Rain
I'm so tired.
Not the kind of tired sleep can fix. This exhaustion lives deeper, like it's etched into the marrow of my bones. I can't even cry properly anymore — my eyes burn but the tears stay buried, like they know it's no use.
It's been three months.
Three months of Sebastian Ashford's relentless, silent war.
People think bullying is loud. Screaming. Slamming lockers. Humiliation in front of a crowd.
But the kind he does?It's quiet.Surgical.Precise.
He doesn't call me names. He doesn't push me in the halls. He doesn't even raise his voice.
But he sees me. Only him.And somehow, he makes it feel like the whole world is watching.
My lab seat gets switched without warning.My name disappears from the group project list I know I signed.The professor "forgets" to call on me during rounds, even when I raise my hand.
Once? He laughed in class and whispered something under his breath. The girl next to me turned pale. She never spoke to me again.
I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid. That it was coincidence. That I was spiraling because of stress and lack of sleep. But the day he "accidentally" spilled iodine over my white coat while smirking and saying, "Oops, didn't see you there, Rain," I knew.
It's real.It's him.And I don't know why.
I tried confronting him once. Just once.
He tilted his head, eyes glittering like frost. "You sure you're not imagining things? You seem… tired."Then he leaned in, too close, too warm, too aware, and whispered,"Careful. Ardenleigh eats girls like you alive."
He walked away laughing. And I stood there shaking.
I hate him.I hate that I don't even understand what I did to make him hate me first.I hate how my breath catches every time I hear his voice behind me.I hate that he knows it. That he watches for it.
And the worst part?
Sometimes — when it's quiet, when I'm alone — I wonder if I somehow deserve it.If I'm weak for letting it get to me.If maybe he's right. Maybe Ardenleigh will eat me alive.
But then I remember that first week.The stairs.His eyes.
He looked at me like he'd been searching for something and suddenly found it in the worst possible place.
Me.
And now he's destroying me, piece by piece, slowly enough that no one notices the blood.
I'm still smiling in the halls. Still acing my tests. Still showing up every morning with my books and my hair braided to the side, pretending like my heart isn't racing every time the classroom door opens.
But it is.
Because Sebastian Ashford is always there.And I don't know what's worse — the days he ignores me completely.Or the days he doesn't.