The sun filtered through the half-bare trees lining the school courtyard, casting dappled shadows on the brick pathways. Autumn had settled into the bones of the day -- cool air brushing against skin, rustling leaves dragging dryly along the ground. Lunch hour buzzed around them -- students clustered in corners, some laughing too loud, others retreating into headphones and phone screens.
Maya leaned against the low stone wall near the art wing, knees tucked up, arms folded tightly around them like she was bracing for something. The oversized hoodie swallowed her posture, and her hair fell just enough over her face to let her watch unnoticed. It wasn't that anyone was paying attention to her -- not really. That moment from weeks ago had burned fast and bright, then smoldered into murmurs and glances that eventually stopped landing.
But some part of her still flinched, like she was waiting for the next wave. The next label.
"You don't like being looked at, do you?"
Damien's voice drifted into the silence between them. He wasn't looking at her either -- he sat a few feet away on the edge of the bench, sketchpad balanced against one knee, pencil moving. The wind tugged lightly at his sleeves, the cuff of his jacket stained faintly with charcoal.
Maya exhaled slowly. "Not when I don't know why."
"Sometimes they look because they don't know what else to do."
She glanced sideways at him, brows pinched. "That's not comforting."
"I wasn't trying to be."
He didn't smile, and she didn't expect him to. Damien never dressed things up. He never offered pity, only presence. It was strange how that alone kept her anchored.
Her voice was quiet again. "I didn't ask for any of it. Not the attention. Not the booth idea. Not the rumors."
"You didn't have to," he said simply, pencil pausing. "You just... started showing."
She looked away, heart tight. "That wasn't me showing. That was me drowning."
Damien didn't argue. He just turned a page.
They sat in silence for a while. The courtyard around them thinned -- people drifting off to class or huddling in tighter groups. A breeze blew through, rustling the fallen leaves and scraping one against the edge of her shoe. She watched it spin, then settle.
"What if I mess it all up?" she asked, barely above a whisper. "The booth, I mean."
Damien looked up this time. His eyes didn't carry softness -- they never really did -- but there was something grounding in the way they locked on her. "Then it's yours to mess up."
Her lips curved slightly, just for a second. "Not helping."
He shrugged. "Then maybe don't mess it up."
"Wow. Inspirational."
But something in her chest loosened.
Damien turned his sketchpad around. "This one's for the side panel."
She took it without thinking, her fingers brushing the edge of the paper. The image made her go still. A silhouette -- vaguely shaped like her -- but not in any obvious way. There was no face. Just posture. Texture. A sense of someone beginning to stretch toward something unseen.
"I don't get it," she said.
"You will," he answered, then paused. "I'm not painting who you were, Maya."
Her name in his voice sent a chill up her arms.
"I'm painting where you're going."
She didn't say anything. She couldn't.
Maya stared at the sketch long after Damien returned to drawing. The longer she looked, the more she began to see it -- not the figure, exactly, but the feeling inside it. That strange ache of becoming. Like someone pushing past a version of themselves they never chose to be.
"Do you really think I'm ready for all of this?" she asked quietly, her thumb brushing the paper's corner.
Damien didn't lift his eyes. "It's not about being ready."
"Then what is it about?"
He paused before answering. "Deciding."
The word settled somewhere deep inside her, a low and heavy echo. Deciding. It sounded simple. But it never had been -- not with her. Not when everything felt like borrowed space: the clothes she wore, the silence she carried, the versions of herself she kept locked in notebooks no one had read.
"You make it sound easy," she murmured.
"It's not," Damien said. "But it's yours."
Students filtered out of the cafeteria, spilling into the courtyard in twos and threes. The moment between them didn't vanish -- but it folded itself quietly, like a page being turned before anyone could read it too closely.
Maya handed the sketch back and stood. "I should go."
"Keep it," he said without looking at her. "You'll need it later."
She hesitated -- then tucked it carefully between the pages of her notebook.
Damien didn't follow her as she walked away. He didn't have to. Something of him stayed behind with her anyway.
By the time Maya reached her next class, her head was still half in the courtyard. Words blurred on the board, and the lecturer's voice was just another layer of noise she couldn't sort through. Her notebook sat open in front of her, but her pencil hovered idly. She wasn't sketching. She wasn't writing.
She was thinking about the booth.
It was getting closer now. The school's annual creative showcase -- meant for artists, designers, writers. Last year she hadn't even walked past the gym doors when it was held. This year, her name was on the list. Damien's name was there too -- but not alone. Their names had been paired deliberately. People had already started whispering.
Booth 7: Damien Cross and Maya Rivers.
The hallway talk had spun from surprise to suspicion, then drifted into speculation. Some thought it was a punishment pairing. Others assumed Damien had been forced. But Maya knew better. He'd chosen her. He'd walked into the office and written her name beside his on the form without asking. Not because he thought she was brilliant. Not because she was bold.
But because he'd seen what she was afraid to.
And now, she didn't know if she should thank him -- or panic.
Her pencil finally moved. She didn't think. She just let the lead drag across the page until a shape took form: not her face, but her posture, curled inward -- still half-hiding, still unsure. But beside it, something else. Something steadier. A hand. Open. Reaching. Not holding.
Just offering.
That afternoon, she found Damien behind the art block again, the light shifting gold around him. The wall behind him had been cleared for the new work-in-progress -- a wide canvas leaned upright, loosely outlined. There were soft colors bleeding into corners, shadows taking form. The beginning of something.
"You're late," he said without looking up.
"I wasn't coming," she replied honestly.
"But you did."
"Yeah."
He stepped back and studied the canvas, then gestured to a blank stretch beside it. "You still have space."
She folded her arms. "I don't know what to paint."
"You don't have to."
She frowned. "Then why am I here?"
"Because showing up is part of it," Damien said simply. "Even when you don't know what to say yet."
That silenced her.
She watched the canvas for a long moment, then finally stepped beside him. Close enough to smell the paint and ink in the air. Close enough to feel his stillness.
The silence between them wasn't awkward. It was careful. Real.
Damien turned to her then -- not with a smirk, not with pity. Just that steady, unreadable calm that always made her feel like she could breathe slower.
"You're not pretending anymore, Maya."
Her chest tightened. She didn't answer.
"You were never supposed to be invisible," he added. "Someone just convinced you it was safer."
Maya looked at the painting. At the space that still waited for her. She thought of her old self—the quiet, invisible, lonely girl before she met Logan, who turned her into a rumor of shame in an instant.
And she thought of this new space Damien had carved open. Not loud. Not perfect. But real.
Maybe it was time she filled it.