5

The more potential Camila had shown before, the more disappointed Miss Jessa felt now.

After a long pause, she addressed the room.

“Is anyone willing to switch seats with Sarah?” Then she added firmly, “This is the only time I’m allowing a seat change for this kind of reason. No one else is going to start using this as an excuse. Finals are coming soon, and I need all of you to focus on your grades. Don’t wait until your acceptance letters, or rejections, come in before you start regretting how you spent your time.”

As a homeroom teacher, Miss Jessa hadn’t really wanted to allow the switch. She knew very well this would put Camila in an even more humiliating position.

But she also had other reasons for allowing it.

Maybe this would wake Camila up.

Maybe sitting next to someone new, someone who didn’t already resent her, might actually help.

Sarah had clearly given up on their friendship. At this point, forcing them to stay together would only make both of them miserable.

A different seatmate, maybe even a kinder one, might be better for Camila in the long run.

For Camila, Miss Jessa’s question about whether anyone was willing to switch seats with Sarah had already felt humiliating enough.

What she hadn’t expected was for someone to actually stand up.

And not as a joke. Not to make fun of her.

Someone was genuinely willing to switch.

The entire classroom turned in surprise to look at the person who had risen.

So did Camila.

“Miss Jessa, I’m willing to switch with Sarah.”

The tall boy spoke with an easy smile. He was handsome, bright, and effortlessly charming, and the moment he smiled, it only made him look more attractive.

A few girls in the class who had crushes on him stared in stunned disbelief.

“Liam is actually switching with Sarah?”

“He seriously wants to sit next to Camila?”

To everyone in the room, it was almost unbelievable.

A while ago, it might have made sense.

Back then, Camila had been the school beauty, the daughter of a wealthy family, the kind of girl who naturally matched someone like Liam, the school’s golden boy. The two of them standing together had once looked perfectly natural.

Sure, some people had been jealous, but even they couldn’t really find anything wrong with it.

A smart, beautiful girl and a handsome, popular guy.

Who was anyone else to object? But things were different now.

Camila had become infamous around school. Her family drama had been twisted into increasingly outrageous rumors, and people talked about her like she was some kind of cautionary tale.

For Liam to willingly choose to sit beside her now was enough to leave everyone speechless.

“Liam, are you serious?” Miss Jessa asked, wanting to be certain. “I already said this is the last seat change. If you ask to switch again later, I won’t approve it.”

She needed to know whether he was sincere or whether this was some cruel prank.

Even though she didn’t think Liam was the kind of student who would do something so childish, she refused to let Camila be humiliated a second time.

Thankfully, Liam didn’t disappoint her.

He nodded seriously.

“I know, Miss Jessa. I really don’t think sitting with Camila is a problem. Honestly, I don’t even understand what Sarah means by saying it affects her grades. But since Sarah asked, I’m willing to trade seats.”

Sarah flushed with embarrassment at his words.

Under Liam’s polite but unmistakable gaze, she finally grabbed her backpack and moved to his old seat.

Liam’s former deskmate had also been a girl.

She wasn’t considered especially pretty, and she’d never had the confidence to openly pursue him herself, but sitting next to Liam had come with plenty of perks.

Other girls often asked her to pass along notes or love letters for them. Some even gave her snacks and little gifts just so she’d put in a good word.

Now that Liam had moved to Camila’s side, all those little benefits were gone.

The chubby girl looked clearly annoyed.

When Sarah sat down beside her, the two exchanged a glance and both gave a quiet, irritated snort. But Camila was still frozen, not yet recovered from what had just happened.

Even after Miss Jessa started the lesson, she remained stiff in her seat, brows faintly furrowed.

Liam quietly pulled out his textbook and set it between them.

“Let’s share,” he said.

Camila turned to look at him.

They had been classmates for three years, but they had barely interacted.

Liam was the kind of boy everyone liked. He always smiled when people talked to him, and always responded warmly when classmates greeted him.

Back then, Camila had been proud in her own way.

She had been kind enough, never deliberately distant, but she wasn’t nearly as easygoing as Liam. At the time, all she cared about was studying.

Dating, crushes, high school romance, none of it had ever interested her.

So even though Liam had been recognized as the most popular boy at Riverside High, she had never really paid much attention to him.

And in truth, Liam had been the same.

During their first two years, school hadn’t been nearly as intense. Most of his free time had gone to basketball, and aside from whoever happened to be seated next to him, he rarely spent much time around girls at all.

Now, Liam was her deskmate.

Truthfully, Camila didn’t feel like there was much point in studying anymore.

She had already missed too much review time. There was no way she could catch up with the pace of the class, and she no longer believed she had any real chance of getting into the college she once dreamed about.

But as her eyes fell on the textbook Liam had placed between them, the surname Flores made it impossible not to think of Asher.

The thought of him made her irritation rise again.

Even so, almost against her will, her eyes stayed on the page.

The fact that she was listening to class at all because of something Asher had said made her even more annoyed. She frowned through the lesson, her expression dark and unpleasant, even as she forced herself to read and follow along.

From time to time, Liam glanced at her, always careful not to overstep.

He had watched her entire transformation.

He had seen her go from the brilliant, admired girl everyone looked up to into the “problem girl” people now whispered about in every hallway.

But if Camila had truly become as awful as everyone claimed, those students wouldn’t have dared to bully her so openly.

To Liam, it looked less like rebellion and more like someone being pushed into a corner.

He had heard all the rumors too.

Of course, every version was exaggerated, full of gossip and dramatic embellishments.

But he had never fully believed any of it.

He trusted what he could see with his own eyes.

And what he saw was…Camila might be harder to approach now. She had changed, that much was obvious.

But at her core, he still believed she was a good person.

***

At the precinct in Riverside, Asher asked Emily something the moment he came in for his shift.

“Did anyone report a missing teenage girl last night?”

Emily looked puzzled by the question, but she answered honestly anyway.

“No. Why? What happened?”

Asher didn’t respond.

He simply turned and walked away.

Emily watched him leave, confused by the sudden chill in his expression right before he turned his back.

So where had that look come from?

The answer, of course, was exactly what he had expected.

Camila had stayed out the entire night, and no one in the Gonzales household had even reported it.

An eighteen-year-old girl hadn’t come home.

Did they really not care enough to worry?

Or worse, had no one even gone into her room to realize she had climbed out?

That possibility was entirely believable.

And if that was the case, it only made the people in that house seem even colder.

Asher didn’t go far after leaving the office.

Instead, he headed to the school district’s lost-and-found office.

Before noon, there was something he needed to take care of.