Lottie stood with the quiet stillness of a coiled spring, the battered notebook resting lightly in her hands. Her breath was even, measured—though she felt the drumbeat of her pulse hammering beneath her skin, each thud a fierce reminder that she was no longer the girl Evelyn thought she could shatter.
Ms. Scott loomed at the front of the room, eyes narrowing, lips pursed in a pinched line as she held up the first page of calculations. The fluorescent lights cast thin shadows across her face, deepening the hard lines at the corners of her mouth. The room was taut with expectation, the silence broken only by the faint rustle of pages and the soft scrape of a chair leg as Leo shifted, his smirk a sliver of sharp amusement, eyes gleaming with the kind of attention that made Lottie's skin prickle.
"Charlotte," Ms. Scott began, her voice edged with disbelief, like someone standing on cracked ice, "would you care to walk us through… this?" She tapped the paper, the sound a clipped staccato in the tense room, a blade tapping lightly on glass.
Lottie's gaze flicked across the classroom. Evelyn's smile had frozen, a delicate mask cracking at the edges. Her fingers twisted in her lap, nails digging faint crescents into her skin as her eyes darted between Lottie and the teacher. Amy sat stiff-backed near the window, knuckles white where they gripped her pen, shame darkening the curve of her cheeks. The classroom felt thick with held breath, a kind of collective waiting that pulled the air tight.
With a breath as light as a feather, Lottie stepped forward. She placed the notebook on Ms. Scott's desk and smoothed her palm over the page, her fingers trailing lightly, almost lovingly, over the careful numbers and neat diagrams. The paper was cool under her touch, the faint rasp of graphite under her fingertips a steady anchor. "Of course, Ms. Scott," she murmured, voice clear, calm, each syllable slipping through the hush like a drop of water into a still pool. "Would you like me to explain from the first problem or the last?"
A ripple of sound stirred behind her—barely-there murmurs, the shifting of bodies leaning forward, the collective intake of breath as classmates turned to one another, wide-eyed. A faint cough echoed near the back, sharp and abrupt, before fading into the hush.
"The first, please," Ms. Scott said curtly, though her voice had lost a degree of its sharpness, a fine crack spiderwebbing through the brittle confidence. She cleared her throat, the sound raw in the quiet, fingers tightening slightly on the edge of the desk.
Lottie pointed, delicate as a needle. "I used substitution here—isolated the variable on the left side, then balanced it against the second equation." Her finger glided down the page, her tone steady, her words slipping into the hush like pebbles dropped into still water. "I double-checked it using the quadratic method because the coefficients were uneven. That's why the scratch work looks heavy—it's a double-check, not the initial pass."
Leo leaned forward on his desk, chin propped in his hand, eyes glinting with the precise, hungry attention of a spectator who knew the winner was already in the ring. His foot tapped a slow, idle rhythm beneath the desk, the leather of his shoe scuffing lightly against the tile. Evelyn's smile twitched, tightened, the corners of her mouth pinched as if held together by threadbare stitching. One slim finger drifted up, smoothing an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear as if the movement alone could anchor her spinning thoughts.
A low hum moved through the classroom like the flicker of wind before a storm. Amy's head tilted slightly, a flicker of realization sparking in her eyes, a crackle of guilt curling through her posture. Her lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came, only the faint tremble of her shoulders as she exhaled a shaky breath.
Lottie continued smoothly, her fingertip skating across margins thick with careful notes. "Here, I cross-referenced the data set to make sure the outliers weren't skewing the average. And here—" she flipped a page, the soft whisper of paper almost tender in the heavy air "—I expanded the denominator to avoid a rounding error." The words flowed from her with the precision of a blade, slicing clean through the tension that twisted in the air.
For a heartbeat, there was no sound at all. Then came the faintest, almost imperceptible sound: Ms. Scott's throat working as she swallowed, a tight, uncomfortable sound that scraped across the hush.
A murmur rippled behind Lottie. She caught it in flickers—awed glances, the hushed exchange of words under breath, the subtle shifting of allegiance in the room. The perfect weight of Evelyn's constructed image tilted ever so slightly, the pedestal trembling beneath her. Lottie felt it, the fine tremor running under the surface, a delicate crack opening in the wall she'd waited so long to strike.
Ms. Scott's jaw clenched. "It's… certainly thorough," she muttered, voice thin, frayed at the edges.
Evelyn's fingers clenched in her lap, knuckles paling, eyes fixed on the notebook as though she could will it to combust. A flicker of something dark crossed her gaze, a ripple of panic she was a second too slow to hide. Her foot tapped once, sharply, heel clicking against the tile like the snap of a mousetrap.
Amy whispered, voice barely more than a puff of air, "Lottie, I—I'm so sorry. I didn't…" Her words trailed off, shame staining her cheeks like watercolor bleeding across paper. Her fingers twitched toward Lottie, a helpless, fractured gesture, then curled back into her sleeves.
