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Sarah had stormed upstairs that night her voice sharp with anger, her heart burning with things she couldn't take back. She told her my why she was acting strange? Why she can not act like other mums?. Sarah the went upstairs and slammed the door. When she woke the next morning, the fire had cooled into something heavier—guilt.
She wanted to fix it. She rehearsed her apology as she padded down the hall, each step a reminder of how harsh she'd been.
But when she reached her mother's door, silence answered.
Her hand hovered over the knob. She knew it was wrong, knew her mother hated anyone entering without permission. But something gnawed at her, a need to understand. She turned the handle. The door opened with a slow, protesting creak.
The room swallowed her.
Darkness pressed against the curtains. Dust clung to the furniture in stubborn layers, as if no one had cared enough to wipe it away. A faint smell of damp sheets and salt lingered in the air. The bed looked broken, its covers twisted, the pillow dark with the stains of tears. Tissues littered the floor like snow after a storm.
On the walls hung pictures—her parents smiling, laughing, captured in moments that felt stolen from another lifetime. The glass frames were smudged with fingerprints, as if someone had touched them again and again, desperate to hold on.
And on the vanity, a journal. Brown leather, its strap barely holding it shut. Sarah's fingers trembled as she opened it.
Inside, words sprawled in her mother's uneven hand:
> I miss him. I miss his voice in the kitchen, the way he smelled of smoke and fried eggs.
I wake at night to sounds that don't belong to me. A chair scraping. A step in the hall.
The yard feels wrong. The scarecrow turns with the wind, but last night… it looked at the window.
Sarah's throat tightened. Shame pressed hot against her chest. She closed the journal carefully, almost reverently, and placed it back where it had been.
Her apology would have to wait until tonight.
---
At school, she tried to shake the weight off. When she reached the gates, a voice called her name.
"Sarah!"
Adrien jogged up, grinning, holding the same water bottle he'd stolen a sip from during practice. The memory alone made her cheeks heat.
She frowned. "Don't shout like that."
"What?" His grin widened. "Not happy to see your partner-in-crime?"
She rolled her eyes, quickening her pace, but he leaned close just enough to whisper, "What, are you blushing?"
"Pathetic," she muttered, pushing past him, though her ears burned red.
---
In physics, the teacher announced a new project. "Pair up. Two people per group." The room buzzed with excitement.
Sarah prayed silently for a quiet partner—someone who wouldn't draw attention, someone who wouldn't make her life harder.
"Sarah and Adrien," the teacher declared.
Her stomach dropped. Before she could protest, Adrien sprang from his seat. "What up, partner?" he said loudly, swaggering toward her.
The class erupted. Laughter, whispers, mocking "ooohs" bouncing off the walls. Every eye turned to Sarah.
She glared at Adrien, a sharp look meant to cut him down, but it only made his grin wobble nervously. He slid into the seat beside her anyway, far too close, and the class rippled with fresh giggles.
Sarah groaned under her breath. God, why him?
---
At the corner of the room, Lola watched. Her gaze didn't flicker, didn't blink. It burned straight through Sarah and Adrien like a blade.
Her lips curved into the faintest smile, but her thoughts were cold, vicious, final:
If you're not going to be mine… then you can never be anyone else's.
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