Chapter 5

Two Academic Years Ago

It had been exactly nine days since my family and I moved to North Carolina when I stepped onto the grounds of Briarwood High, my new school. It was already midterm, and I expected the usual morning chaos: voices overlapping, lockers slamming, people rushing everywhere. Instead, I was met with something close to emptiness.

The parking lot was half-empty. The courtyard, which I’d imagined would be loud, crowded, and overwhelming, felt strangely hollow. A few students drifted past in small clusters, but there was no urgency, no buzz, no frantic energy that usually defined the start of a school day. It felt like I’d arrived late to something important and no one had bothered to tell me.

I adjusted the strap of my backpack on my shoulder and stood just inside the gates, unsure of where to go next. The building loomed ahead of me, red brick, wide windows, banners hanging from the railings announcing school pride and past victories I knew nothing about. Briarwood High. My new reality.

Texas already felt far away.

My mother had gotten a transfer from Texas to Charlotte, and my dad had agreed to the move without hesitation. Everything happened fast. Too fast. I didn’t get the chance to say proper goodbyes to my friends; there was no closure, no countdown. One minute, my life was familiar, and the next, it was packed into boxes and driven across state lines. I’d been uprooted and planted somewhere new without anyone asking how I felt about it.

That had always been my life.

I hadn’t fought it. Fighting never changed anything in my house.

I took a few steps forward, then stopped again when it hit me, I had no idea where the main office was. Or my locker. Or my first class. My schedule was folded neatly in the front pocket of my backpack, but it meant nothing when I didn’t know the layout of the school.

I scanned the courtyard for someone, anyone, who looked approachable.

Most people avoided eye contact.

Eventually, I spotted a girl sitting on the steps near the entrance, tapping away at her phone with one leg tucked beneath her. She had light braids pulled into a loose ponytail and a bright yellow hoodie that stood out against the muted morning. She looked… relaxed.

I hesitated, then walked over.

“Um, sorry,” I said, stopping a few feet away. My voice sounded smaller than I meant it to. “Do you know where the main office is?”

The girl looked up, startled for half a second, then smiled. “Yeah. You new?”

I nodded. “Transferred.”

“That explains the confusion.” She stood easily, slipping her phone into her pocket. “I’m Stacy. But everyone calls me Star.”

“Chloe,” I said. “Chloe-Anne.”

“Well, welcome to Briarwood, Chloe-Anne.” Star tilted her head, studying her for a moment. “You picked a weird day to start.”

“I noticed,” I said, glancing around again. “Is something happening?”

Star laughed softly. “Interschool competition. Most of the school’s gone.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “Then why am I… here?”

Star shrugged. “Administration logic. You’ll learn not to question it.”

She motioned for me to follow her toward the building. As we walked, I noticed how empty the halls were, too. Lockers stood open and abandoned. Classrooms echoed with only a handful of students inside.

“What kind of competition?” I asked.

“Math,” Star replied. “Big one. Briarwood versus a few other schools. Happens every year.”

That surprised me. I’d expected sports. Football or basketball. Something loud and aggressive. Math felt… unexpected.

“Is it important?” I asked.

She snorted. “Very. Especially to certain people.”

Star didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t push. I wasn’t great at that, at asking questions, at inserting myself into conversations. I preferred observation. Distance.

Star pointed out the main office, helped me get my paperwork sorted, then walked me to my first class. After that, Star disappeared into her own schedule, waving over her shoulder and promising to find me later.

I spent the rest of the day drifting.

I sat in classrooms where teachers spoke to half-empty rows, flipping through lesson plans and offering polite smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes. They weren’t really teaching; more than half the students were away, so lessons turned into light revisions for whoever had shown up. During free periods, I wandered the halls, reading the posters on the walls and memorizing small landmarks so I wouldn’t feel quite as lost the next day.

I didn’t talk to anyone else.

The next morning felt different before I even stepped off the bus.