Leo's grin slashed across his face. He stretched his legs languidly under the desk, the toe of his shoe brushing Lottie's ankle with a deliberate flicker of mischief. His voice came low, edged with wry amusement, "Didn't peg you for the type to enjoy public executions." His words brushed her skin like a secret, a needle slipped beneath the surface.
Lottie's heart gave a sharp, electric beat. She did not look at him, but a whisper of a smile tugged at her mouth, the faintest shimmer of triumph curling at the corner of her lips. Her fingers tightened slightly against the desk, cool pressure grounding her as adrenaline spiked hot in her veins.
Ms. Scott straightened, one last flicker of defiance flashing in her eyes. "Even so, Charlotte, a perfect score—surely that merits… scrutiny." Her hands fidgeted on the desk, fingertips tapping a nervous rhythm, the red pen trembling faintly between them.
Lottie turned, the notebook still open, the numbers and notes glowing under the fluorescent lights like a battlefield laid bare. "I welcome scrutiny, Ms. Scott," she said softly, voice a blade sheathed in velvet. "That's why I keep my process." She gestured faintly toward the pages, her hand calm, elegant, unshaken. "Would you like me to explain the bonus question as well?"
A breath of laughter—barely stifled—escaped from the back row. Leo's fingers tapped a slow, deliberate beat on his desk, the rhythm sliding under her skin like a pulse of defiant encouragement. His gaze never wavered, sharp and glinting, the kind of look that saw straight through masks.
Ms. Scott's mouth opened, closed, then opened again. But whatever words she might have conjured withered on her tongue as she glanced across the room—at the rapt, electric attention of the students, at the restless murmur rippling from desk to desk, at the subtle shift in power crackling through the air. Her shoulders dropped slightly, a breath escaping in a soft, defeated gust.
Finally, her voice, thin and papery, emerged. "Class dismissed."
The room erupted—not in chaos, but in a tide of low, pulsing chatter, the kind of sound that carved itself deep into memory. Lottie's fingers grazed the edge of her notebook as she closed it with quiet finality, the snap of the cover like the sealing of a fate. The familiar weight of the pages in her hand steadied her as the crowd surged around her.
As the crowd surged, Evelyn remained seated for a breath too long, the smile frozen sharp on her face. When she finally rose, her hands trembled faintly at her sides, the fragile illusion of control shimmering like glass stretched to breaking. Her mouth parted as if to speak, but no sound came, only the sharp flick of her hair over her shoulder as she turned sharply on her heel.
Amy darted forward, her voice a flutter of apology. "Lottie, I—I didn't know she'd—"
"It's all right, Amy." Lottie's hand brushed her friend's arm lightly, cool reassurance in the touch. Her skin was warm under Lottie's fingers, the faint tremor of nerves pulsing just beneath. "We're all learning."
Leo lingered by the door, one shoulder propped against the frame, his grin a flicker of wild amusement. "Careful, Hayes," he drawled, eyes gleaming, voice pitched low so only she caught the full weight of it. "You're going to make the rest of us look lazy."
Lottie tilted her head, a spark of challenge in her eyes. "Or maybe you just need to raise your standards."
His laughter was low, rough-edged, the sound skating down her spine like a brush of cold fingers. "Touché."
As they moved into the corridor, the atmosphere bristled, a restless current of whispers and glances and half-swallowed shock. Students peeled apart like waves around Evelyn as she stepped into the hall, her eyes snapping toward Lottie, dark with a fury caged behind brittle charm. Her fingers flexed at her sides, nails biting into her palms, a tremor racing up her arms.
Lottie's smile, when it came, was slow, smooth, devastating. "Better luck next time," she murmured, voice a ribbon of silk, a promise, a dare.
Evelyn's fists clenched at her sides, a tremor flickering through her shoulders. Amy hovered, a fragile shadow at the edge of the storm, her voice a broken thread of apology. Leo sauntered ahead, a sharp-edged grin flickering over his shoulder, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his gait a study in careless grace.
And Lottie—Lottie walked on, her pulse still thundering, her skin alive with the crackling hum of a battle turned. The air tasted sweet, electric on her tongue, as if the world itself had shifted beneath her feet. Her chest tightened, not with fear but with a fierce, heady rush, a taste of something long denied.
As she moved through the sea of students, glances darting her way like sparks, her fingers brushed the spine of her notebook, the worn leather warm under her touch. She let her shoulders square, her head lift, the smile still curling at her lips.
Behind her, Evelyn's breath hitched, sharp and tight, a fracture she'd failed to hide. The sound followed Lottie like a thread, a whisper of things to come. And Lottie walked on, the soft beat of her footsteps a quiet promise in the rising storm.