Chapter 2

Chapter 2 

Mae’s POV

“No.”

The word barely escaped my lips.

There was absolutely no way.

The boy I remembered had warm eyes and a gentle smile. He had stepped in front of me on a playground while everyone else laughed. He had whispered, “It’s okay,” like he actually meant it.

The person walking through Blackthorn Elite’s hallway right now looked like he had never said anything gently in his life.

Cole Ashford moved like the academy belonged to him and he still hadn’t decided whether the rest of us deserved to exist in it.

The hallway responded accordingly.

Girls straightened without realizing they were doing it. Guys shifted aside to clear his path. Even the two teachers standing nearby suddenly became very interested in anything that wasn’t him.

I watched it all happen in the span of ten seconds and felt something cold settle at the base of my spine.

This was not the boy from the playground.

This was something else entirely.

Slowly, I became aware that my feet had taken a step toward him without my permission.

I stopped immediately.

Get it together, Mae.

My grip tightened around the tissue in my hand, the paper already stained black from the marker that refused to disappear completely. I turned back to my locker. Kept scrubbing. Kept my head down.

Then his gaze found me anyway.

I felt it before I saw it.

That heavy, deliberate awareness of being looked at by someone who never had to look twice at anyone.

My eyes lifted without permission, and suddenly Cole Ashford was staring directly at me from across the crowded hallway.

Everything went silent in a way that had nothing to do with sound.

His eyes weren’t warm.

They weren’t cruel either.

Just sharp. Calculating. Slightly narrowed, like I was a problem he was trying to figure out the size of.

His gaze moved from my face to my locker. To the smeared black words still bleeding across the metal door.

GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM.

Still there.

Still ugly.

Still refusing to disappear no matter how hard I scrubbed.

A few students nearby went quiet, and suddenly I was painfully aware of how I looked—ink-stained fingers, tissue clenched too tightly in my hand, standing in front of proof that Blackthorn had already decided exactly what I was worth on my very first day.

The moment stretched one second too long.

Then a girl appeared at Cole’s side, slipping around his arm with practiced ease.

“Cole,” she whined softly, pouting up at him. “You promised you’d sit with us.”

His attention left me instantly.

Heat crawled up my neck so fast it almost hurt, and somehow, that felt worse than if he’d laughed.

Of course he doesn’t remember you.

I turned back to my locker.

You were six. So was he. Let it go.

The marker still wouldn’t come off completely.

“Rough first day?”

I nearly dropped the tissue.

A guy leaned casually against the locker beside mine, like hallways had never made him nervous a day in his life. Brown curls. A hockey jacket hanging carelessly over his uniform like rules was more of a suggestion to him. Friendly eyes that actually reached his smile—which immediately made him the rarest thing I’d encountered at Blackthorn Elite all day.

“I’ve had better,” I admitted carefully.

His gaze flicked to my locker, and something crossed his face.

“They started early.”

“They?”

He looked at me with the patient expression of someone explaining bad weather to a tourist.

“You’re new.”

“That obvious?”

“Painfully.”

Despite everything—the locker, the tissue, the humiliating words, the lingering memory of Cole Ashford’s stare—a laugh escaped me.

Real.

Slightly horrified at itself.

He smiled like he’d been waiting for it.

“Jason Reed.” He held out his hand like we were meeting at some business conference instead of beside my public humiliation.

I shook it cautiously. “Mae.”

“Scholarship?”

I let out a sigh that seemed to come from my entire soul. “Is there a sign tattooed on my forehead or something?”

“No sign.” He pushed away from the locker casually. “Blackthorn just has a very efficient system for making sure everyone knows exactly where they stand.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but something in his expression shifted first.

The easy friendliness in Jason’s expression faded almost instantly.

I turned before he could say anything. Immediately I caught sight of Cole Ashford who had stopped walking.

He stood three lockers away with his hockey bag hanging loosely from one shoulder, his head tilted slightly like he was trying to place something just out of reach. The girl clinging to his arm was still talking, rambling about seating arrangements and someone named Brice, but Cole wasn’t paying attention to her anymore.

He was looking at me, not the way he had earlier from across the hallway. That look had been cold and distant, the kind you gave a stranger while deciding whether they mattered.

This felt different.

The air suddenly felt too tight in my lungs.

I held his gaze for one dangerous second before looking away first. My stomach twisted painfully in a way I refused to examine too closely.

He doesn’t recognize you.

I shouldn't bother, it's been eleven years. What do I expect? 

I turned back to my locker and resumed the hopeless task of wiping away the black ink staining the metal.

He’s staring because you look pathetic standing here covered in marker stains. That’s all this is.

The bell rang overhead sharply.

Instantly, the hallway exploded into motion. Students scattered in every direction with the smooth confidence of people who had spent years learning exactly where they belonged.

Unlike me. I shoved the ruined tissue into my bag and adjusted the strap over my shoulder, trying to gather the few scraps of dignity I had left. I turned toward Jason, ready to ask where the east wing classrooms were but Jason wasn’t looking at me anymore.

He was watching Cole. And somehow, that made my pulse quicken even more.

Then Cole took another step closer.

“Mae Lawson.”

My breath caught.

Hearing my name in his voice did something strange to me. It sounded deliberate. Familiar in a way it shouldn’t have been.

I went completely still.

He shouldn’t know my name. It's been a long time. And I wasn't ready to think about what that means. 

We had never spoken before except when I was six years old. I didn't introduce myself. 

So how did he know who I was?

Slowly, I turned back around.

His eyes locked onto mine immediately.

That same unreadable expression remained on his face. 

“How do you know my name?” I asked softly.

For a second, he didn’t answer.

The hallway noise faded behind us while students continued rushing past, throwing curious glances in our direction.

Then the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

“Welcome to Blackthorn,” he said quietly.

The words should have sounded polite.

Instead, they felt like a warning.