Chapter 4

After the fight, I got a week of detention. Elara got suspended. When she came back, the seating chart had been changed. We never spoke again.

The months passed. Winter turned to spring. The tension of college applications hung over the senior class. I got into my state school, a solid choice. My parents were proud.

Life moved on. Elara remained a ghost, but now she was a ghost I actively avoided. The memory of her punch, and the raw agony in her voice, was a constant, low-grade hum of guilt in the back of my mind. I had hit a nerve I didn't understand, and the violence of her reaction scared me.

She kept to herself more than ever. The stories stopped, or at least, I was no longer close enough to hear them. She just drifted through the hallways, a wraith no one dared to speak to.

Then, one morning in April, the letters arrived.

The news spread through the school like a wildfire, first in whispers, then in shouts. It was on the front page of the local online paper.

The headline was simple: "Local Student, Elara Vance, Awarded Prestigious Sterling-Meyer Memorial Scholarship."

It was a full ride. All expenses paid. To Yale.