Chapter 1
It was on a Monday that the rain fell in London with such deliberate grace, one might've believed it mourned something. I stood by the window of St. Augustine's Comprehensive, watching the water stitch silver threads through the iron sky. Around me, the classroom bustled with the peculiar theatre of adolescence-shrieks, laughter, hormones colliding like unwatched fireworks. But none of it touched me.
It never does.
There's a name for it-my condition, I mean. Type V Systemic Hyperallergy. Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, doesn't it? In simple terms, my immune system doesn't know the difference between a handshake and a biohazard. Touch me, and it overreacts. Violently. The worst part? It isn't just skin contact. A strong scent, a brush of dust, a whiff of perfume-the world itself is out to kill me.
So I live like a shadow. Covered up. Careful. Always calculating the distance between me and... everything.
"Eli, you're spacing again," said Mr Thornley, his voice peeling through the fog of my thoughts. I blinked and turned. He stood in front of the whiteboard, arms folded in theatrical dismay
"Apologies, sir. I was... observing the rainfall."
He narrowed his eyes, unsure whether to be annoyed or impressed. Maya coughed somewhere behind me. That girl has the peculiar gift of making even a cough sound like an inside joke.
I didn't turn around.
The bell rang. Chairs scraped, bags rustled, feet shuffled. I waited, as always, for the herd to thin. It's less dangerous that way.
"You never eat in the cafeteria," someone said behind me. Her voice was light, unbothered. I knew it was Maya.
"Too crowded," I replied without turning. "Too contaminated."
"You make it sound like a warzone."
"To me, it is."
A pause.
"I've never seen you touch anyone. Not once. Not even on accident. Why?"
I inhaled, slowly. The kind of breath you take when you're balancing on a wire, deciding whether to step forward or vanish.
"Because I can't afford to. My body sees contact as an attack. My immune system goes haywire. I once shook someone's hand and spent three days in hospital with a reaction they thought was anaphylactic shock. I was six."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"So... what, you just go through life avoiding everyone?"
"I go through life surviving. There's a difference."
I slung my bag over one shoulder and stepped into the corridor. She didn't follow. But I could still feel her question in the air, like static.
And beneath my layers-gloves, hoodie, filtered scarf-my skin itched with the ghost of a feeling I hadn't known in years.
Longing.
