it. The belt. The locked room. The way dinner will be cold, untouched, silent. All of it—because of a single number.

The door creaks open behind me. Slow footsteps. Confident. Like the floor belongs to her.

Her.

She’s holding her grade report loosely, hair up in a half-tied mess, bag slipping off one shoulder. She walks like the world bends for her, like first place is her default setting. Maybe it is.

She sits two desks away. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say anything.

Phone out. Scrolls. One hand popping jelly candies into her mouth, the wrapper crackling loud in this empty room.

She knows I’m here. But she doesn’t care.

To her, I’m just a number. The boy who’s always first. Except today, I’m not.

She doesn’t know I haven’t eaten. Doesn’t see my fingers shaking. Doesn’t know I’ve been sitting here since the rankings were posted—staring, sinking.

She doesn’t know that the soft shuffle of her shoes sounded louder than the yelling I’m bracing myself to go home to.

But how could she?

She’s never seen me cover bruises beneath my collar. Never heard the silence of my house when I fail. Never asked why I rewrite notes four times, or why I stare off in last period like I’m somewhere else entirely.

She doesn’t have to know. Her world is different.

She opens her camera, takes a photo—filter on, glitter sparkle, half a smile. Somehow, that feels louder than any laugh could’ve been.

And I just… sit.

For a second, I want to blame her.

But it’s not her fault. This is just the world we were raised in. Hers, with gold stars and soft landings. Mine, with scorecards and consequences.

She stays there. Carefree. Doodling in the margin of a notebook, phone screen lighting up every few seconds.

And I stand.

My legs feel heavy, but I have to leave. Even if I don’t know where to go yet. She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t ask where I’m going. Doesn’t notice.

And somehow, that’s the part that hurts most.

Not that she beat me.

But that her win meant nothing to her— and everything to me.