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Maya didn't cry. Not in the hallway. Not where Elias could see.
But her hands wouldn't stop shaking as she clutched the straps of her bag, slipping into her homeroom like a ghost no one wanted around.
She sat in the back, like always. She preferred the quiet. The distance.
Except now, there was no peace in being ignored. Because she wasn't ignored. She was watched.
Whispers followed her. Laughter didn't sound like laughter anymore—it sounded like knives dragging against her skin.
And worse?
He was everywhere.
Elias.
It was like he existed just to haunt her.
In the hallways, she'd catch the cold gleam of his gray eyes. In the cafeteria, he'd stare from across the room while a girl clung to his arm, waiting for Maya to look. In class, he sat two rows ahead of her, but his presence was always loud, dominant—unshakable.
Every breath she took felt like a sin in his eyes.
—
The first real blow came on Thursday.
She had left her sketchbook in her locker. The one thing that kept her grounded, her little secret world of pencil and ink where she drew her feelings because she couldn't say them out loud.
She returned from gym class to find it missing.
Her heart dropped.
Panicked, she searched everywhere. Locker. Desk. Hallway.
Then she heard it.
Laughter.
She turned the corner.
There he was.
Elias.
Leaning against a locker. Holding her sketchbook.
Flipping through it.
Reading her.
His friends were around him—Zane, the loud one, and Micah, the sharp one—but only Elias spoke.
"She draws herself as a rabbit?" he asked flatly, holding up a sketch where she'd drawn herself small and soft, hiding beneath a hoodie, her glasses too big for her face. "Cute. In a pathetic sort of way."
Maya's voice caught in her throat. "Give it back."
He looked at her slowly, tilting his head.
"I don't remember saying you could speak to me."
She felt her knees weaken. But she didn't back down.
"It's mine."
He smirked.
"I know," he said. "And now it's mine."
He slid the book into his bag and walked past her without another word.
Her throat burned. Her eyes blurred. But she didn't cry.
Not in front of him.
He wanted her to break.
But she wouldn't.
Not yet.
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