The hallway hits like a punch the moment we step in, too many voices, too much movement, everything bright and fast and annoying. It smells like burnt espresso, old lockers, and people who woke up fifteen minutes ago.
Peter walks beside me, hood up, hands in his pockets, doing that thing where he pretends he doesn't notice anything while noticing literally everything.
Someone calls our names.
"Vexley! Lockwood!"
Peter smirks. "Bro… we're still famous."
"Tragic," I say.
He bumps my arm. "You love it."
The lights above us buzz like they're warning us to skip school and never come back. Posters peeling off, lockers dented, someone arguing with a vending machine like it owes them money.
Then -
Kate Monroe.
She doesn't appear dramatically. It's more like the hallway shifts around her, like gravity remembers who it's supposed to respect.
Black dress. Boots. Hair that looks unfairly good even under these awful lights. She moves through the crowd without touching anyone, like the world parts for her on instinct.
Jessica's beside her, talking about something too fast. Rosie follows them, doing her best impression of Kate but ending up looking like she's trying too hard. Because she is.
Rosie sees me first.
"Vex!" she says, waving like we're in a Disney channel show.
Kate doesn't even turn. She just says, "Rosie," in this tone that isn't angry, isn't rude..just final.
Rosie shuts up immediately.
I should keep walking.
Of course I don't.
I step closer, hands in pockets, voice casual like I'm not about to ruin my own life again.
"Morning, ladies. Rosewood's holy trinity."
Jessica laughs. "You're such an idiot."
"An exceptional idiot," I say.
Kate lifts her eyes to mine.
And everything in me goes quiet in this stupid, embarrassing way I'd never admit out loud. Her stare is sharp, steady, unbothered. It's that kind of look that makes you forget what you were about to say, do, or be.
Rosie giggles, "You've got so much energy."
"That's not energy," I tell her. "That's trauma. Big difference."
Jessica laughs.
Kate doesn't.
She just watches me. Quiet. Focused. Like she's checking if what she sees matches whatever she has in her head.
Then she says it, soft and cold:
"Move."
She brushes past me. barely a touch, barely anything..but it hits like static under my skin. Her perfume stays behind, clean and sharp and a little dangerous.
"Pleasure's mine," I whisper, because embarrassment is my coping mechanism.
I watch her walk away even though I know I shouldn't. Jessica talking, Rosie hurrying to keep up. Kate never looks back.
Peter reappears next to me, soda in hand, eyebrows halfway to his hairline.
"You good?"
"Define good."
He nods. "Exactly."
Class is the usual slow-motion death.
Mrs. Carter's voice drifts around the room like she's trying really hard not to sound bored with her own subject. She taps chalk against the board, sunlight cutting across her hands, everything too soft and too slow.
The class is asleep with their eyes open. Someone's chewing gum like they're trying to kill it. Someone else has TikTok under their desk.
Peter's drawing in his notebook, caricature of Carter with massive glasses and an ass that defies multiple laws of physics. I snort before I can stop myself. He smirks, still drawing.
Then Carter says my name.
"Vexley?"
I sit up like I wasn't zoning out thinking about Kate's boots.
"The secret, ma'am," I say, "is accepting no one actually knows what the author meant."
A few people laugh. Peter loses it quietly. Carter sighs but she's smiling.
And then I feel it.
Eyes.
Her eyes.
Kate Monroe is watching me. Arm propped on her desk, pen between her fingers, hair falling just enough to frame her face. The light hits her cheekbone in a way that should be illegal. Her expression is calm, too calm. Like she's holding back something sharp.
I give her a look, the stupid exaggerated one, eyebrows raised, lips pursed, my signature "save me" expression.
She just... stares. For one long second.
Then she rolls her eyes so smoothly it practically knocks me out of my chair.
I laugh. Can't help it. Peter snorts next to me.
But then I see it.
A smile.
Her mouth trying not to smile but doing it anyway.
It's for me.
And that's the part that wrecks me.
Carter is still droning on about themes but I'm gone.
All I see is Kate tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Slow. Effortless. Deadly.
She moves like every gesture matters. Like she knows exactly what she's doing to me without even trying.
I remember her before all this. Before she got sharp. Before she learned silence was stronger than screaming. Before she built herself into someone no one can touch.
She used to be sunlight.
Now she's moonlight on broken glass. beautiful, distant, untouchable.
People think Kate's cold.
She's not. She's just tired of letting the wrong people in.
She learned.
She armored up.
Now she only trusts Jessica.
And maybe she tolerates Rosie, but even that's slipping. Rosie mimics everything Kate does.. posture, voice, vibe. but it's all effort. All noise.
Kate is quiet power.
Rosie is loud desperation.
And desperation always cracks first.
Carter's voice fades back in when she says something about symbolism, but it's background noise. My brain's elsewhere, at the window with those three girls who run this school without even trying.
Rosewood doesn't need monsters. The people here do the job themselves.
And somewhere in that mess, I picture a day where I don't show up.
Where I disappear.
Where the hallway is the same, except it isn't.
Peter would notice. He'd wait a day. Maybe two.
Then he'd move on, because life keeps going.
Kate...
She'd probably shrug. Lift an eyebrow.
Pretend it didn't matter.
But later, when she's wiping off mascara in the bathroom mirror, she'd pause, just for a second.. and wonder why the hell she thought of me at all.
Not love.
Not grief.
Just... something.
That thought hits harder than anything else.
Not the dying.
The after.
The idea of her walking through these halls, perfectly herself, and me not being there to see it.