Thunder Bay Prep, Junior Year. An unused art classroom, all peeling paint and forgotten quiet.

The sun hit the dust in the air like it was trying to make something beautiful out of being alone. She sat cross-legged on the floor, pressed against the cabinet under the windows, a thick book open in her lap — something Russian, probably. Kai had seen her reading it before. That, or Sylvia Plath. Of course.

The whispers had gotten louder all week.

She hadn’t been “abroad.” She hadn’t been in France. Or Spain. Or anywhere people believed she was.

No — she’d been gone. Really gone.

Institutionalized.

And now she was back. Quiet. Withdrawn. But still with that sharp tongue whenever someone got close enough to deserve it.

Kai stepped into the room without knocking, closing the door behind him. She didn’t flinch, but she did look up — and that was enough.

“Great,” she muttered, eyes flicking back to her book. “The last thing I need is you coming here to gloat.”

“I don’t gloat,” he said, tossing a bottle of cold peach tea on the floor beside her. “You drink that crap every lunch.”

She eyed it, then him. “You remembered that?”

He didn’t answer. Just lowered himself to the floor beside her, crossing his long legs like he was settling in. His black hoodie had paint smudges on the cuff, like he’d just come from studio.

“You hate me,” she said, not looking at him.

“I do.”

“Then what the hell are you doing?”

Kai leaned his head back against the cabinet behind them, staring at the ceiling. His voice came low, barely louder than the hum of the lights.

“I heard them talking. In the locker room.”

She said nothing.

“I didn’t say anything.”

She snapped the book shut. “You didn’t have to. They already know.”

Another silence stretched between them.

Kai didn’t shift. “You know I don’t believe everything people say.”

“No,” she said, bitterness curling in her throat. “You just repeat it with a prettier vocabulary.”

That one landed. His jaw tensed. But still, he didn’t leave.

“They said you tried to hurt yourself,” he said quietly. “Is it true?”

She hesitated. And then — “Why do you care?”

Kai turned his head slowly to look at her. Eyes dark. Still unreadable. But quieter now. Like something inside him recognized something in her.

“I don’t,” he said.

But he stayed.

And when she finally cracked open the cap on the peach tea and took a sip, she didn’t say thank you.

He didn’t expect her to.