Six years earlier.
I met Alaina Winslow in seventh grade, the year we moved to Silver Hollow, Colorado.
By then, moving wasn't an event. It wasn't even an inconvenience. It was just something my life did, the way seasons change or clocks tick whether you're watching them or not. Virginia. Alaska. California. Now Colorado. Pack, unpack, repeat until the boxes feel more permanent than the walls.
My dad said this one was different. Said we were done moving.
I didn't believe him.
He always said things like that at the beginning of a new place, like maybe if he said it enough times it would eventually become true. He was a quantum physicist assigned to various sites, different projects. It had a way of uprooting everything just when it started to feel normal.
I'd learned not to get attached. I didn't believe in "permanent". Not houses. Not schools. Definitely not people.
Still...there was this small, stupid part of me that had hoped school wouldn't even open that year.
It was 2020. The world had already learned how to shut itself down. There were still numbers on the news, still reasons to stay home, to keep distance, to exist behind screens where nobody could really look at you. I was good at that version of life. A muted microphone. A camera I could turn off whenever I wanted to disappear.
But of course, Molly Brown Middle School wasn't interested in caution. They were opening back up in August. Masks required, sure. But bodies in the hallways, eyes on you. No escape.
The PTA sent out glossy postcards like it was a grand reopening instead of a risk. Bright colors. Smiling kids. Welcome back!
I remember standing in the front office during registration, the smell of disinfectant hitting the back of my throat, harsh and chemical. My paperwork was clutched too tight in my hands, edges bending under my fingers.
Two girls sat off to the side, pretending not to stare. They always pretend.
Every school has them. Different faces, same energy. The kind of girls who think hierarchy is something you're born into, like eye color or bone structure.
Butt sniffers—that's what I called them. The busybodies. The kind of people who made a hobby out of other people's lives, always prying, always meddling, always digging for something they could twist, pocket, and save for later. Butt sniffers.
And I had just walked straight into their dog park.
I knew that look. I'd seen it in every school, in every state. The quick scan—clothes, posture, shoes, hair. The silent judgment.
Nothing subtle about it. They might as well have been pointing a blinking sign at me: NEW GIRL! NEW GIRL! NEW GIRL!
I'd learned early how to deal with it. You make yourself smaller. Quieter. Forgettable. Invisible, if you can manage it.
The problem was...I couldn't. Not here.
As much as I tried to blend in, I knew I stood out. In Silver Hollow, standing out wasn't just a social inconvenience. It was a kind of quiet crime, the sort that got noticed in the way people notice a flickering porch light or a dog that won't stop barking at night.
My hair back then didn't help. It was cut into this spiky pixie thing I'd gotten in California, all pointy edges and attitude. There, it had been cute. Here, it might as well have been a siren bolted to my head. Heads turned. Conversations stalled mid-sentence. People stared like they were trying to figure out what I was supposed to be.
I could feel it in the way conversations dipped when I passed, like someone lowering the volume on a radio but not quite turning it off.
Silver Hollow didn't like surprises. And I was one. So, I tried my best to make myself small. Well, small*-er*.
I'd always been small. Limber. Agile. Built like someone who could balance on a beam four inches wide without thinking about it. Once, that had meant something.
Back in California, I lived in a gym that smelled like chalk dust and rubber mats. My mom used to sit in the bleachers, legs crossed, clapping louder than anyone when I stuck a landing. Even when it wasn't perfect. Especially when it wasn't perfect.
She said that's where the real work showed. She'd sworn I had a natural gift for it.
That life ended the day she did.
After she passed, gymnastics didn't just lose importance. It lost meaning. Like someone had reached into it and pulled the center out, leaving the rest to collapse in on itself. It had always been more her dream than mine. Without her there to watch, to believe in it, the whole thing felt pointless.
The leotards stayed folded in a drawer. The routines faded. The muscle memory stuck around just long enough to feel like a ghost.
Grief isn't always loud. Sometimes it doesn't scream or break things. Sometimes it just quietly removes the meaning from things you used to love, like someone sneaking into your room at night and taking pieces of you while you sleep.
