That evening, she didn't text him. Not even when her phone buzzed once—then twice—with his name lighting up the screen. She turned it face down and focused on her homework, though the words blurred together, meaningless.
You promised yourself you wouldn't rush, she reminded herself.
You promised you'd watch. You'd listen.
So she did.
When she crossed paths with Roger in the hallway, she looked past him as if he weren't there. Not coldly. Not dramatically. Just… absent. A stranger moving through the same space.
Roger noticed immediately.
He slowed when he saw her ahead of him, waiting—expecting—something. A glance. A nod. Anything.
Nothing came.
At lunch, she chose a different seat. When he joined a nearby table, she laughed a little louder with Elise and Asha, her body angled away, her attention fixed elsewhere. If his eyes lingered, she didn't see them.
"Are you okay?" Elise whispered at one point.
Blue nodded. "Just tired."
It wasn't a lie. But it wasn't the truth either.
Roger tried again after class. He stepped into her path lightly, just enough to be noticed.
"Blue—"
She shifted to the side smoothly, as if avoiding a chair, and walked past him without breaking stride.
"Sorry," she said to no one in particular.
That was when he understood.
The rumors, the whispers, the tension—none of it felt as sharp as this silence. This distance she had created without explanation, without drama.
Fred caught up to him moments later. "What did you do?"
Roger ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know."
But Blue knew.
She moved through the days with a quiet resolve, keeping her world small and controlled. She focused on her tests, on her friends, on the rhythm of routine. She joked with Adrian during lunch, laughed easily during Uno games, answered questions in class as usual.
She did not look at Roger.
At night, she reread old messages but didn't respond to the new ones. She told herself she wasn't punishing him—she was protecting herself. Distance was easier than doubt. Silence was safer than asking questions she wasn't ready to hear the answers to.
And so she waited.
Just quietly stepping back, letting space do what words couldn't—testing what was real, and what had only felt real in the safety of secrecy.
Meanwhile, the school buzzed on—tests piling up, laughter echoing through halls that held more truths than they ever revealed.
****************
The classroom buzzed with its usual pre-class energy—chairs scraping, bags thudding onto desks, voices overlapping in half-finished stories. Blue sat between Elise and Asha, flipping through her notebook, her pen tapping lightly against the page.
"Tell me why the teacher thinks we're machines," Asha said. "Three tests in one week is cruel."
Elise laughed. "At least we'll suffer together."
Blue smiled faintly, nodding, her focus on the page in front of her. She looked calm. Unbothered.
Roger stood near the doorway, watching her for a moment longer than necessary.
When the bell hadn't yet rung, he walked in.
"Blue," he said quietly.
She didn't look up.
Elise noticed first. Her eyes flicked between them. "Uh… I'll go borrow notes," she said quickly, tugging Asha with her.
Roger stepped closer. "Can we talk?"
Blue capped her pen with deliberate care. "About what?"
"You know about what."
She finally looked at him—briefly. Neutral. Controlled. "I really don't."
Roger exhaled, frustrated but trying to stay calm. "You've been avoiding me."
"I've been busy," she replied easily, glancing back at her notes.
"That's not true."
She shrugged. "Believe what you want."
For a moment, it looked like he might say more. Then Mavin's voice cut through the tension.
"Hey, are we revising or staring dramatically today?"
Blue seized the opening. "Revising," she said, turning toward Mavin. "Unless you're volunteering to fail for us."
"Absolutely not," he replied. "I have standards."
Roger stood there, caught between pushing and retreating.
"Blue," he said once more, quieter now. "I didn't do anything."
Roger lingered by the door for a moment, as if reconsidering. Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the classroom.
Blue exhaled, slow and controlled, as if she'd been holding her breath the entire time. She returned to her notebook, flipping a page as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
That lasted exactly three seconds.
Elise turned in her seat. "Okay. What was that?"
Asha leaned closer. "Don't tell me it was nothing. That was not nothing."
Blue didn't look up. "It was nothing."
Elise raised an eyebrow. "You say that like we didn't just watch him look like he was about to argue with the air."
Mavin, still seated in front of them, glanced back. "He came to talk about what?"
"Nothing," Blue repeated, her tone calm, almost casual.
Asha folded her arms. "You've been acting weird all week."
"I've been studying," Blue replied. "You should try it."
"That's deflection," Elise said flatly.
Blue finally looked at them, her expression light but unreadable. "Not everything needs to be discussed."
Elise softened. "We're not trying to pry. We're just asking because we care."
Blue paused, her fingers tightening briefly around her pen before she relaxed them again. "I know. But really—there's nothing to talk about."
Asha sighed. "You always do this. You shut the door and act like it never existed."
Blue smiled faintly. "And yet the world keeps spinning."
Mavin snorted. "That's cold."
"It's practical," she corrected.
The teacher cleared their throat at the front of the room, and the conversation died down as notebooks were reopened and attention shifted forward. But Elise shot Blue one last look—half concern, half warning.
We're not done, it said.
Blue looked back at her notes, steady on the outside.
Inside, though, her thoughts were louder than ever.
Blue and Lola stayed over at Medina's place that weekend. The house was lively in the way only shared space could be—music playing softly from someone's phone, bags tossed into corners, laughter echoing down the hallway.
Medina and Lola sat cross-legged on the bed, deep in conversation.