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The classroom was empty except for the sound of the ticking wall clock and the storm building just outside the windows.
It was supposed to be detention. Two hours. Quiet. Reflective.
But nothing about Elias Cross was quiet.
And he definitely didn't reflect.
Maya sat at the far side of the room, her hoodie pulled over her head, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She didn't look at him. Couldn't.
But she felt him.
Sitting diagonally behind her. Watching her. Breathing too evenly. Waiting.
She could feel the pull of his presence like gravity. Like a thread wrapped tight around her ribs, tugging her toward him even though everything inside her screamed run.
The clock ticked on.
Ten minutes.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
Still, not a word.
Then his chair scraped. Slowly. Like he wanted her to hear it. Like he wanted to disturb the silence.
Maya tensed.
"You're quiet today," Elias said, voice low and calm. "Not gonna throw a book at me or tell me to go to hell?"
She didn't answer.
"Come on, Mouse. Say something. Anything. I'm bored."
Her fists clenched.
"You don't get to be bored," she said, not turning around. "You made this happen. You dragged me in here."
"You kissed me," he said, too easily.
"You kissed me first."
"You kissed me back."
That made her snap.
She stood up so fast her chair squealed. "God, you're such an asshole!"
He grinned. "And you like it."
Maya walked straight to his desk and slammed her hands down on it. "You think this is funny? What are you doing, Elias? What the hell do you want from me?"
He didn't answer right away.
He just leaned back in his seat, arms draped lazily across the backrest, eyes scanning her slowly — like she was some beautiful, broken machine he was trying to take apart.
"I want to understand why," he said finally.
"Why what?"
"Why you lived."
The air left her lungs.
Maya stepped back like he'd slapped her. "You think I don't ask myself that every single day?"
"You should've stopped her," he said, tone darkening. "You should've done something."
"I begged her to slow down!" Maya cried. "We were both laughing and then—then she took the curve too fast, and—and I told her to stop, but she wouldn't—"
Her voice cracked.
"I woke up in a hospital, Elias. With glass in my skin and her blood on my clothes."
His face twisted — not in victory, but something rawer.
Pain.
"You're lying," he said, too softly.
"I'm not."
He stood up slowly, and suddenly the distance between them evaporated.
"You smiled at me," he said through clenched teeth. "At her funeral. I saw it."
"I didn't smile," she whispered. "I broke. My face—my nerves—they weren't working right. I wasn't even there. I was a shell."
He stepped closer.
"You didn't cry."
"I cried every night for a year."
Silence.
And then he reached for her.
Not to hurt her. Not to punish her.
He touched her cheek, gently — like he didn't even mean to.
His thumb brushed under her eye. "You don't look like her."
"I know."
"But your voice…"
He leaned in closer.
"Your voice sounds exactly like hers."
Maya didn't breathe.
Neither did he.
"I don't know if I want to kiss you again," he whispered, "or make you disappear."
Her lower lip trembled. "Why not both?"
That broke something in him.
He kissed her again.
But this time it was different. Less rage. More ruin.
His mouth opened over hers like a wound, and she let him bleed into her — every angry thought, every painful memory, every ounce of guilt and lust and grief he'd buried since the crash.
His hands tangled in her hair. Hers gripped his shirt like he was the only solid thing in the world.
They didn't come up for air until both were breathless.
And even then — he stayed close.
"You're poison," he said softly.
"And you're already drunk on me," she whispered.
The clock ticked on.
Rain hammered the windows.
And Maya realized something terrifying:
This wasn't a game anymore.
It was an addiction.
And she didn't want to be cured.
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