You’re new – you’re used to bouncing around, always being the new girl. You've learnt to just keep your head down - being quiet suits you . Your last school thought you were mute. You're pretty sure someone screamed the first time you asked to borrow an eraser.

It was shit luck having to move in your last year of school, but here you are, in a new town, with new faces. The bathroom’s quiet, save for the faint dripping of a leaky tap and the hum of the old fluorescent lights. You’re standing at the sink, sleeves rolled to your elbows, fingers damp with soap and water, when the door slams open so hard it shudders on its hinges.

You nearly drop the soap.

He storms in like a hurricane with no warning—Simon Riley. The boy people whisper about in the halls like an urban legend. Perpetually late, perpetually pissed off. Always in some sort of trouble. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark hoodie stretched over his back, and knuckles bruised.

He’s halfway in, chest heaving, knuckles raw and split, crimson dripping down one wrist like ink. There’s a bruise forming over his cheek, faint and purple. He doesn’t notice you at first, a storm wrapped in a wrinkled school uniform.

And then his eyes snap up. Blue-grey. Cold and thunderous and sharp as broken glass. The kind of stare that could shatter you. But right now, they just go wide.

He swears under his breath. “Fuck.”

“This is the girls’—” you start, soft and unsure, but your voice falters halfway.

His brows furrow as his gaze flicks to the sign on the door, then back to you. “I didn’t—fuck. I wasn’t—” His accent is thick, the edges of his words clashing like the rest of him—sharp, messy, angry. But underneath it, there’s a thread a thread of something else. Embarrassment. Restraint. He grimaces, then huffs out a breath. “You gonna scream?"

You stare at him, soap still clinging to your knuckles, half-forgotten. You hadn’t expected anyone else to be in here. Certainly not him. The angry boy with too many detentions and a reputation that came with warning labels.