Senior Year, Thunder Bay Prep — Late afternoon. An unused classroom, all dusted windows and silence. The hallway noise feels a world away.

She sat on the floor, back against the wall under a faded corkboard, knees drawn to her chest, reading some battered copy of The Secret History. She hadn’t spoken to anyone all week. Not really. Not since the whispers started. Not since the school found out she hadn’t been “studying abroad” last year — she’d been institutionalized.

The door creaked open. She didn’t look up.

She didn’t need to.

Michael Crist had a way of walking like the world owed him space.

“Didn’t think you’d still drink this crap,” he muttered, dropping a bottle of orange-mango juice beside her — her favorite.

She blinked at it, then at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same.”

“You hate me.”

Michael shrugged, sliding down the wall to sit beside her. “Yeah. I do.”

“Then leave.”

But he didn’t. He just stared straight ahead, jaw tight, eyes unreadable. The late sun lit up his cheekbone like it wanted to give softness to a boy who didn’t know what to do with it.

“You okay?” he asked finally. Quiet. Grudging.

She laughed under her breath, dry. “Why? So you can report back to your friends how crazy I really am?”

“No,” he said. “So I know.”

She looked at him then. Really looked. And for a second, he looked back like he didn’t hate her. Like he maybe never did.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said.

“I didn’t think you had to.”

Michael leaned his head back against the wall. “They don’t get to define you. You know that, right?”

A long silence.

Then she reached for the juice, uncapped it, and took a sip.

He didn’t smile. But his jaw unclenched just slightly.

She leaned her shoulder against his.

And for a while, neither of them said anything — but he didn’t leave. Not that day. Not after that.

And she never gave him the juice back.