By the next week, everyone knew.
At first, it was whispers tucked between classes, quick glances in the hallway, the kind of snickers you could pretend weren't about you if you walked fast enough. But Westbridge was a boarding school, and rumors here spread faster than fire in the dorm kitchens. There was nowhere to run from them—not in the dining hall, not in chapel, not in the cramped corridors where everyone's secrets eventually got aired.
"Did you see them in the study hall?"
"She's desperate. That's why she's with him."
"No, no—he's obsessed. Look how he follows her around."
Ethan heard it all. Sometimes openly, sometimes hidden in laughter that cut off the second he turned the corner. He tried to ignore it, bury himself in books, but even silence had a way of stinging when he felt the weight of stares burning into the back of his neck.
Aria seemed to shrug it off better than he did. She would roll her eyes, toss her hair, and mutter, Let them talk. But when Ethan caught her face in moments she thought no one was looking, he saw the tightness around her smile, the way her hands twisted together. She wasn't as unaffected as she pretended.
One evening, as they sat beneath the oak by the fountain, Ethan noticed she hadn't opened her notebook. Her pencil lay unused beside her.
"You're distracted," he said quietly.
Aria pressed her lips together. "It's Daniel."
Of course it was. The self-proclaimed prince of the class, the one who never had to try too hard because charm carried him where effort should have. Daniel had been circling Aria since the first term, like a hawk waiting for an opening.
"What about him?" Ethan asked, though his stomach already tightened.
"He cornered me after dinner," Aria admitted, looking away. "Said I was wasting my time. That I'd look better standing beside him than… you." Her voice wavered, soft but sharp, like broken glass.
Ethan's fists clenched automatically. He imagined Daniel's smug grin, the lazy arrogance in his tone. He wanted to say something heroic, something protective. Instead, what came out was: "And what did you say?"
Aria finally looked at him then, her eyes burning with something stubborn. "I told him to get lost."
A rush of warmth surged through Ethan's chest—pride, relief, maybe something more—but it was quickly chased away by a shadow of doubt. He knew Daniel. He wouldn't take rejection kindly. And now that Ethan was in the picture, however innocently, things would only get worse.
Sure enough, the next morning, the new nickname arrived.
"Lovebirds."
It started in homeroom, whispered from the back row. By lunch, it was being sung like a chant across the cafeteria. Some students laughed as if it were harmless, but others—the cruel ones—made sure to spit it like venom. Lovebirds. Lovebirds.
Aria pretended to laugh it off, even nudged Ethan once as if daring him to do the same. But Ethan felt the heat crawling up his neck, his chest burning with anger he didn't know how to use.
That night, when he lay awake in the dorm, listening to the muffled snores of his roommates, the words echoed louder than ever. Not because of what they meant, but because of how fragile it all was—how easily one word could turn kindness into a target.
The next day, during algebra, Aria slipped him a folded note.
Meet me by the library stairs after prep.
His pulse quickened. When the time came, he found her waiting there, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"Don't let them get to you," she said immediately, as if she'd been holding the words in all evening. "They're just bored."
"They're not bored," Ethan muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. "They're cruel."
"Then let them be," Aria said, stepping closer. For a moment, her usual playful defiance softened, and she looked tired, almost fragile. "You're helping me. That's what matters."
Her voice cracked slightly on helping, and Ethan's heart clenched. She wasn't just talking about equations and essays. There was something deeper—a weight he couldn't name yet, one she carried behind every smile.
For the first time since the nickname started, Ethan let himself breathe. If she could keep standing tall, maybe he could too.
But just as that fragile reassurance settled between them, a slow clap echoed from the shadows near the corner of the library.
They both turned.
Daniel stepped into the light, smirk painted across his face. "Well, isn't this cozy?"