She lost things the way you lose teeth as a child — one at a time, each one leaving a gap she probed with her tongue.
The suspension lasted one week. She was allowed back. But the hallways had changed — there was a geography of avoidance now, bodies angling away, conversations cut short. The ones who had mocked her before now simply didn't see her. The ones who had been friendly were politely, carefully distant. Only Maya stayed, fierce and close, walking beside her like armor.
Daniel stayed too. But something had shifted.
She could feel it in the way he held her hand — slightly too tight, or slightly too loose, she couldn't tell which. She could feel it in the pauses before he answered questions. She knew — because she always knew, she couldn't help it — that he was afraid. Not of her, not exactly. But of the thing she was part of. The story people were telling. The target that had appeared on her back.
"You don't have to—" she started, one afternoon.
"Don't do that," he said.
"Do what?"
"Give me an exit. I'm not looking for one."
She studied him. "But you're scared."
He met her eyes. "Of course I'm scared. They're talking about you like you're dangerous. My parents heard about it. My mom asked if you were 'into dark things.' And I—" He stopped. "I told her no. And I meant it. But Nora, this is getting—"
"I know," she said. "I know what it's getting."
She didn't blame him for being afraid. That was the thing — she couldn't. He was a human boy in a human world and she loved him, and she was asking him to stand beside something the world had decided was a threat. That was not a small thing to ask.
Three days later, he came to her and told her his parents were pulling him from the school. Moving him to the private school two towns over.
"It's not about you," he said. He couldn't look at her.
"It is a little," she said gently.
He flinched. "I'm sorry."
She nodded. She kept her hands very still. "I know you are."
He left. And the grief of it was specific and sharp — not the grief of someone leaving who had stopped loving you, but the grief of someone leaving who still loved you but couldn't stay. That kind of loss doesn't heal clean. It leaves a scar shaped like might-have-been.
Maya found her afterward, sitting on the bleachers in the cold. She sat beside her without asking what happened and they watched the empty football field for a long time.
"I'm not going anywhere," Maya said finally.
"I know," Nora said.
"I mean it. Even if my parents hear about it. Even if it's weird. Even if I don't understand half of what you are — I'm not leaving."
Nora looked at her. She felt the thing in her chest that wasn't quite magic and wasn't quite love but was adjacent to both. "You know you don't owe me anything."
"I know," Maya said. "That's why it counts."
Outside, the first snow of winter began to fall. Nora had not called it. But she didn't stop