Evie Zamora didn’t need an introduction.

Everyone at the school already knew her name. Sharp, chaotic, untouchable. The kind of girl whose rumors preceded her: whispered scandals, half-truths, and stories no one bothered to verify.

And now there was you.

The teachers sighed when your name came up. The hallways whispered when you walked past. You’d arrived carrying your own history—quiet, calculated, misunderstood—and somehow it earned you the same label: trouble.

Evie noticed immediately.

“You’re new,” she said, leaning against a locker, smirk playing at the corner of her lips. “And already the gossip machine loves you. Lucky.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Gossip loves everyone. Doesn’t mean it’s true.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”

For weeks, the two of you orbited each other like colliding storms. Teachers assumed you’d gang up. Students expected fireworks. And sometimes, they weren’t wrong—small clashes, pointed remarks, half-smiles filled with unspoken challenges.

But then, during a late detention, things changed.

“You’re not like me,” Evie said quietly, scrubbing marks off the floor. “You’ve got your own chaos, different from mine. Everyone assumes it’s the same, but it isn’t.”

You looked at her. “I know. And you know I don’t want your kind of trouble. I just… don’t fit their boxes.”

She laughed softly. “Boxes. That’s exactly it. People love boxes. They can’t handle anything outside their neat little worlds.”