(Ruby's POV)
The first time I heard Sam Walker speak wasn't in person.It was over the morning announcements.
Her voice was calm, low, almost bored, like she couldn't care less—but somehow, it still had this weird grip on everyone. Even the hallway buzz would die down for those two minutes.
She'd say things like "Please don't climb over the east-side fence again. You know who you are." Or "Science club is meeting after school. No, I don't know what they do there either."
She didn't sound like someone trying to be funny.She just… was.
I had no idea how someone could hold so much space just by existing.
But Sam did.
She walked into rooms like she'd been there before, like she wasn't afraid of being looked at. Her uniform never followed code properly, her hair was always a little messy, and she still somehow looked cooler than everyone else combined.
People didn't just admire her.
They wanted to be near her. To orbit her. To be the kind of person she'd choose.
And I?
I was just the quiet girl from the third row. The girl who borrowed books and returned them two days early. The girl who never raised her hand even when she knew the answer.
I wasn't the kind of person people chose.
And I definitely wasn't the kind of person Sam Walker noticed.
"Ruby."Becky snapped her fingers in front of my face.
I blinked.
"What?" I asked, even though I already knew I'd been caught zoning out again.
"You were staring at her again," she said, gesturing toward the other side of the cafeteria.
Sam sat with her usual group—Alex Jones beside her, talking way too loudly, probably trying to make her laugh. She wasn't even looking his way. Her eyes were fixed on her phone, one leg crossed over the other, as if she couldn't care less about the attention around her.
"I wasn't staring," I mumbled.
Felix slid into the seat next to me, dramatically dropping his tray of fries. "Lies. Your pupils dilated. Becky told me that's a real sign."
"Why do you know this?" I asked.
"Because I googled it the day Becky smiled at someone else."
Becky blushed. "That was three years ago."
"And I haven't healed."
I rolled my eyes. "Anyway. I wasn't staring. I was just… noticing."
"Right," Felix said, munching a fry. "And I'm just admiring the emotional depth of ketchup."
Sam stood up a few minutes later. I glanced toward her table—and she was looking this way.
Not just vaguely. Not in the direction of our general hemisphere.
She was looking at me.
Or maybe… through me? Past me? Whatever it was, her gaze hovered just long enough to freeze something in my chest.
Then she walked away, and I immediately forgot how to breathe.
Later that afternoon, I found myself walking the long way to the art block. I told Becky I had to grab something from my locker, but that wasn't true. I just wanted to pass by the hallway where the announcement club met.
And sure enough, the door was open.
Sam was in there, half-sitting on the edge of a desk, reading over a sheet of paper. Her lips moved as she spoke lines under her breath.
I didn't go in.
I didn't even say anything.
I just stood there around the corner, listened for a second, and walked away like a coward.
Back home, I opened the drawer again. Took out the pink note she threw away last week. It had a phone number scribbled on the corner and half a doodle of something—maybe a fish? Maybe a cat?
Maybe this was how people went insane. Quietly. Slowly. With a piece of someone else's life folded into a box like it meant something.
I didn't want to be the girl with a drawer full of stolen trash.
But I was.
"She's too much," I told Becky that night over text.
Becky replied immediately.
And you're too scared.
I didn't argue.
Because she was right.
[End of Chapter 2]
She looked my way for two seconds. And I've been living in those seconds ever since.