[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":10},["ShallowReactive",2],{"viewer-data-260322C9288E-196":3},{"id":4,"number":5,"name":6,"content":7,"isLocked":8,"price":9,"hasRead":8},196,9,"Chapter 9: The One Place He Isn't","\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">She was exhausted. Truly, bone-deep exhausted. But even then, the hunger to see Lucas Powell again remained like a fever.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">For the first time, she understood the true weight of the phrase \"willingly chained.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Eden shook her head. Her mother watched, dumbfounded, as she picked up her backpack and retreated to her bedroom.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">There was nothing to see on TV.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Lucas wasn't on TV.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Eden sat at her desk and pulled out the diary with the keypad lock from the back of her drawer. She flipped it open.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Lucas, the math final was brutal. I hope you got the last problem right.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Lucas, I’m so tired.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Lucas, I miss you.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Two more years. Over seven hundred days.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">If she could just hold on for seven hundred more days, she could finally find him and settle the score.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Bryce, sitting next to her, frowned. \"Seriously? Do you have to?\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Eden ignored him.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"You actually want to get into City Academy?\" Bryce prodded.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">As if I’ve already gotten in! Eden thought.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Bryce looked wounded.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Are you using your brain when you write, or just guessing?\" Eden jabbed.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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!\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He shoved a graded sheet in her face.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Eden glanced at the red ink. \"Forty-eight points? That’s high. You wrote this?\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"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.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Eden rolled her eyes. \"It’s not even your work. Why are you bragging?\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Whatever!\" Bryce snatched his precious paper back. \"Don't look at it then!\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Eden couldn't help but smile. Bryce was usually so full of himself; seeing him openly idolize someone was refreshing.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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?\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Would he?\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Eden didn't know. But she kept trying anyway. She was clawing her way into his world, desperate to leave a mark.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">She was terrified he would forget her.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">If that happened, what would be left of her?\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">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.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">She was so, so tired.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">But no matter how tired she became, the ache to see Lucas Powell never faded.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">This time, she walled herself into this prison of grades voluntarily. Her mother didn't force it. Nobody forced it. She chose this struggle.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">She was willing to suffer, just to reach a height where she could finally meet him again.\u003C/p>",false,0,1774272926232]