The bell rang, sharp and jarring, and for a second, no one moved.
I stood slower than the others, my hands still half-curled from where they'd been gripping the edge of my chair during Ethics. The conversation had left more than just abstract thoughts in my head — it had dug up things. Things I didn't have the words for yet. Things I couldn't afford to say out loud.
Sky clapped me on the shoulder, more gently than usual. "You good?"
I nodded, but it was automatic. My throat felt dry. My mind was still stuck on Bella's answer — that quiet, measured voice as she spoke about consequences and doing the right thing even if no one ever knew you did it. She hadn't looked at me while saying it, but I felt the weight of it anyway. Like the words had been aimed just to the left of my chest.
We moved into the hallway — a current of students already flowing past — but it felt like walking through water. Slower. Denser. Louder inside my head than outside.
Carmilla walked a few steps ahead of us, her gray sweater hanging loose around her shoulders, a thick book hugged to her chest. Her walk was composed, but something in her posture was rigid — like she'd taken the class too seriously and didn't want anyone to see that it rattled her.
Isabella was just behind her, more storm than shadow. She wasn't hiding the fact that she'd been affected. Her jaw was tight. Eyes distant. And when she glanced at me, it wasn't curiosity or warmth.
It was expectation.
The same unspoken pressure I'd felt back under the overpass, when she handed me that flash drive and said, "You're the hacker now."
Now, out here in daylight, surrounded by lockers and chatter and the smell of cheap hallway deodorizer, I felt like I was wearing two faces — and both of them were cracking.
"Hey," came a voice from behind. Ferb.
Of course.
The short, ginger-haired kid with round glasses had been trailing us since class let out. I hadn't said more than five words to him since I transferred, but lately, he'd been orbiting us like a nosy satellite.
"What's with all the tension?" he asked, grinning a little too knowingly. "You all looked like you just got assigned a group project from hell."
Sky chuckled, trying to defuse it. "Something like that."
Ferb's eyes narrowed. He pointed casually between me, Carmilla, and Bella. "So what's that triangle all about?"
I blinked. "What triangle?"
"You know," Ferb said, voice low and conspiratorial, "the whole... thing. The way she looks at you," he gestured to Carmilla, "and the way she doesn't look at you." His thumb flicked toward Bella. "That's some spicy dynamics, Marx."
"Ferb," Sky said flatly, "do you want to die?"
"I'm just making observations!" Ferb raised his hands. "You can't sit in a room like that and not pick up on the tension. It was practically a second teacher."
I felt my jaw tighten.
Carmilla didn't turn around. Bella didn't either. But I could feel them listening.
Ferb leaned closer to me. "You always sit near both of them. You walked out of the cafeteria with Bella yesterday. And today Carmilla joined your Chem lab group like it was scripted. That's not coincidence, my guy. That's narrative."
He meant it as a joke. Probably. But it hit too close to something I hadn't named.
Sky gave him a shove. "Go bother someone else, detective."
"Fine, fine. But when the hallway gossip comes true, I'll be the first to say I told you so."
He melted into the crowd, still grinning.
I exhaled, but it didn't help.
Bella stepped forward just then, her voice low and flat. "You need to shut that kid down before he starts poking around things that matter."
She didn't look at me when she said it.
Carmilla finally turned, calm but unreadable. "Or maybe," she said, almost too soft to hear, "you just need to decide who you're walking with."
The words hit harder than they should've. I couldn't answer either of them.
Sky clapped me on the back again, less joking this time. "Come on, man. Lunch is waiting. And you look like you're about to short-circuit."
I followed him, but my steps were slow. The noise of the hallway blurred into the background as Bella disappeared down one corridor, Carmilla another.
And me? I just stood there for one breath too long, stuck between their exits.