By Wednesday morning, the project sat finished in my bag, but it didn't feel finished inside me.
It should have been a relief. The kind that loosens your shoulders and clears your head. Instead, everything felt slightly off, like I'd slept in the wrong position and my thoughts were paying for it.
Elias's house kept replaying in fragments.
The low hum of the fridge.
The way the kitchen light softened his face when he laughed under his breath.
How close was too close before it became something else?
I shut my locker harder than necessary.
"Someone woke up haunted."
Maya's voice slid in easily, like it always did. I turned to see her grinning, backpack slung over one shoulder, eyes sharp in a way that suggested she already knew the answer.
"I'm fine," I said.
She hummed, unconvinced. "That's what people say right before they start overthinking their entire life."
We walked down the hallway together, the usual noise crashing around us. Lockers slamming. Someone laughing too loud. A teacher calling out late names. Normal things. Grounding things.
"Sooooooo," Maya said, stretching the word. "Group project. Finished. Due today. And you mysteriously disappeared on Sunday, then somehow end up finishing the rest at Elias's house."
"I didn't mysteriously disappear," I muttered. "I told you I had something to do."
"And you still haven't told me what."
I shot her a look.
She raised both hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Not prying. Just… observing."
"Observing what?"
"That you don't look stressed," she said. "You look… recalibrated."
I hated how accurate that felt.
Before I could respond, the classroom door came into view. My stomach tightened for reasons that had nothing to do with my grades.
Elias was already inside.
He sat a few rows back, leaning sideways in his chair, talking to one of his teammates. He laughed at something, easy and familiar, the sound carrying just enough to turn heads. For a second, he looked exactly like the version of him everyone else saw.
Then his eyes lifted.
They found mine immediately.
The smile he wore shifted, not disappearing, just softening. Quieter. Like it was meant for me alone.
I looked away too quickly.
"Yeah," Maya murmured beside me. "That."
I slid into my seat,my heart doing something unhelpful against my ribs. Elias moved a moment later, dragging his chair closer when the teacher started passing out papers. Not beside me. Just near enough to feel.
"Morning," he said under his breath.
"Morning."
It shouldn't have felt like anything. It was one word. Barely even a conversation. But it landed differently than it had before, like we'd crossed some invisible line without naming it.
When it was time to submit the project, we stood at the same time. Our shoulders brushed. His fingers caught mine as we handed the folder over, brief and accidental, yet my breath stalled like it had been planned.
"You good?" he asked quietly as we sat back down.
I nodded. "Yeah. You?"
"Yeah," he said. Then, after a pause, "Good."
Across the room, I felt it before I saw it.
Serena.
She sat with her friends near the window, perfect posture, glossy hair falling exactly where it was meant to. Her gaze flicked from Elias to me, slow and assessing, lips curving just slightly as she leaned in to whisper something.
One of the girls laughed.
Elias didn't notice. Or if he did, he didn't care. He focused on the board, tapping his pen lightly against his notebook, close enough that I could hear it.
I told myself that meant nothing.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of bells and movement. By the time the final one rang, my head felt full. Not loud. Just crowded.
Maya peeled off toward the bus stop, shooting me a look that promised questions later. I headed in the opposite direction, taking the long way home.
I didn't feel invisible anymore.
That realization crept up on me quietly, settling in my chest where old habits lived. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Visibility meant attention. Attention meant risk.
I adjusted the strap of my bag and kept walking.
I told myself it had just been a project.
Just a few shared hours.
Just a house that wasn't mine and a boy who didn't ask too many questions.
But projects didn't usually follow me home in my thoughts.
And they definitely didn't make my future feel like it was shifting, inch by careful inch, toward something I wasn't sure I was ready to face.
It felt so heavy…