Jayna blinked quickly, lashes fluttering as if she could blink the heat away from her eyes.
It didn't work.
The tears she'd been holding back swelled anyway, hot and traitorous, and just as Ginevra lifted her head, Jayna spun her face to the side and scrubbed at her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
"Ugh, I think an eyelash got in my eye," she babbled. "It really hurts, really, really hurts—"
She rubbed harder, using the pain as an excuse.
Ginevra immediately reached for a tissue and caught Jayna's hand, pressing the tissue into her fingers to stop her from rubbing herself red.
"Here."
Jayna mumbled a thanks, pressing the tissue over her eyes like a tiny curtain.
"Anyway," she said, seizing on the first topic that came to mind, "I did not expect you to be that good in a fight. You really don't look it at all."
There.
Subject changed.
Her dignity, mostly saved.
Ginevra set the alcohol bottle aside and hesitated for half a second before answering.
"My dad used to run a boxing gym," she said.
"…Your dad?" Jayna lowered the tissue just enough to peek at her, stunned. "That's so cool. No wonder you're like that."
She sounded genuinely impressed—almost starry-eyed.
"And now?" she asked, eager and soft.
Ginevra glanced up at her excited face, then back down.
"He guaranteed a loan for someone," she said calmly. "The gym went under."
"Oh."
Jayna winced internally.
Perfect.
Trust her to enthusiastically tug at the one thread that led straight into awkward territory.
Before she could decide whether to apologise or change the subject again, a voice called from the doorway, brisk and a little breathless.
"Something happened over here too?"
Jayna turned.
The school nurse—Ms. Suzanne, a woman in her forties with sharp eyes and soft hands—hurried over, dropping onto the chair beside the bed and reaching for Jayna's arm.
"Which class are you from? Your arm's hurt?"
"Ah, it's just a scrape," Jayna said quickly. "Really, it's nothing. My—uh, my classmate already cleaned it up for me."
She lifted her arm as proof.
The skin was reddened and tender, but the wound had been properly swabbed and neat strips of bandage and tape sat perfectly in place.
Ms. Suzanne leaned closer, eyebrows lifting.
Most kids who came here sat and whimpered until she did something; these two had managed textbook first aid without her.
"Looks good," she muttered, a little impressed.
She let out a small breath.
"I was running myself ragged just now," she added. "No idea what's wrong with you second-years today—one of your classmates managed to drive a pen straight through her own palm. Can you imagine the pain?"
Jayna's heart lurched.
Her mouth went dry.
"H-how… how is she?" she asked quietly.
"The girl? Crying her head off," Ms. Suzanne said. "We called the school van; they've taken her to the hospital. Pen went clean through her hand—had to, with the way it looked—but it missed the bones and the big vessels. She's lucky."
She shuddered faintly at the memory.
It took a lot of force to stab a pen in like that.
Kids these days had a terrifying way of turning their frustration back on themselves.
Jayna's shoulders loosened all at once.
Her pulse, which had been pounding in her throat, finally began to settle.
Zoe would live.
And just like Ginevra had said—her hand wouldn't be ruined.
"Right," Ms. Suzanne went on, eyeing the two girls again. "Which class are you in? I don't think I've seen you in here before."
Jayna flashed what she hoped was a normal, harmless smile.
"We're second-years too," she said, then glanced—very pointedly—at the clock on the wall and gasped. "Oh no, we're going to be late. Our next teacher's super strict; if we're late he'll make us copy out the whole textbook. Thank you so much, nurse, we really have to go—bye!"
Before Ms. Suzanne could say another word, Jayna hopped off the bed, grabbed Ginevra by the wrist, and towed her out the door at a half-run.
The nurse blinked, stared at the door, then slowly looked back at the clock.
That was odd.
They were already twenty minutes into the period.
Out on the field, Class One was assembled in messy rows, faces lifted toward the man stomping back and forth in front of them.
Coach Walker—broad-shouldered, short-tempered, perpetually sunburnt—had his whistle clenched in one fist and his other hand on his hip.
