She asked herself in the quiet of her mind: Eden, what is it you actually like about him?

After study hall, her homeroom teacher, Alicia Robinson, summoned Eden to the faculty lounge. Just as she reached the door, she caught a snippet of a conversation between Robinson and Virginia Rogers.

"Honestly, I’m not sold on Eden taking the STEM track. You look at her grades—she’s top five, sure, but she’s not the best. She doesn't have the edge."

"She’s splitting her focus between the social sciences and the hard sciences, that’s why. Give her time. She’s only a freshman."

"Professor."

Eden pushed the door open. As she stepped inside, she heard a familiar voice behind her call out the same thing.

Her spine stiffened. She didn't turn around, but she felt Lucas Powell pass by, settling at the desk on her left. Rogers glanced at him but didn't speak, busy rummaging through the shelves.

"The reason I brought you here is to discuss your track placement," Robinson began, looking at Eden. "What are your thoughts?"

"I want to pursue liberal arts," Eden said.

Robinson was silent for a long moment.

"How about this? We’ll rank the final exams separately. For the next month, drop the liberal arts subjects. Focus entirely on your STEM requirements. Let’s see what those grades look like." Robinson sighed, leaning forward. "You’re too bright to waste your potential on the humanities. Surely you aren't just choosing the easier path out of laziness?"

Eden stayed quiet. She didn't bother arguing. Once Robinson finished, Rogers chimed in, her tone sharp.

"Take this stack of worksheets and pass them out to the class. And listen to me: if there’s another incident in study hall like the one last week, you’re done as class president."

"Understood, Professor."

As Eden and Lucas left the lounge, he stepped aside, offering her the space to pass through the door first.

Back in the classroom, Eden was distracted, her mind still swirling with the pressure of the upcoming track decision as she packed her bag. It was Saturday, and her mother had insisted she come home. As she headed toward the school gates, she spotted two familiar figures walking ahead of her.

"Tell me! You knew I didn't want to attend your homeroom teacher's class, so you did that on purpose, didn't you?" Molly Lee skipped along beside Lucas, batting her eyes.

"You're overthinking it," Lucas replied, his tone lazy.

"Hmph! I was going to ask my grandmother to make your favorite fish! I’m furious now! You aren't getting any!"

"My grandmother listens to me, not you," Lucas said with a cocky grin.

Eden slowed her pace, trailing them. The winter wind was biting, tearing at her face like a razor. She pulled her scarf tighter, hiding her mouth.

Ten steps. That was the distance between her and Lucas now. And it felt like a canyon she could never cross.

***

"We’re going to your grandmother's for lunch. Your Aunt Nicole and Uncle Marcus are back from the south."

Eden nodded, though her expression was tight.

"Don't give me that look. You think I want to go?" Her mother rolled her eyes. "Take it up with your father if you have a problem. We’ll go ahead; he said he’d meet us there after work."

Her grandmother’s apartment was in an aging complex with poor infrastructure, only a short walk from their own home. Within ten minutes, they were at the door.

"Eden's here!" Aunt Nancy opened the door, her face plastered with a forced, sugary smile.

The living room was dim, the television flickering with static. On the worn, mustard-yellow sofa sat Pearl, her grandmother, along with her aunt, uncle, uncle-in-law, and her seven-year-old cousin, Kaison.

Eden forced a polite smile, greeted the relatives, and headed straight for her grandmother's bedroom. "I’m going to get some studying done."

Before her grandmother could respond, her mother cut in, her voice booming. "Go ahead! She’s got the Academic Decathlon competition tomorrow, she needs the time."

"She’s just a girl, don't put so much pressure on her," Aunt Nancy said.

"We never pressure her! She’s just like me—naturally competitive. If she were like her father, always letting people walk all over him, she’d be nothing. Right, Mom?"

Eden shut the bedroom door, a bitter smirk tugging at her lips. Since she was a child, she had noticed her mother’s habit of turning every sentence into a veiled accusation against her grandmother, always ending with that sharp, rhetorical, "Right, Mom?"

Her grandmother never fell for it.

Eden sat at the old sewing machine table, which served as her desk. She opened her competition prep book, but the noise from the living room was a dull, rhythmic headache.

"She needs to learn some real-world skills, too," her grandmother retorted. "Look at Rianne. She started working before she finished high school, and she’s doing just fine."

"Eden’s competition prize money alone will be enough to cover a few months of expenses," her mother snapped back, cold as ice.

Eden’s pen hovered over the pristine paper. She pressed down too hard; the ink bloomed into a jagged, black stain, ruining the page. She stared at the mess, feeling a hollow, creeping despair. Everyone around her was obsessed with pushing her toward a life in STEM, but they didn't know the truth: STEM felt like a fortress that slammed its doors in her face. *We don't want you here,* it seemed to say.

She was drifting. The real Eden didn't even have a place to call her own.

