She was exhausted. Truly, bone-deep exhausted. But even then, the hunger to see Lucas Powell again remained like a fever.

City Academy’s sky-high admissions score was a treasure hanging in the rafters. Eden knew she had to leap higher than anyone else just to graze it.

She threw herself into her studies. Her schedule was no longer forced upon her by Linda; she worked until her mother had to drag her away from her desk, pleading with her to sleep.

For the first time, she understood the true weight of the phrase "willingly chained."

She sat firmly at the top of the year’s rankings for every major and minor exam. Everyone said, "Eden, you’re killing yourself. You’re already brilliant—you don’t need to push this hard. You don't have to get into City Academy."

Only she knew the truth: her effort was still miles away from enough. Only she knew that City Academy wasn’t a choice; it was a destination.

"It’s your birthday," Linda said after the party, her voice unusually soft. "You’ve done well this term. I’m rewarding you with a whole night of television."

Eden shook her head. Her mother watched, dumbfounded, as she picked up her backpack and retreated to her bedroom.

There was nothing to see on TV.

Lucas wasn't on TV.

Eden sat at her desk and pulled out the diary with the keypad lock from the back of her drawer. She flipped it open.

Over the past year, she had filled it with dozens of entries. They weren’t really diary entries; they were letters, ghosts of conversations she wished she could have with Lucas.

"Lucas, the math final was brutal. I hope you got the last problem right."

"Lucas, the math teacher gave us an impossible problem today. He said he didn’t expect anyone to solve it. The more he said that, the more I wanted to rip it to shreds just to prove him wrong. I’m so stupid. The more I struggled, the more frustrated I got, until I tore the paper with my pen. If you saw this, you’d probably laugh at me."

"Lucas, the regional competition is tomorrow. Let’s both give it our all. Let’s get those extra points for our high school entrance exams."

"Lucas, the family went to the city for New Year's Eve. We watched the fireworks in the main plaza. I didn’t see you, but I knew we were watching the same sky. Happy New Year, Lucas."

"Lucas, I’m terrible at athletics. It takes me four and a half minutes to run half a mile. City Academy’s physical fitness requirement is so high. I think I’m finished. Why is Bryce so fast? It makes me so angry."

"Lucas, it’s raining so hard. My stomach is killing me, and after dancing for an hour, I don't have a lick of strength left. I suddenly just wanted you to carry me to piano practice."

"Lucas, I’m having trouble sleeping again. I’m reading in the middle of the night, and my heart feels like it’s being crushed."

"Lucas, I’m so tired."

"Lucas, I miss you."

She read page after page, her eyes stinging. She clicked the diary shut and shoved it back into the darkness of her drawer, then grabbed her workbook. She had to keep moving.

Two more years. Over seven hundred days.

If she could just hold on for seven hundred more days, she could finally find him and settle the score.

At the New Year’s family dinner, Eden barely sat down before pulling a vocabulary flashcard deck from her pocket, memorizing words while they waited for the meal.

Bryce, sitting next to her, frowned. "Seriously? Do you have to?"

Eden ignored him.

"You actually want to get into City Academy?" Bryce prodded.

Eden still didn't answer, but Linda intercepted. "Bryce, you should study hard too. When you get there, you and your cousin can keep each other company."

As if I’ve already gotten in! Eden thought.

"Oh, Eden," Nancy said suddenly, "I heard your essays are top-tier. You should teach Bryce how to write. He went completely off-topic in his midterms. It’s infuriating."

Bryce looked wounded.

"Are you using your brain when you write, or just guessing?" Eden jabbed.

"Personal attack much?" Bryce retorted. Suddenly remembering something, he unzipped his messenger bag and rummaged around. "Who says I don't have good essays? Look at this!"

He shoved a graded sheet in her face.

Eden glanced at the red ink. "Forty-eight points? That’s high. You wrote this?"

"As if!" Bryce denied, eyes glinting with a weird, proud smirk. "A girl in the next class wrote it. Take a look. You might actually learn something."

Eden rolled her eyes. "It’s not even your work. Why are you bragging?"

"Whatever!" Bryce snatched his precious paper back. "Don't look at it then!"

Eden couldn't help but smile. Bryce was usually so full of himself; seeing him openly idolize someone was refreshing.

So, if Lucas—who also struggled with creative writing—saw one of her essays, how would he react? Would he wave a magazine with her writing in it, pointing at her name and showing off to his friends that he knew the girl who wrote so well?

Would he?

Eden didn't know. But she kept trying anyway. She was clawing her way into his world, desperate to leave a mark.

She was terrified he would forget her.

If that happened, what would be left of her?

Three years felt like an eternity, but Eden leveled her breathing and took it one day at a time. She told her mother she was at the library every weekend, but she always ducked into The Hideaway, nursing a jasmine green tea while she worked through practice problems in Lucas’s old seat. When the exhaustion hit, she would lean her head against the cool wall and stare at the dregs of her glass.

She was so, so tired.

But no matter how tired she became, the ache to see Lucas Powell never faded.

This time, she walled herself into this prison of grades voluntarily. Her mother didn't force it. Nobody forced it. She chose this struggle.

She was willing to suffer, just to reach a height where she could finally meet him again.