"Can someone tell me what's going on today?" he bellowed. "We've got late students coming out of the woodwork, apparently half of you think my class doesn't matter, and the class monitor saunters in late like it's nothing! Roy William, you want to explain yourself?"
His voice carried all the way to the far bleachers.
Roy scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking smaller than Jayna had ever seen him.
"A student got hurt," he said carefully. "Zoe's in the hospital. Lydia went with her.
"As for the other two… they probably went to the nurse's office as well."
He couldn't exactly say why or how.
Coach Walker frowned.
"What do you mean 'hurt'?" he demanded. "Be specific."
On the field, Calista sat on the edge of the metal steps with a couple of other latecomers, keeping her mouth firmly shut.
Her hands were still cold.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw flashes of blood and heard the dull thud of bodies hitting wood.
She'd actually passed out at one point; when she came around, she was lying on a cot with the nurse pinching her philtrum. She hadn't seen how everything ended.
And she wasn't sure she wanted to.
"Coach Walker, a word?"
Ms. Harper trotted over, cheeks flushed, hair slightly mussed.
"We had a student injure her hand," she said. "They've taken her to the hospital. According to what she told the admin, it was an accident.
"Either way, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't push them too hard today. No high-intensity drills. If anything else happens, we'll have a very difficult time explaining it to the parents."
Coach Walker's face softened a fraction.
"Right, right," he said. "Fine. We'll take it easy."
He turned back to the students.
"Okay, listen up!" he yelled. "You can move around, but nothing intense. No sprints, no matches. Just walk and stretch."
He blew the whistle and waved them away.
Small clusters of students immediately formed, drifting to sheltered corners in little buzzing knots, trading whispers.
Some had caught glimpses of Zoe and Lydia heading upstairs earlier.
Some had seen Jayna being cornered.
Nobody knew exactly what had gone down.
Nobody seemed eager to ask.
Calista stayed where she was, perched on the steps alone, chin on her knees.
Her heart was still pounding too fast.
She thought of Ginevra's face in that moment—expressionless and terrifying, a knife braced in her fingers like it was nothing at all—and another thin layer of sweat broke out along her spine.
"Calista."
The voice made her jump.
She looked up, relief rushing through her when she saw Jayna trotting over.
Then she saw who was behind her, and the relief curdled into something like fear.
Ginevra walked a half-step back, posture loose, expression neutral.
Nothing about her posture suggested what she'd done an hour before.
If Calista hadn't been there to see it, she would've thought she'd imagined the whole thing.
"Everyone else is just standing around," Jayna said cheerfully, pulling Calista up by the wrist. "If I'd known P.E. was going to be cancelled, I wouldn't have rushed back."
Calista grabbed her arm in return, turning it over.
"You're sure you're okay?" she asked anxiously. "Your arm?"
"Perfectly fine," Jayna said, flashing her the bandaged scrape. "See? Good as new."
She smiled wider, partly to reassure her, partly to keep Calista from looking too closely at Ginevra.
Calista risked a glance anyway.
Ginevra's face was as calm as ever, focused on some point in the distance.
But in Calista's mind, the image overlapped with another—a pale arm, a pen, a hand pinned to wood.
She swallowed hard.
Leaning close, she whispered into Jayna's ear,
"I swear, I was terrified just now. I'm grateful she showed up, obviously, but I didn't know she could be that scary. She was like… like one of those terrorists in movies."
"Hey, Giny," Jayna called without turning her head, "Calista says you're a 'terrorist'."
"Hey! I did not say that," Calista yelped. "Ginevra, I swear, I didn't say anything, really—"
Jayna's tone was pure mischief.
Ginevra looked over at them, her gaze resting briefly on Calista.
Calista shrank half a step behind Jayna, shoulders hunching.
Jayna squeezed her friend's wrist and switched to a brisk, almost businesslike tone.
"Anyway, Zoe's fine," she said. "And she's not going to say anything.
