005

ISABELLE

My hands were shaking.

The laughter from the small crowd bleeding into my ears as the guy beside me watched his phone openly. He didn't even try to hide it.

"Four hundred likes already," the girl behind him said, her voice dripping with amusement. "She literally just stood there staring at him."

"Someone said she follows him to practice every week," another voice added.

"That's so embarrassing. She can't even defend herself."

Laughter rippled through the group and my stomach lurched.

I stepped closer, just enough to see the screen properly.

A few seconds, that was all it took to destroy my morning.

The video was shaky at first, then it steadied and zoomed in slowly, until just my face filled the frame. My eyes fixed on the ice...my lips slightly parted.

The caption beneath it read: *Is Ms. Mute lusting after the school's star player?*

I looked away.

I had liked Lucas Graham once. That wasn't something I told anyone, not even myself most days.

First year, before he ever noticed me, I had seen him at a campus event and thought he was the kind of person who made you temporarily lose your senses. Tall, relaxed, laughing with his whole chest at something his friend said. I had gone home and written his name in the margin of my notebook with small stars around it like a complete fool.

Then he noticed me.

Everything that followed should have killed whatever I felt. The water bottle over my head in lecture. The mimicking. The smirks across hallways. The way he made the whole room feel like it was laughing at me without ever raising his voice.

It should have killed it.

Unfortunately for me, it didn't. That was the part I could never explain, even to myself.

"Oh wait—" The guy beside me suddenly laughed louder. "Isn't that her? Right there?"

Heads turned to face me.

A girl with box braids pointed straight at me. "That's literally her. That's Ms. Mute."

"Oh my God."

"She's actually here."

The laughter hit differently when you were standing in the middle of it.

I turned and walked, then I hurried my steps into an almost run. I kept my face down, I didn't wait for anyone to say anything else. I pushed through the side gate and kept moving until campus was behind me and the street noise swallowed everything.

I was home within a few minutes.

I went straight to my room, locked the door, and sat on the edge of my bed with my phone face down on the mattress.

My chest was still heaving, my hands hadn't fully stopped shaking.

I stayed there for a long time.Then the front door slammed.

Followed by heavy footsteps on the stairs. A knock sounded on my door. A hard knock that rattled the frame.

"Isabelle." Lucas's voice came through the wood, low and sharp. "Open the door. I know you're in there."

I sat still.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "Open it."

I crossed the room and unlocked it. He pushed it open before I could even step back, filling the doorway with his jacket still on, his jaw tight.

His eyes swept the room once, then landed on me.

"What the hell was that?" he said.

I reached for my notepad on the desk.

*I don't know what you're talking about.*

He laughed, but it wasn't funny. "Don't do that. You know exactly what I'm talking about." He held up his phone, the video already playing.

"You want to explain why my name is trending because of your face?"

I looked away from the screen.

"The whole school has seen that video. Four hundred and sixty likes, Isabelle. Even my coach texted. My coach." His voice dropped lower.

"Do you have any idea how that makes me look?"

I grabbed the notepad again.

*I didn't know anyone was filming.*

"That's your defense?" He stepped further into the room. "You're standing there staring at me like I hung the moon and your defense is you didn't know?"

My face burned. I turned toward the window.

"Look at me," he said.

I turned around slowly. His expression wasn't just angry. It was more of annoyance. It hurt like hell.

"Let me be very clear," he said, his voice dropping quietly and dismissive.

"Whatever sick little crush you've been carrying around, kill it. Right now."

My fingers tightened around the notepad.

"I don't know what's been going on in your head but I want no part of it." He tilted his head slightly.

"You're a charity case on my family's scholarship, living in my house because your dad latched onto my mother. That's it. That's the full story."

I stared at him.

"I would never," he continued, each word landing flat and precise, "have anything to do with you. Not in this life. Not in any other." He let that sit for a second.

"You're a freak who can't even speak for herself. The fact that you thought for one second I would ever—"

The door behind him opened. Lucas stopped talking.

My father appeared in the hallway in his robe, his hair uncombed, eyes heavy with sleep and irritation. Lily was right behind him, her silk robe loose at the shoulder, her usually perfect hair scattered in every direction. My chest tightened as I saw them together.

"What is going on in here?" my father asked, looking between us.

I grabbed my notepad immediately, my hand still unsteady.

I started writing. *He came into my room and—*

"I don't want to hear it," my father said, his voice flat. He looked at me directly. "I got a call from the school. You left campus this morning."

I nodded once, pointing toward Lucas, trying to explain.

"Isabelle." His tone carried exhaustion that had no room for nuance.

"I don't want to know whose fault it is. I don't care about whatever it is." He pointed toward the door.

"You are going back. Both of you. Right now."

Lily placed a hand on his arm. "David, maybe we should let them stay. One day wouldn't hurt."

"No." He shook his head once. "Isabelle. Lucas will drive you back."

I shook my head, reaching for the notepad again.

My father looked at me with the expression I recognized too well. He was already tired of a conversation he hadn't fully listened to.

"Now," he said quietly, and turned away.

The drive back was worse than the first one.

Lucas said nothing. I said nothing. He kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel and I kept my face turned toward the window.

He didn't drop me a block away this time. He pulled directly to the entrance, stopped the car, and looked straight ahead like I had already gone.

I got out without looking back.

The rest of the day was a lesson in keeping your head down.

I heard my name in every corridor, not shouted, just passed around in low voices and stifled laughs that somehow felt louder. I sat in the back of every class. I focused on the floor, the desk, the pen in my hand, anything that wasn't the faces around me.

By the time the last class let out, I had one goal; Get to the exit. Get home. Lock the door and stay there.

I walked fast, my bag pulled close, eyes down.

I didn't see him until it was too late.

The collision knocked my bag clean off my shoulder. Books hit the floor in every direction, papers sliding across the tiles. I scrambled down immediately, grabbing what I could.

A hand reached for one of my books at the same time mine did.

"My fault entirely," a voice said above me. Calm, unhurried, carrying a faint ease that felt completely out of place with the rest of my day. "You okay?"

I looked up.

I didn't recognize him. Dark wavy hair, warm brown eyes, a slight smile like he wasn't bothered by anything in the world.

He gathered the rest of my books carefully and held them out.

"You're too beautiful to be staring at the floor like that," he said simply.

I blinked.

He extended his free hand.

"I'm Tyler Brooks," he said.