It's barely seven. I have an hour before class.
My phone buzzes. The vibration loud in the quiet car. I jump.
Margot:I love you. No matter what. We'll figure this out.
I close my eyes.
Type back:Love you too.
Then I grab my bag and head inside.
I find an empty study room on the second floor—one of the small ones with a single desk and a door that locks—and lock myself in.
I'm not ready to face people yet. Not ready to pretend everything's fine.
I pull out my diary. The one I've been writing in since Margot first adopted me.
I open to a blank page and start writing. My hand moves almost automatically. Pen scratching across paper. The only sound in the small room.
Not the assignment. Not the story I'm supposed to be working on.
Just... thoughts.
Atlas stood outside my door today. I don't know how long he was there before I opened it. He was dressed like he'd just come from work—shirt rolled up, tie loose. He looks older than twenty-nine. More tired. Like he's carrying something heavy.
He said "Neither did we" when I told him I didn't ask for this. Like I'm some burden they got stuck with. Maybe I am.
I pause. Chew the end of my pen. The plastic is already marked with teeth indents. A nervous habit I can't break.
Zero said something at the wedding about things changing fast in this family. I don't know what he meant, but it feels like a warning. He's the most dangerous one. I can tell. The way he looks at me—like he's trying to figure out where to cut.
Bane hates me. That's fine. I hate me too.
I stop. My hand freezes mid-word. The pen hovers over the page.
Cross out the last line.
Try again.
Bane hates me because I'm an outsider. Because I don't belong. He's not wrong.
My pen hovers over the page.
They're all attractive. Like, objectively. Atlas has that whole commanding, silver-fox thing even though he's onlytwenty-nine. Zero's got the dangerous, bad-boy energy that probably gets him anything he wants. And Bane—
I stop writing.
Stare at the words. Read them once. Twice. Feel heat creep up my neck.
What the fuck am I doing?
I should scratch it out. Cross it out until it's unreadable. Should tear out the page. Burn it. Pretend I never wrote it.
But.
It's my diary. My private thoughts. No one's going to read this. No one's going to know.
And it's true. They are attractive. That's just a fact. An observation. Nothing more.
