The door clicked shut behind him with a soft hiss.
David stood in the hallway, frozen. The harsh hospital lights hummed above him, too bright, too sterile. He stared at the floor tiles, blinking rapidly, trying to pull himself back together—but something inside him was cracking.
She didn't want him there. She hadn't even tried to hide it.
He knew she wouldn't welcome him with open arms—not after everything—but he hadn't expected it to hurt this much.
He walked slowly down the corridor, one hand gripping the strap of his backpack like it was the only thing anchoring him to the world. His footsteps echoed off the whitewashed walls, each step louder than it should've been in the emptiness.
Outside, the sky was a bruised purple, clouds curling over themselves like clenched fists. The late afternoon air smelled of rain and dust. David leaned against the concrete wall near the hospital entrance, his hands buried deep in his jacket pockets.
He breathed.
And then he exhaled a shaky, broken sound—half a sigh, half a sob.
She was right. He had done nothing. He had watched from the sidelines, watched her get shoved into lockers, called names, isolated, erased. He had reported it—once, twice, five times—but when nothing changed, he'd just… stopped.
He told himself it wasn't his job. That she probably didn't want help. That he couldn't fix the whole school.
Coward.
Now she was lying in a hospital bed, stitched and broken, and she looked through him like he was part of the wallpaper. Like his concern came too late to matter.
Maybe it did.
David sank down onto the curb and rested his elbows on his knees. He stared blankly at the pavement, raindrops beginning to dot the ground like little burns. His hands were trembling.
When he had seen the video on the student forum, he'd felt sick. He still couldn't watch it to the end. The way they laughed. The way Amanda screamed. The sound of bones against concrete. And the worst part—no one helped.
No one stopped it.
No one said her name.
He had never hated his classmates more.
Mike was gone. Dead. David still didn't know how. The school was full of rumors—some said overdose, some said heart failure, some whispered about Amanda in low, disbelieving voices. No one knew anything.
But David had seen the coldness in her eyes.
The rage she kept hidden under her silence.
A part of him wondered if maybe… if maybe she had something to do with it.
But another part—the part that still remembered how she used to eat lunch alone on the far bench by the music room, how she once smiled at him when he dropped his books—refused to believe she was capable of that.
Or maybe he just didn't want to believe it.
He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve. He didn't know what the hell he was doing anymore.
He cared about her.
That much he couldn't deny. Maybe he had for a long time. But what did it matter now?
Amanda didn't need someone to like her. She needed someone who could reach through that wall she built and tell her she wasn't alone. Someone who didn't show up after everything fell apart.
But he was too late.
He always was.