"So you can stop shaking like a leaf."
She tipped her chin toward the basketball court.
Roy sat on the ground there alone, staring down at his sneakers.
No basketball, no whooping crowd of girls, no easy smile.
Just a boy quietly collapsing in on himself.
"Didn't expect him to be so disgusting, though," Jayna added under her breath.
Calista set her jaw.
"I don't like him anymore," she declared. "If I'd known he was that kind of person, I'd have spit in his face the first time I saw him."
There goes that crush, Jayna thought, half amused, half sad.
"Good," she said out loud.
She glanced back at Ginevra.
The late afternoon sun caught in the lenses of her glasses, reflecting back a blur of light.
Jayna drew a breath.
"I've made a decision," she announced.
Calista groaned.
"Oh no," she muttered. "What now?"
"From today on, I'm going to study properly," Jayna said.
Calista blinked.
"Because…?"
"Because I want to go to the same university as Ginevra," Jayna said simply. "She's way ahead of me. If I want to catch up, I need to work hard.
"And," she added, eyes gleaming, "I need to be strong enough to have her back."
Calista stared at her.
Then burst out laughing.
Even Ginevra's mouth twitched, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner.
"What's so funny?" Jayna protested.
She turned to Ginevra, grin bright and shameless.
"Will you tutor me?" she asked. "Properly. Like a real study coach."
Ginevra held her gaze, then nodded once.
"Okay," she said.
In the end, no one talked.
The next day, Roy stepped down from his position as class monitor without explanation.
Zoe remained in the hospital for surgery and observation; no one knew when she'd be back.
As for Lydia, the chauffeur her family employed brought a written note to the school office: Miss Westbrook was unwell and would be recuperating at home for a week.
The scandalous post on the school forum vanished overnight.
No official notice.
No male teacher roaring about discipline, no female teacher lecturing about "virtue."
Just… gone.
Most students were puzzled, but very few were truly disappointed.
If anything, a lot of them seemed oddly satisfied.
Zoe and her little clique had thrown their weight around for so long that seeing one of them finally get hurt—even in a way no one fully understood—felt uncomfortably like justice.
Jayna strolled into class with her bag slung cross-body as usual, cutting in from the back door.
There was only one difference.
Today, the moment she sat down, she pulled out her notebook and opened it on the desk.
And then—miracle of miracles—she uncapped a pen.
It looked so natural that several people did double-takes.
"New glasses?" she asked, turning her head just enough to study Ginevra's face.
The frames were slightly different, darker, the bridge a bit straighter.
Across from her, Ginevra glanced at the clock.
Jayna had lasted a whole twenty minutes into morning self-study before opening her mouth.
That was… an improvement.
She nodded.
"Backup pair," she said. "Still usable."
Jayna puffed out a small sigh.
"I was kind of hoping I'd get to go with you to pick out a new one," she said.
She tilted her head, examining the plain black frames.
Honestly, they weren't fashionable at all.
On most people, they would've been a disaster.
But Ginevra's face was so clean and symmetrical that nothing could really make her look bad.
Jayna felt her gaze lingering, lingering, until Ginevra looked back at her and she jerked her head down, flipping her literature textbook open like she meant to devour it.
For once, she stayed quiet all the way through the end of self-study.
The bell rang.
Students began to stir.
Jayna tucked her pen into her pencil case, ready to turn to Ginevra and lay out her grand study plan—only for a voice to explode beside her.
"Want to hear some huge news?"
Calista flopped across her desk, eyes shining with gossip.
"Spit it out," Jayna said. "Then I'm busy."
Calista leaned closer, lowering her voice with theatrical secrecy.
"I heard the principal got chewed out last night because of Zoe's injury."
"What, seriously?" Jayna gasped, also dropping her voice. "That bad?"
"Told you, my dad heard it from someone on the school board." Calista looked smug. "Zoe's mom's a bigshot, remember? She didn't come herself—too obvious—but she sent someone under her to 'have a talk' with the principal.
