The Top Boy Is My Mate

a's

urs saving up for the silver cuff bracelet he'd once said he liked. Today was also our one-year anniversary. I was nervous but excit

tead made me stop

ashed onto hers. They were hidden beneath the shadow of the tree behind his house, but I saw everything. Th

mouth to stop myself from sobbing out loud. Tears blurred my vision, hot and angry and broken all at onc

rl who knew all my secrets, my dreams, and my

d to surprise him, to make him smile, to make this day special. But now I

love crush in seconds, with the boy I loved, ki

ince childhood and my instinct screamed he's the one. I hadn't felt our bond yet. Maybe because I was only seventeen, too young still,

s ago. But it fee

.

ntil you can't breathe. The walls feel like they're closing in sometimes, like th

s, then weeks, then months. Grief swallowed me whole. One year slipped into the next, and no one pushed

t my mom, nothing see

She always tries. But I see the worry in her eyes, the way she watches me when she thinks I'm not looking. I hear it

ayal was th

ely recognizes her own reflection. A girl who lets the days pass by so fast, because the pain is easier to mana

it felt like the universe

.

the gray sky matching the weight in my chest. Fat droplets streak down the glass like tears, a

g out a thick envelope. It looks expensive, c

t of it in my hands. My name is writ

htly as I break the sea

Black

chool for gifted students. Our campus, deep within the Ember Forest, provides

begins i

in anymore. Blackwood Academy. I've heard of it, of course, who hasn't? A school covered in mystery, hidden deep i

ay's voice is

whisper. And I m

re you sure? I

oice is steadier now, the dec

in a school for over a year, who's been drowning in grief

s laptop when she tells him. "If that's w

Not that I expec

.

ght, I

the one where she's laughing, her eyes bright and full of life. I run my thumb

the rest

d. Alex who

thought love

the walls, the books I once loved, the bed where I spent too many nights crying myself to slee

.

't speak as I slide into the back seat. Aunt May hugs me tightly,

y chance you g

romi

in the familiar scent of her perfume, warm an

behind us as we head into the woods

wood Academy, it can't be wors

e, it will be the st