I had to grow up fast after that. I'd already been the responsible one—the kind of kid who remembered homework, set alarms, didn't need to be told twice. But after, responsibility wasn't a trait anymore. It was survival. There's a difference between helping out and realizing no one's coming to help you.
My dad was still there...technically. Same man. Same tired eyes that always looked like they were focused on something just slightly out of reach.
But being there and being present aren't always the same thing.
He was good at a few very specific things. He understood physics. Systems. Problems with clear solutions.
But anything that fell under the category of girl things might as well have been written in another language. Which was a problem.
My body, like it had its own cruel sense of timing, decided that was the perfect time to start changing.
At first, I didn't even notice. Why would I? It wasn't like there was a big announcement, no drumroll. Just small, quiet shifts. The boys at school noticed before I did.
One day I wore a plain t-shirt, nothing special, and suddenly there were looks. Whispers. That low, stupid giggling that crawls under your skin and stays there. I didn't understand it at first. I thought maybe there was something on my shirt, or my hair was doing something weird.
It took a few days and another t-shirt for it to click.
They weren't big. Not even close. Barely anything, really. But it was enough. Enough to be seen. Enough to be talked about. Enough to make me want to disappear into my own skin.
I did the only thing I could think of. I asked my dad to take me to Target.
You would've thought I'd asked him to help me disarm a bomb.
He didn't say no, exactly. But the way his face tightened, the way he cleared his throat like the air had suddenly turned to sawdust—it said enough. This was outside his skill set. Way outside. Still, he grabbed his keys, and we drove in this awkward silence that felt louder than any argument.
Inside the store, it got worse.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, too bright, too exposing. The aisles stretched out like some kind of maze designed to make you second-guess every direction. I thought I knew where I was going. My dad, on the other hand, hovered for about ten seconds before veering off like a man fleeing a crime scene.
"Just remembered...uh...we need a Phillips screwdriver," he said, already backing off like the situation might explode.
And just like that, I was on my own.
I found the section eventually. Rows of soft fabrics and pastel colors. Neatly packaged embarrassment.
I stood there longer than I needed to, pretending to read labels I didn't understand, hoping no one would notice me. Like maybe if I stayed still long enough, I'd blend into the shelves.
Blending in had been easier in California. Attention there felt temporary, shared, almost...harmless.
But now I was in Silver Hollow where attention was like a swarm of gnats around your face on a humid summer evening—persistent, maddening, impossible to wave off no matter how hard you tried.
On my first day at Molly Brown Middle School, I picked a desk near the back. Not too far because teachers notice that. Not too close either. There's a sweet spot, a statistical middle ground where attention slides right past you. It's almost mathematical.
Shoulders in. Head down. Speak only if spoken to.
It usually works. Usually.
"Looks like we have a new student joining us this year. Class, this is Mora."
Of course.
I felt every head in the room turn toward me like magnets snapping into place.
"Mara," I corrected quietly.
Mrs. Ledford, who wore her face mask both defiantly and pointlessly under her chin, smiled—too wide, too many teeth. "Sorry, dear. Where are you from, Mara?"
There's always that question. It sounds simple, but it never is.
I ran the options quickly. Virginia sounded too boring. Alaska sounded like a lie. California always got a reaction.
"California," I said.
Right on cue, a few girls near the windows leaned toward each other, whispering. A soft ripple of laughter followed.
I stared at my desk and counted the grooves in the wood until the moment passed. That's how I got through most things back then. I didn't react. I observed. People reveal more when they think you're not paying attention.
Then I saw her.
Alaina Winslow sat two rows over, angled slightly toward the windows. Not slouched, not rigid—just...present. Like she actually existed in the room instead of trying to disappear from it.
Her hair caught the light first. Honey-blonde, threaded with lighter strands that looked almost gold where the sun hit them. Her eyes were a pale blue, somewhere between ice and steel.
She wasn't staring at me like the others. But she was watching. Not in a judgmental way. Just in a noticing way. Like she could see things other people missed.
I looked away first.
The rest of class blurred together—numbers on the board, the scratch of pencils, the low hum of whispered conversations that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with me at the same time.
And then—Plop.
It was a small sound. Almost nothing. But I noticed everything.
I glanced up just in time to see it: a bright pink wad of gum stuck against the cover of an algebra book.
