Chapter 1
Chapter One
I didn’t cry when we left San Antonio. I wanted to. I wanted the tears to come and soak my sweatshirt, to feel like something was leaking out of me so I didn’t have to carry it anymore. But nothing came.
Just a dull ache behind my eyes and the uncomfortable silence of the car engine humming beneath us.
Mom kept both hands on the wheel like she was gripping her own version of control. She didn’t say much. Just glanced at me sometimes, like she expected me to break apart quietly in the passenger seat and she wanted to be ready when it happened.
I didn’t. I wouldn’t.
Because if I cried, it meant Tyler mattered more than I wanted him to.
Instead, I leaned against the window, watching highways blur into fields and fields blur into clouds, and I let my mind go completely blank.
It was easier that way.
We reached Ashton by mid-afternoon, the sun hanging low and dusty behind the trees. The town looked exactly how Mom described it — too small, too clean, too full of “fresh starts” I didn’t ask for.
Our new house sat on a quiet, tree-lined street that felt like it had secrets buried under every porch step. It was older than I expected — white siding, blue shutters, a crooked mailbox with the name “Cruz” already taped over whatever was there before.
Mom parked the car and looked over at me with a weak smile. “We’re here.”
I looked up at the house and said nothing.
The inside smelled like lavender and old furniture.
It wasn’t bad, just unfamiliar. The walls were pale yellow, and the hardwood floors creaked with every step. Mom led me upstairs to what would be my room — corner windows, a slanted ceiling, and a twin bed with a plain white comforter. One box sat in the corner, labeled MALENA’S STUFF in black marker.
“You’ve got a good view of the backyard,” she offered.
I nodded.
“If you want to paint the walls, we can—”
“I’m good,” I said quickly, cutting her off.
She hesitated. “Okay. I’ll, uh… start on dinner.”
She didn’t wait for a response this time.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall for so long that I forgot to blink. The silence in the house stretched out around me like a blanket too tight to breathe under.
Later that night, I unpacked in slow motion.
Books went on the shelf. Clothes in the drawers. The picture frame with me and Addy — my best friend since middle school — on my nightstand. Our faces frozen mid-laugh, plastic tiaras crooked on our heads.
I stared at it for a long time.
Addy had texted me that morning:
Addy 👑: “Call me when you land. I’m not emotionally prepared to let you go 💔”
Addy 👑: “Also don’t turn into some quiet countryside poet girl. I’ll drag you back.”
I hadn’t replied yet.
I didn’t want to admit how much I missed her already. Or how much I hated being the girl who left everything behind.
My first night in Ashton, I dreamed about Tyler.
Not the version of him that left — distant, vague, always somewhere else. No. It was the version I met sophomore year, the one who sat next to me in biology and passed me notes with awful doodles and worse spelling.
The version that held my hand in the back row of the movie theater and made me believe love was simple.
When I woke up, my throat was tight, and the morning light hurt my eyes more than it should have.
The first day of school came too fast.
I stood in front of the mirror, trying to make my face look like I wasn’t falling apart inside. Hair in soft curls. Simple hoop earrings. Lip gloss. The illusion of confidence.
My outfit — a green crewneck tucked into loose jeans and black sneakers — said “I don’t care,” but the 20 minutes I spent picking it out said otherwise.
At breakfast, Mom offered me toast. I shook my head. She didn’t press it.
Instead, she handed me a folded piece of paper with the school’s address and a reminder to “breathe.”
I walked to school.
It was only ten minutes. Just long enough to second-guess everything I’d already decided about myself.
Ashton High looked like every high school in every movie that pretended high school was beautiful. Tall windows. Red brick. Ivy on the side wall like it grew there specifically for yearbook photos.
Students crowded the steps and courtyard like bees in a too-small hive. I kept my head down.
Inside, it smelled like paper, floor wax, and too much perfume. I picked up my schedule at the front office and found an empty spot in the hall to study it.
Second period math. Third period English. Lunch. Fourth period history. Fifth period art. Sixth period chemistry.
I tried not to let the weight of it sink in. This was it. My new life. My new reality.
And none of these people knew who I used to be.
The first class was a blur. I sat in the back, took fake notes, and kept my answers in my head. The teacher smiled too much. The girl next to me asked if I was new. I said yes. She didn’t ask anything else.
Second period, I got lost and ended up outside the gym. I stood there too long, trying to pretend I wasn’t panicking.
A janitor finally pointed me in the right direction.
By lunch, I had a headache.
I didn’t sit in the cafeteria. I found a bench near the back courtyard and ate a granola bar I found in the bottom of my bag. No one bothered me. No one noticed.
I told myself that was a good thing.
By the end of the day, I had two things I didn’t have that morning: a map of the school and a small headache from overthinking everything.
I got home to find Mom at the stove, stirring something in a pot.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“Make any friends?”
“Not really.”
She didn’t ask more. She just nodded and said, “Dinner’ll be ready in twenty.”
I went upstairs and stared at my ceiling until it got dark.
That night, Addy FaceTimed me.
I almost didn’t answer.
But when I saw her face pop up, her background a chaotic mess of clothes and glitter pens, I couldn’t help it.
“Okay, I hate this,” she said immediately. “Your room is so beige. It’s criminal.”
“I haven’t decorated.”
“You need color. Personality. A flag. A curse.”
I smiled, just barely.
“You sound like you live in a whisper,” she added. “Did they drain your soul over there or just your Wi-Fi?”
“It’s fine,” I said.
She frowned. “Lena…”
“I just… don’t feel like myself yet.”
There was a long pause.
“You will,” she said finally. “Or you’ll become someone even better.”
I didn’t believe her. But it helped to hear it anyway.
That weekend, I walked to the library.
The librarian was older, wore cardigans like armor, and barely looked up when I asked for a new library card.
I spent two hours in the fiction section and left with four books.
Back at home, I curled up on the window seat in my room and read until sunset, trying to fill the silence with borrowed words.
I didn’t meet anyone important that first week.
I barely made eye contact with anyone. I went to class, I took notes, I disappeared into the background.
But in the last period of Friday — chemistry — someone sat next to me.
He didn’t speak. Just dropped his bag and took the seat like it belonged to him. Tall, quiet, smelled like cedar and clean laundry.
I glanced sideways.
He caught me looking.
He didn’t smile.
I didn’t either.
But something… shifted.
And for the first time all week, I felt something.
Just a flicker. A whisper. A spark.
