Novels by Miss Tee

The bell rang like a dismissal and a warning all at once.Conversations resumed, louder than before, as if everyone had been holding their breath and finally remembered how to breathe again. Chairs scraped. Trays shifted. Laughter burst out in uneven pockets. Brianna Kendricks was already halfway across the dining hall, but her presence lingered behind her like a spicy fragrance.Penny leaned toward me. “I don’t like her.”“She might be a good person for all you know.” I murmured sweetly, ever the optimist.“I don’t like people who insult my clothes without making eye contact.”I almost smiled, but the knot in my chest refused to loosen.Shirley checked her watch. “Come on. You’ll miss first period if we don’t move.”As we stood, I felt it again. That strange awareness. As though something had been pressed into me and left a mark I couldn’t see. Brianna hadn

Brianna slid into a seat near the center table. The chair beside her remained empty. No one questioned it. She crossed her legs, lifted her chin slightly, and only then did she smile. It was beautiful. Polite. Empty.“She doesn’t look real,” I said before I could stop myself.Shirley dramatically grabbed my hand. “She isn't real.”“Why does everyone look like they’re holding their breath?”Shirley leaned closer to us, lowering her voice. “Because Brianna doesn’t compete. She eats people alive.”Penny raised her eyebrows."She has influence, attention, money, and connections. ”Brianna laughed at something someone said. It wasn’t loud, but it carried. I watched as two girls leaned in closer to her, nodding eagerly, their smiles tight at the edges.“She’s Oswald Kendricks’ daughter,” Shirley added.

Shirley led us out of the dorm into the open air.The breeze brushed my cheeks as we stepped onto a wide terracotta walkway. Tall elm trees stood on either side like silent guards, their leaves filtering sunlight into pale green shadows. Azaleas bloomed neatly at their roots, trimmed so precisely they felt less like flowers and more like decoration. Everything here looked arranged. Controlled. Even nature seemed to behave itself.Ahead of us rose another building, freshly painted, its pale walls glowing faintly under the morning sun. Students in crisp uniforms moved in and out of it with effortless confidence, laughing, chatting, living. None of them noticed Penny and I. Or maybe they did and decided we were not worth it.I had never felt so transparent.Shirley, on the other hand, was impossible to miss. Voices followed her everywhere. Hi, Shirley. Morning, Shirley. She answered each greeting with ease, like someone who had practiced belonging for years. I watched her, quietly amazed

I was somewhere green when the bed shifted beneath me.Not the soft green of school lawns or polished hedges, but the kind that only exists in dreams. Rolling hills. Endless sky. The handsome stranger lay beside me, warm and familiar. His fingers laced loosely through mine. The air smelled like rain and something sweet I could not name. He leaned closer, his mouth brushing my ear. He whispered something into my ear."Repeat what you said, oh my gorgeous prince.” I murmured, smiling.”“Get out of bed!”The hills dissolved.The handsome stranger vanished with the wind. So did the sky.I gasped and clawed my way back to consciousness just as my blanket was tugged off my shoulders. Light poured in through the slatted windows, sharp and unforgiving. I squeezed my eyes shut, heart racing, disappointment clinging to me like fog. “Annalise,” a voice said gently. “Wake up. We are already late.”I blinked.The room swam into focus slowly. Pale walls. Polished floor. Sunlight catching dust mote

Faint voices pulled me out of sleep before light did.Soft at first, muffled, like sound traveling through water. I floated somewhere between dreaming and waking, my body heavy, my limbs uncooperative. The gentle rocking of the ambulance had worked better than any lullaby. I forgot where I was. I forgot Salamanca. I forgot Penny. I forgot the terrifying emptiness of standing alone with only a backpack and a bruised heart.Then the voices sharpened.“Is she the scholarship student who got left behind?”The words slipped into my consciousness like cold fingers.“Yes. Miss Montclair is going to lose her mind when she finds out we diverted the school ambulance for a scraped heel. I can barely see the bruise.”A soft laugh followed.Scholarship kid? My eyes flew open, but I stayed perfectly still.Heat crawled up my neck and settled behind my ears. Their words landed with surgical precision, slicing through the fragile pride I had been clinging to since I landed in Spain. I swallowed hard

Salamanca smelled of oranges and old stone. Warm air drifted through the narrow streets, carrying laughter, footsteps, and a language that still tangled my tongue. It should have felt magical. Instead, my palms were sweating and my heart was lodged somewhere in my throat.Penny was still nowhere to be found.I spun slowly, scanning the crowd for gray eyes, a pink suitcase, anything familiar. Nothing. Just strangers flowing past me like I was part of the pavement. My chest tightened.“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Okay. This is fine.”It wasn’t.My luggage was gone. Every single thing I owned in the world was in those suitcases. Clothes. Shoes. Documents. My dignity. All handed over to a girl I had known for less than fifteen minutes because she had smiled nicely and called herself Penny.I checked the spot again, as if she might magically reappear if I stared hard enough.Nothing.A slow, ugly truth settled in. I was lost.I asked around in clumsy Spanish and English. No one had seen