Not mine. Hers.
Alaina held the book upright like a shield, her arm still slightly extended from the motion. Two girls in the corner—window seats, the butt-sniffers—were trying not to laugh.
The trajectory had been obvious. Even I could see that. It had been meant for me.
Alaina lowered the book slowly, staring at the gum like it had personally offended her.
Then she looked at them.
"Stop it."
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't make a scene.
But something in the way she said it—certain and unflinching—cut through the room sharper than yelling ever could.
The girls rolled their eyes, but they didn't throw anything else.
Alaina peeled the gum off with a piece of paper, like it was nothing. Like she hadn't just stepped directly into something that had nothing to do with her.
Like it hadn't mattered. But it had.
People don't do that. Not for strangers. Not when it's easier to look away. I knew that better than anyone.
At lunch, I chose the farthest end of the most empty table I could find. Social distancing was never a problem for me. I'd been doing it my whole life.
This was the only place we were allowed to remove our face masks. But we had to put them right back on when we were finished eating.
Cafeterias, no matter which school or which state they're in, are chaos. Noise ricochets off every surface. Laughter, shouting, trays clattering—it all blends into something overwhelming if you're not careful.
I kept my head down, unwrapped my sandwich, and focused on small things. The crinkle of plastic. The pattern in the tabletop. The rhythm of my own breathing.
"Hey, new girl. Mind if I join you?"
I looked up.
Alaina stood there, tray in hand, one eyebrow slightly raised like she already expected my answer.
For a second, I didn't say anything.
Part of me—the smaller, quieter part—felt something close to relief.
The rest of me didn't trust it.
People don't just choose you. Not without a reason.
"Sure," I said finally. "I mean, I don't mind."
She sat across from me, setting her tray down with a soft clatter before removing her face mask. "Cool. Because every other table looks like a reality show I didn't sign up for."
I blinked.
She shook her chocolate milk, completely serious. "If someone flips a table, I'm leaving...just so you know."
Despite myself, I almost smiled. Almost.
"So," she said, glancing up at me, "California, huh?"
"Yeah. Well...mostly." I hesitated, then added, "My dad works for...DARPA. We move a lot."
Something shifted in her expression. Not pity, not exactly. Understanding, maybe.
"Where else?" She seemed genuinely curious.
"Virginia. Alaska."
Her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened.
"Alaska?" she smiled. "Wow, that's intense. I complain when it hits, like, thirty here."
"It was cold," I said.
"Shocking."
Her mouth curved slightly, like she was holding back a joke she might or might not say.
Then she leaned back a little, studying me—not in a way that made me want to disappear, but in a way that made me feel...seen.
"You almost got hit earlier," she said.
I stiffened. "I know."
"They do that sometimes," she said. "Mostly when they're bored. Or insecure. Or both."
I didn't respond. She didn't push.
That was the other thing I noticed about Alaina. She paid attention. But she didn't force things. She waited. Most people fill silence because they're uncomfortable with it. She didn't seem to be.
I turned the moment over in my head again—the gum, the timing, the way she'd moved without hesitation.
"You didn't have to do that," I said finally.
She tilted her head. "Do what?"
"The...gum thing."
"Oh." She shrugged, like I'd just reminded her to breathe. "Yeah, I did."
"No, you didn't," I said. "It wasn't—"
"—my problem?" she finished, one eyebrow raised.
I nodded.
She picked at the corner of her napkin, thinking for a second.
Then she said, "It was when I saw it."
Simple. Matter-of-fact. Like that explained everything. Maybe to her, it did.
I looked at her then. At the freckles across her nose. The steady, unflinching way she met my eyes. The complete lack of hesitation in her voice.
She wasn't fearless. I could tell that much already.
But she didn't look away from things just because they were uncomfortable.
She stepped in. Even when it would've been easier not to. Especially then.
That didn't make sense to me. But I couldn't stop noticing it. Couldn't stop...admiring it.
"Thanks," I said quietly.
She waved it off like it was nothing, already reaching for her milk again.
"Don't worry," she said. "I won't let them bother you."
And somehow, the way she said it—like it was already decided—made me believe her.