Why did she keep thinking of that sixth-grade boy who had told her so earnestly, "A bird should always fly where the flowers bloom"?

It was a lie. He hadn't given her any flowers. He had given them to someone else.

She was still the Eden who flew high, but had nothing to show for it.

***

During lunch, the table was a battlefield of one-upmanship. Her parents had nothing flashy to brag about, so they made Eden their trophy.

"City schools are just on another level," her mother bragged. "The kids in her class are all top-tier, but Eden? She’s the best of them. And unlike the others, she doesn't waste her time with teenage romances."

The conversation was cut short when her uncle received a phone call. His face fell. "The doctor called. Mom needs surgery for her back. It’s going to cost thousands of dollars."

Silence descended on the table.

"I don't have that kind of money right now," her mother said, not missing a beat. "We’re busy paying for Eden’s boarding school and living expenses. It’s not cheap."

"Can't you two pitch in?" her uncle asked.

"There’s nothing to discuss," her mother scoffed. "When the old house was sold, you took the entire inheritance. We agreed then—you handle her medical bills, we stay out of it."

"Get out!" Her father finally snapped, pulling her mother toward the door. They left, leaving Eden alone at the table.

She stood up to leave when Kaison, her young cousin, burst in, dumping a bucket of cold water over her.

"What are you doing!" Aunt Nancy followed him in, grabbing the boy. "I'm so sorry, Eden! Do you have something else to wear?"

Eden didn't answer. She grabbed her bag and walked out.

She was just tired. Tired of the perfection she was forced to maintain. Tired of the stains on her life that she could never scrub away. Tired of the fact that the boy she loved belonged to someone else.

***

She returned to her dorm, shivering. Her body felt like it was breaking; a fever was setting in. She went back to the classroom, her eyes finding Lucas immediately. He was slouched in the back row, gaming on his handheld device, his skin appearing hauntingly pale under the harsh fluorescent lights.

Why did she still look for him?

She watched his profile until her eyes burned. Then, she hurried away before anyone noticed.

The next morning, she could barely breathe through her stuffed nose. She bought a coffee for a desperate jolt of energy. Her desk in the exam hall was a nightmare—the chair was jammed into the gap between the desks. She tugged at it, her frustration mounting, until she yanked too hard, catching her finger in the sharp metal edge. Pain flared, hot and immediate.

"Don't pull it," a voice said. Lucas appeared, dropping his bag. "Let me."

He stepped in, his gaze lingering briefly on her injured fingertip.

The window behind her was broken, the heavy velvet curtain hanging by a single hook, letting the freezing winter wind howl against her back. She huddled in her seat, trying to ignore the chill.

Suddenly, she heard the rustle of fabric. The wind stopped. She glanced back. Lucas was holding the curtain shut with one hand while writing with the other.

"Lucas, leave the curtain alone and focus on the exam!"

"I can't. It’s freezing."

"You're a guy, surely you can handle a little wind?"

"I can't," he coughed, looking pointedly at her. "And if I can't, she definitely can't."

The proctor finally gave in and brought two school jackets. She tossed the thick, winter one at Lucas. "Take it, and stop fidgeting!"

"I don't want it, it’s too heavy."

Before she could blink, the heavy, warm fabric was draped over her shoulders. Lucas pulled the edges around her, tucking it in with meticulous care.

The sudden warmth wrapped around her like an embrace. Eden lowered her head to her desk, a single tear spilling over and tracking down her cheek.

During the break before the Physics exam, the math teacher stopped by. "Eden, I'm swamped. Can you help me grade these? Get them to my office before the next test starts."

Before she could answer, Lucas spoke up from behind her.

"Professor, can I have a crack at it? I’ll do it."

"Fine. Don't mess it up, or I'm coming for you," the teacher muttered, tossing the papers to him.

Eden ignored him, resting her hot forehead against the cold wall. Lucas was leaning forward, grading the papers, his shadow falling across the wall and overlapping with hers.

She stared at the wall, at the place where their shadows merged.

She asked herself again: *What is it you love about him?*

Is it his reckless attitude? His constant need to insert himself into her life? Or is it just that a single glance at him acts like a drug she can't quit?

Tears started to flow, soaking into the wall, washing over his shadow. The pain of the last few days—the physical exhaustion, the family’s cruelty, the sleepless nights—all coalesced in that one moment.

He used to be her trash can for all her misery. He used to laugh and call her pathetic while wiping away her tears.

But that Lucas was gone. This Lucas—the one sitting behind her—was a stranger who had chosen someone else.

Why did he have to be so kind? Why couldn't he just leave her alone?

She wanted to turn around and scream at him to get away from her. But as she sat there, soaking his shadow with her tears, she knew the truth: she didn't want him to leave. She was the one who was pathetic. She was the one who was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with a man who had already moved on.

And the worst part? She knew, with absolute certainty, that no matter how she felt, to him, she was already forgotten.