The evening air carried a quiet stillness through the mansion, the kind that only settled after a long, exhausting day.
The faint hum of the city outside barely reached Flora's room. Her books lay untouched, her phone screen dim beside them.
She should've been studying, or sleeping but her thoughts kept looping back to the day's events: the laughter in the PE, the whispers in the hallway, and Liam's calm voice in the canteen telling her not to let others decide her worth and.....his involvement in cleaning up rumors, truth or false she have no idea.
It had been hours since then, but the weight of it all still pressed against her chest.
She unlocked her phone, scrolling aimlessly through her contact list. Names blurred together,classmates, family numbers she barely used, and then… Shane.
They'd exchanged numbers in the library day ago, but neither had texted since. She hesitated, thumb hovering over the name. It wasn't that she wanted to talk , she just didn't want to feel so alone in this silence.
Her finger slipped.
A message sent before she could stop it:
"You ever wish you could just disappear for a while?"
Her heart froze. No, no, no She opened the chat to delete it, but the screen blinked with a new message.
Shane: "Depends. Are we disappearing together or separately?"
Flora stared at the words, startled into a laugh that sounded foreign even to her.
Flora: "Sorry, that wasn't meant to send. I was just…"
Shane: "Thinking too loudly?"
She paused. Somehow, he'd read her perfectly.
Flora: "Yeah. Something like that."
Shane: "Then it's fine. I don't mind being the person you text by accident."
There was something oddly gentle in his tone not teasing, not distant. Just… there. Present.
Flora: "You're not busy?"
Shane: "Not really. Just finished fixing the circuit board in the kitchen. Power kept flickering again."
Flora: "You really fiddle with it as if you were a master."
Shane: "Well, someone has to make sure it doesn't fall apart. Besides… it's quieter when I'm working."
Flora smiled faintly at that, picturing him in the dimly lit kitchen, sleeves rolled up, completely absorbed in something simple.
Flora: "You like quiet, don't you?"
Shane: "Only when it's the good kind. Not the kind that feels heavy."
Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard.
Flora: "Today… wasn't great."
Shane: "I know."
Flora: "You saw?"
Shane: "Heard. Word gets around fast in this place."
Flora: "Guess it does."
There was a pause. She wondered if she'd said too much, but then his next message came, slower this time.
Shane: "You handled it better than most would've."
Flora: "Doesn't feel like it."
Shane: "You don't always see it when you're in it. But you'll look back one day and realize it mattered that you didn't break."
For a moment, she didn't reply. The words lingered on the screen, simple, steady, sincere.
Flora: "You're oddly good at this."
Shane: "At what?"
Flora: "Saying the right things."
Shane: "Maybe I've just been around people who needed to hear them."
The conversation slowed after that. Neither seemed eager to end it, but neither wanted to admit that they didn't want to stop talking.
Finally, Flora sent a last message before setting her phone down:
"Thanks, Shane."
His reply came almost instantly.
"You don't need to thank me for caring."
The room fell quiet again, but it wasn't the lonely kind anymore. Somewhere below, she could hear faint movement, maybe brandon closing a door, maybe nothing at all.
Flora lay back on her bed, phone still in her hand, her thoughts softer now.
She didn't know what are her thoughts about him yet, not completely. but for the first time that day, she didn't feel like disappearing.