Sasha crunched a chip. “Good. The old you was boring as hell.”
She wrote until the light turned amber. Until her fingers cramped. Until the words spilled out of her like water from a cracked dam.
She stood. Her chair scraped the floor, loud as a gunshot. Every head turned.
And Melody Marks—honor student, quiet girl, secret writer—was finally ready to tear it apart.
Melody didn’t answer. But for the first time, she smiled. Not a polite smile. A real one. After school, she didn’t go straight home. She took the long way, through the old arboretum behind the academy. The cherry trees were blooming, petals falling like pink snow. She sat on a weathered bench, pulled out a notebook, and began to write.
Mr. Hanley blinked. “Yes… Miss Marks?”