Chapter 2 – Queen of Everything
(Ruby's POV | ~3400 words)
The first time I heard Sam Walker speak wasn't in person.
It was over the morning announcements.
Her voice was low and calm, like she didn't care if anyone was listening — which only made everyone want to.
"Please don't climb over the east-side fence again. You know who you are."
"Science Club is meeting after school today. No, I still don't know what they do there."
"There's gum under the announcements mic. I'm emotionally disturbed."
No fake cheeriness. No eager tone.
Just soft sarcasm delivered like gospel, and somehow, the hallways went quiet every time she spoke.
That voice made you look up.
Even if you didn't want to admit it.
Even if she wasn't talking to you.
Before I knew who she was, I recognized her sound.
Then I saw her.
And everything started unraveling.
Sam Walker walked like the floor belonged to her.
Not in an arrogant way. Not stomping or flipping her hair like some cliché mean girl from a teen drama.
She just moved with this strange confidence — like she'd already walked these halls in another life and didn't have anything to prove.
Her uniform was always a little off — shirt half-untucked, tie knotted loosely like she'd rolled out of bed five minutes before first bell.
Her sleeves were always pushed up.
Her sneakers were scuffed in the cool kind of way, not the "can't afford new ones" kind like mine.
She didn't need to follow the rules.
The rules just sort of… worked around her.
Everywhere she went, people reacted.
Teachers paused longer when saying her name during roll call.
Upperclassmen nodded at her in the halls like they wanted to be remembered.
Even the juniors in student council held their clipboards tighter when she walked into the room.
There were entire hallway ecosystems built around her schedule — people trying to "bump into her" between third and fourth period, even if their next class was two floors away.
And the wildest part?
She never asked for any of it.
She barely noticed it.
Which, of course, made it worse.
Becky once said, "She's not the sun. She's the moon. Quiet, distant, still somehow pulling everyone into orbit."
Felix had replied, "Yeah, and she's also probably the type to casually solve a murder during lunch and then go back to eating fries."
I'd laughed. But honestly?
They were both kind of right.
Last year, during a sudden downpour, the courtyard flooded. Everyone scrambled for shelter like wet cats — shrieking, running, slipping over soaked concrete.
But Sam?
Sam stayed behind to help a junior who had dropped a whole stack of design posters for art club.
She didn't say anything dramatic. Didn't ask anyone to clap for her.
She just knelt down — soaking her jeans, completely ruining her shoes — and helped him gather his papers one by one.
That moment went viral on our school group chat.
Someone zoomed in on her face and posted it with the caption: Rain has favorites.
By that evening, five anonymous fan accounts had reposted it.
One of them was me.
Quietly.
Anonymously.
With a soft little ache in my chest I didn't know how to name yet.
People whispered things about her.
Some said she was rich-rich. Like vacation-house-with-a-heli-pad rich.
Others said her parents were cold, corporate types who sent her to boarding school for half the year and barely showed up for anything.
That part? Probably true.
She never came to PTA nights.
Never mentioned siblings.
Never had the kind of after-school rides that involved awkward parent waves from the parking lot.
She always walked alone. Or with Alex.
But even when surrounded, Sam felt solitary. Untouchable.
Today was no different.
We were in the cafeteria when she walked in, and the room went just a little quieter — not silent, but aware.
She passed table after table, her tray balanced in one hand, hair slightly damp from gym class. Someone tried to offer her a seat; she shook her head politely and kept walking.
She sat at her usual spot — corner table, near the windows, beside Alex Jones.
Alex was everything she wasn't — loud, flirty, performative.
People assumed they were a couple.
They weren't. At least, not in any real way.
Everyone knew their families had some kind of arrangement.
Like: You two look good together. Try to make it work for the sake of the business dinner invitations.
But they were more… coexisting.
Sam ignored most of his jokes. Alex didn't seem to mind. He liked the attention either way.
Today, she was scrolling her phone, earbuds in. Alex was laughing at something he said.
She didn't even glance at him.
"Ruby," Becky whispered, elbowing me. "You're doing it again."
"I'm not doing anything."
"Your eyes literally glazed over like a romance book cover."
Felix leaned across the table and stage-whispered, "Quick! Rate your gay panic level from one to full cardiac arrest."
I grabbed a fry from his tray. "Solid seven. Don't push it."
"She's not even looking at you," Becky teased.
"She doesn't need to," I said before I could stop myself.
They both paused.
Then Felix, of course, broke into a smug grin. "Oh, wow. That was so tragically poetic I felt it in my spleen."
"Shut up."
But it was true.
She didn't need to look.
Sam Walker could be facing an entirely different continent and I'd still feel like the air around her moved differently.
She had that kind of presence.
That kind of pull.
Sometimes I imagined what it would be like to talk to her.
Just once.
Like — she drops her book, I pick it up, we both reach for it, our hands brush, time slows, and she says something like, "Thanks. You're Ruby, right?"
And I'd say, "Yeah. You're Sam."
And she'd smile and say, "I know."
It was pathetic.
But when you live most of your life on the edges, fantasy is just survival with better lighting.
Today, though?
Today, something happened.
Something I'm still not convinced I didn't dream.
Sam stood up from her table — and as she walked toward the cafeteria exit, she looked across the room.
At me.
Not vaguely.
Not "scanning the crowd."
Directly.
Our eyes locked.
Just for a second.
But it happened.
I forgot how to breathe.
"Did she just—" I whispered.
Felix turned to look, but Sam was already gone.
"I think she was looking at me," I said quietly.
Becky leaned in, whispering like we were plotting a heist. "Or through you. You know. The 'ethereal ghost girl in the background of a tragic indie film' look."
"Comforting."
"I'm kidding," she said, nudging me. "She looked. And you glowed. End of story."
After school, I took the long way to my locker.
Past the art block. Around the side hall.
And then down the hallway where the announcements club met — a room I pretended to be curious about when in reality, I just wanted to see if she was in there.
She was.
Half-sitting on the edge of a desk, reading from a printout, her lips moving as she practiced the next morning's announcements.
I didn't go in.
Didn't say anything.
Just stood around the corner like a coward.
Listened to her voice.
And walked away before she noticed.
Or maybe… before she could prove she wouldn't.
Back home, I pulled open the top drawer of my desk.
Inside: a crumpled pink note with a doodle and half a phone number. Something she'd tossed in the trash last week.
I'd pulled it out.
I don't know why.
Okay — I do know why.
Because it had her handwriting.
Because it had once sat in her hands.
Because I'm ridiculous.
Because sometimes people like me fall in love with metaphors before we realize they're actually people — flawed, complex, and utterly unreachable.
"She's too much," I texted Becky.
Becky replied instantly.
And you're too scared.
I didn't respond.
Because she was right.
[End of Chapter 2 – Queen of Everything]
She looked my way for two seconds.
And I've been living in those seconds ever since.