Scarlet couldn't pinpoint when things shifted. It wasn't just one moment; it felt more like a slow, quiet change, like a door easing shut when she wasn't paying attention.
Rudd had gone mostly silent around her this week. No more walks after prep. No sneaky looks across the classroom. No text messages filled with those random little insights that used to make her chuckle to herself. Just... space. It wasn't hostile or loud, just an emptiness.
She hated how much she found herself missing him.
"You sure you're not going to cry over this boy?" Kiki asked one night in the dorm. Scarlet didn't respond. Amara shot Kiki a look and quietly handed her hoodie to Scarlet. She buried her face in it, letting silence speak for her.
Rudd was still Rudd—still turning up to class, still helping Mr. Okoye reset the lab gear after school, still jotting down notes during morning assembly. But something was missing; his eyes didn't linger on her anymore. And she couldn't bring herself to ask why.
She felt like screaming.
Dapo had been watching all this unfold.
He noticed the change way before most other people did. Maybe because he was new, or maybe because he actually paid attention. Either way, he found himself sitting next to Scarlet more often, offering to help her study, and telling quiet jokes that would make her smile, even when she didn't mean to.
"I saw your painting on the art board," he mentioned after Literature class. "The one with the cracked mirror and the girl looking into it. That's yours, right?"
Scarlet blinked in surprise. "Yeah... how did you know?"
"Just seemed like something you would do."
Then he walked away. No need to explain further, no smirk, just leaving her to think about what his comment could mean.
In Chemistry, Rudd was at the far end of the lab. Mr. Okoye had split them into two groups for the salt titration. Scarlet's group was louder than usual—Dapo was helping her with the pipette measurements, and Amara kept teasing them about being like a science couple.
Rudd didn't react, but he felt his hand shake as he dropped the indicator into his solution.
"Careful," Zara whispered from beside him. She was the girl from Art class—smart, straightforward, and almost annoyingly observant.
"You're going to break that burette if you keep squeezing like that."
He relaxed his grip. "I'm good."
"Sure."
She let it go.
At lunch, Junior, the SS1 student who had been serving detention with Rudd, jumped into his seat next to him.
"You know the girl with the braids? She smiled at me today. I think I might be in love."
Rudd managed to force a smile.
Junior squinted at him. "You okay?"
Rudd nodded.
"You don't look it."
He stayed quiet. Junior carried on anyway, spinning a wild tale about how he and his crush were going to run away to Ghana and start a jollof rice business. Rudd found the distraction useful, even if he barely caught half of what was said.
That Friday, Scarlet ended up alone behind the art room, leaning against the wall with her sketchbook in her lap. Dapo discovered her there.
"You always vanish after school," he remarked.
She glanced at him, then back down at her incomplete sketch.
"I like the quiet."
"Mind if I mess it up?"
She smiled faintly and shrugged.
They sat in silence for a bit, then he asked, "Ever wonder if people leave before you get a chance to ask them to stay?"
She hesitated. "Yeah, all the time."
When she looked at him again, his eyes had a softness that made her uneasy. Not because it was wrong, but because it shouldn't be coming from him.
She closed her sketchbook and stood up. "I should go."
He didn't stop her.
That night, Rudd lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling and counting the dots of light streaming through the slats in the window. He thought about how Scarlet had laughed in the lab, how Dapo looked at her, and how he hadn't spoken to her in nearly ten days.
He was losing her.
And somehow, it felt like he couldn't do a thing about it.