---
Mr. Vale was quieter after that night.
More careful.
More tired.
It was funny, watching a grown man orbit a teenage girl like a trapped animal.
Mom didn't notice. Or pretended not to.
She was good at that—building a pretty, painted version of life in her head and living inside it.
Sometimes I envied her.
---
The school counselor called me in on Thursday.
Mr. Anders. Thirty-something. Glasses he pushed up his nose when he got nervous. The type who tried too hard to be "cool" with students but couldn't hide the desperate need to be liked.
He asked me how the move was going.
If I was settling in.
If the new family dynamic was... "challenging."
I gave him my usual one-word answers. Shrugged. Looked bored.
He kept digging anyway.
"Your teachers say you seem... withdrawn. More than usual."
More than usual. Like my normal baseline wasn't already barely-there.
I said nothing.
Mr. Anders leaned forward.
"Caelum... if something's wrong at home, you can tell me."
I almost laughed.
Like he could fix anything.
Instead, I thought of Mr. Vale whispering she terrifies me in the dark.
I thought of Eliora smiling across the table like she could see inside my ribs.
And I said:
"Everything's fine."
Because what else was there to say?
---
When I walked back into the hall, Eliora was waiting.
Leaning against a locker, arms crossed, unreadable.
"You're bad at lying," she said, deadpan.
"I didn't lie."
"You didn't convince him either."
I stopped in front of her.
Close enough to see the tiny freckles on the bridge of her nose. The perfect tilt of her mouth.
"Maybe I didn't want to."
Eliora tilted her head. Studied me.
"You should be careful," she said, voice light. "People who ask too many questions tend to get answers they don't like."
She smiled. Sweet and poisonous.
And for the first time, a very small, very stupid part of me wondered if Mr. Anders had just made himself a target.