Chapter 3 Echoes in the hallway

By Monday, word had spread.

Zara felt it in the way people glanced at her in the hallway, whispered just loud enough for her to hear. She'd become "that girl with Ethan," like she was a project he was fixing or a rumor he accidentally created. Her safe bubble-the one made of silence and invisibility-had popped.

She kept her head down as she walked to class, but it didn't help. A group of girls near her locker giggled as she passed.

"She's the poet," one of them whispered. "Ethan must be bored."

In class, even the teachers started treating her differently. Her English teacher smiled too wide. Her math teacher asked about "the performance."

By the time lunch came, she wanted to disappear again.

Ethan, of course, was unbothered. He sat at his usual table, surrounded by friends, laughing like nothing had changed. Zara stood frozen near the cafeteria doors, watching him. He glanced up, caught her gaze, and grinned. Then, to her shock, he stood and started walking toward her.

"Hey," he said.

Zara blinked. "You shouldn't be talking to me here."

"Why not?"

She gestured vaguely at the room. "Because this isn't your world. I'm not part of it."

Ethan tilted his head. "Maybe I don't want to be in just one world."

Before she could answer, his ex-Kendra-appeared beside him. Tall, confident, and clearly not happy.

"Ethan," Kendra said sweetly. "Didn't know you were into poems now."

He smiled politely. "Guess I'm expanding my taste."

Kendra turned to Zara, eyes scanning her like a threat. "Good luck at the talent show," she said with a tight smile.

When she walked away, Zara felt her cheeks burn.

"Don't let them get to you," Ethan said quietly. "You're the best part of this act."

Zara didn't know what to say. So she said nothing.

But that afternoon, when they met again in the music room, her poems had more fire in them.

And Ethan? He played like the words meant everything.