Liana barely slept the night before.
She kept thinking about her parents' silence at dinner, her sister's fake laugh echoing in her mind, and her brother's careless requests for money like he lived in another world.
But today… she was determined to breathe. To exist. To keep going.
As she walked through the front gates of Regal Heights, she felt every pair of eyes turn to her. Whispers trailed behind her like shadows, clinging tightly.
Then she saw it.
Her steps faltered.
At the center of the courtyard, beneath the marble sculpture of the school's crest, stood a table covered in thick, dried paint. Her paints. Her sketches. All ruined, again.
And scrawled across the top in blood-red spray paint:
"Scholarship Trash. Go back to where you came from."
Liana froze.
Her chest burned. Not with sadness—but humiliation. Rage. And the quiet ache of injustice.
Someone bumped into her.
"Don't stand in the way," the girl scoffed.
Bianca appeared at her side seconds later, her face pale with fury. "Who did this?" she hissed. "Tell me who did this and I swear, I'll—"
"Don't," Liana whispered.
"Liana—"
"I said don't."
She forced her feet to move, one step at a time, walking past the ruined table like it didn't exist.
But inside?
Inside, something had cracked.
And someone had just lit a match.
From the rooftop, hidden behind a tinted window, Xavier watched it all unfold.
And for the first time in a long time, guilt crawled into his chest and stayed there.