There was noise, real noise this time. Laughter, shouting, chanting. Students crowded the courtyard and spilled onto the steps, faces bright with anticipation. I paused at the edge of it all, overwhelmed by the sudden shift.

I spotted Star near the front almost immediately.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I pushed through the crowd toward her.

Star grinned. “They won.”

“Who?”

“Our team. The competition. Briarwood won.”

“Oh.” I glanced around. “That’s… big?”

“Huge.” Star bounced on her toes. “They’re bringing the trophy back. The bus should be here any minute.”

I nodded slowly, trying to match the energy around her, though she didn’t feel it yet. I wasn’t attached to Briarwood. I didn’t know anyone involved. This was just something happening around me.

Still, I stayed.

A low rumble rolled through the courtyard as a yellow school bus turned the corner and pulled up to the curb. Cheers erupted instantly. Someone started drumming on the metal siding of the bus, and others joined in, the sound spreading like a pulse.

The doors opened.

Students poured out, laughing and shouting, slapping high-fives, their energy wild and uncontained. They wore matching shirts I hadn’t noticed before, some carrying backpacks, others waving small banners.

Then there was a sudden surge forward.

A group of boys lifted someone from the center of the crowd, hoisting him onto their shoulders as he laughed, one hand gripping a large gold trophy. The metal caught the sunlight, bright and blinding for a second.

That was when I saw him.

He was smiling widely, unselfconscious, unrestrained. His head tipped back slightly as he laughed, hair falling into his eyes, cheeks flushed with exertion and excitement. He looked… happy. Genuinely so. Not cool-happy or smug-happy. Just open, unguarded joy.

I felt it before I understood it.

Something in my chest tightened, sharp and unfamiliar. My breath caught, just for a moment, as if my body had reacted before my mind could catch up.

I watched him as the crowd carried him forward, his laughter cutting through the noise. He raised the trophy like it weighed nothing, letting people touch it, shouting something I couldn’t hear over the chaos.

“Who is that?” I asked quietly.

Star followed her gaze and smiled knowingly. “Owen-Kyle.”

The name settled into my mind with strange clarity.

Owen-Kyle.

I watched as he was set back on his feet, immediately surrounded by friends who clapped him on the back and talked over one another. He listened, laughed, responded easily, his attention moving effortlessly from person to person.

He didn’t look like someone who needed validation.

He didn’t look like someone who doubted himself.

I had never seen someone that comfortable and happy with themselves.

For a brief, confusing second, I wondered why. Why a math competition of all things had sparked this kind of joy. Why it mattered so much to him. Why it mattered to me that it mattered to him.

I didn’t ask.

The crowd slowly dispersed as the bell rang, students filtering toward their classes, still buzzing with excitement. Owen disappeared into the mass of bodies, swallowed whole by the school.

I stood there a moment longer, the image burned into my mind.

That smile followed me all day.

In class, I stared at my notebook without absorbing the words on the board. At lunch, I picked at my food, barely tasting it. Every so often, my mind drifted back to the bus, to the way Owen had looked lifted above everyone else, not elevated by arrogance, but by achievement.

I didn’t talk to him; I didn’t think I would fit, or if he would talk to someone like me.

I didn’t even see him again that day.

But something had shifted.

Over the next two years, I’d learned who Owen Kyle was.

I learned that he was brilliant, effortlessly so. That teachers praised him, that students admired him, that his name carried weight in hallways and classrooms. I learned that he could be cruel, too, sharp words, calculated indifference, a way of making people feel small without ever raising his voice.

I learned to dislike that version of him.

I learned to hate what he represented.

But no matter how much I tried, I could never fully erase the memory of that first day. Of the boy on the bus, laughing, holding a trophy like proof that effort could lead to joy.

That memory stayed with me. Quiet. Persistent.

And now, two years later, as I stood at the edge of another breaking point, I hated myself most for that.

Because no matter how carefully I dressed it up as revenge, no matter how fiercely I denied it, the truth remained unchanged.

I hadn’t forgotten Owen-Kyle.

Not even for a second.