"The school'll probably have to pay compensation, and haven't you noticed? Ms. Harper hasn't been around this morning."
Jayna frowned.
Now that she mentioned it…
Ms. Harper usually swung by just before first period to check in.
Today, there'd been no sign of her.
"Got dragged into the meeting too," Calista continued. "It happened in our class, so she has to take responsibility.
"But the weird thing is, nobody told them what really happened. Even Lydia kept her mouth shut."
She launched into the rest of the rumours in one long stream, and only when she'd finished did Jayna feel her lungs expand fully again.
They weren't blameless, exactly.
But they weren't the ones who'd started it.
And if no one was going to drag Ginevra into it… she could live with that.
"If you were born a few hundred years ago, you'd have been the imperial secret agent," Jayna said.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Calista replied.
Then her eyes lit up with a different idea.
"What are you doing for fall break?" she asked. "Listen, my brother's coming home. You said he was handsome, remember? Come over to my place, we can—"
"Shut up," Jayna hissed, clapping a hand over her mouth in horror.
She shot a panicked glance at Ginevra, as if afraid every word had been heard.
"When did I ever say your brother was handsome? If you're drooling over him, that's your problem."
Her glare would've been more effective if there wasn't a faint, guilty colour creeping up her own neck.
Calista deflated.
"But you did say it," she muttered.
No one noticed the tiny shift in Ginevra's expression as she turned a page.
Just the smallest tightening at the jaw.
The faintest cooling of her gaze.
"I'm going to study over fall break," Jayna said firmly, sitting up straighter. "For real this time."
"Oh, please," Calista scoffed. "You can't even say that with a straight face. You were literally planning a movie marathon yesterday."
"I was young and naive yesterday," Jayna said loftily. "Anyway, I already made plans with Ginevra. I'm going to her place to, you know—"
She stretched the words out, tasting them.
"—stu-dy."
She snuck a sideways look at Ginevra, eyes bright with anticipation.
"No way," Calista whispered. "You—you're going to her house to study?"
She darted a look between them.
"Did you invite her?" she asked Ginevra.
"No," Ginevra said, without any attempt to soften it.
A tiny knot of irritation twisted in her chest, one she didn't entirely understand.
Maybe it had something to do with Calista casually bringing up her brother.
Or Jayna's vague, flustered reaction.
Either way, she wasn't in the mood to cooperate with the fantasy.
Jayna let out a wobbly laugh.
Right.
Still no mercy from that corner.
"Well, you could invite me now," she said, voice slipping into something soft and syrupy, half-whine, half-tease.
Calista physically shuddered.
"I'm getting secondhand embarrassment," she muttered.
Ginevra stubbornly kept her eyes on her book.
Her ears, however, had started to turn a very faint pink.
Jayna watched the colour creep up in fascination for a second, then flopped back dramatically in her chair.
"Fine," she said mournfully. "Guess I'll spend another break all alone. No family, no friends, no love.
"If I turn into a corpse on my living room floor, no one will ever know."
Calista stared at her.
"Are you human?" she asked.
Jayna ignored her, staring at the ceiling with the air of a tragic heroine from some nineteenth-century novel.
"In the end," she sighed, "I suppose there's no point pushing people.
"If someone doesn't want me there, I shouldn't force it.
"I think of them as someone I'd happily walk through fire for, but to them, I… I'm probably just a burden."
Her voice softened on the last word, thin and fragile.
Ginevra's fingers stilled on the page.
Her brows drew together, the line between them deepening.
Silence stretched, taut and brittle.
Finally, she exhaled.
"Come to my place over the break," she said quietly.
"Seriously?!"
Jayna bolted upright, eyes shining so bright they almost hurt to look at.
She very nearly threw her arms around Ginevra on the spot, managing at the last second to restrain herself to a wild little bounce in her seat.
"Okay, then I'll get ready tonight," she said happily. "I'll come early in the morning. We'll text, okay?"
Ginevra hummed something that might have been assent.
Her face was calm.
Her ears were still red.