By lunch, the rumors had shifted.
No longer just about his face.
Now it was his mind.

Someone whispered that he’d read a love poem so beautifully it made a girl cry.
Another said he’d fixed a broken projector—without touching it.

Elle didn’t know what to believe.

All she knew was that the moment Ashriel entered the cafeteria, silence fell.
And then came the noise.

Chairs scraping. Girls waving. Someone actually stood up and offered their fries.

Ashriel said nothing.
He scanned the room once, eyes like glass—reflecting everything, revealing nothing—
And walked to the table in the corner.
The one cloaked in half-shadow.

No one ever sat there.

No one followed.

He didn’t look at anyone. Not even her.

But when Elle moved through the food line and someone bumped her tray—hard enough to spill her drink across the counter—Ashriel’s head snapped up.

Just a glance.
Not a word.

His eyes locked on the boy, cold and sharp as a drawn blade.

The football player stammered an apology and backed off, pale.

Ashriel didn’t speak.
Just turned back to the window.
Like nothing had happened.

Elle’s heart pounded.

That single look had silenced the cafeteria.

And yet… he hadn’t smiled. Hadn’t acknowledged her.
Just… watched.
Distant.
Guarded.

Across the room, by the vending machine, Luke saw the whole thing.

His jaw clenched as he strode over. “You okay?”

She nodded too quickly. “Yeah. Just water.”

Luke shot a glance toward the shadowed table.

“You sure? Because that guy—he’s… off. Like danger-in-a-leather-jacket-off.”

Elle forced a smile. “I can handle it.”

But her hands trembled as she cleaned up.

Ashriel didn’t move again.
Still as stone.
But she could feel him.

Not watching her in the obvious way.
Not with stares or glances.

But like a shadow folding quietly around her edges.
A presence she couldn’t shake.

Later, in English Lit, Mr. Hanley clapped his hands like a preschool teacher and smiled far too wide.

“All right, class. Partner reading today! Shakespearean sonnets.”

Groans rippled across the room.

Elle sighed and dropped her gaze to her notebook.

“Names are already paired,” Mr. Hanley continued, projecting a list onto the whiteboard. “You’ll read aloud to each other. Focus on meaning, tone, and rhythm. Five points toward your midterm.”

Her eyes scanned the list.

Then froze.

Wrenwood, Elowen – Duskborne, Ashriel

She stared at the screen, heart stammering in her chest.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispered.

Ashriel was already beside her before she moved.

He didn’t ask. Didn’t hesitate.

He simply stood—tall, silent, as if he’d known all along they’d be paired. As if this had already happened somewhere before.

Elle looked up. Swallowed. “Um… Sonnet 73?”

A single nod. Glacial. Polished. Like marble carved into a boy with too much memory behind his eyes.

They sat across from each other.
Too close.
Too quiet.

She started first. Her voice trembled over Shakespeare’s aching lines about fading light, dying embers, and love that blooms brightest before it dies.

Then Ashriel spoke.

His voice lowered the room.

It rolled out—deep, unhurried, steady as twilight. He didn’t glance at the page. Didn’t blink. The words seemed to rise from somewhere inside him.

He recited like he remembered it.
Not learned.
Not memorized.
Remembered.

By the final couplet, the classroom had gone utterly still.
Even Mr. Hanley didn’t move.

Ashriel’s gaze lifted. Finally.

He met her eyes.

No warmth.
No smile.
But something lived there—something quiet and breaking.

Like loss too old to be spoken aloud.

Elle couldn’t breathe.

The poem was no longer about love.

It was about grief.

And he’d read it like someone who’d lost everything, again and again, across lifetimes.

The space between them pulsed.
Not with attraction.
Not even with understanding.

With recognition.

Her pulse pounded in her ears.

When the bell rang, no one moved right away.

Ashriel stood. Silent. Fluid.

And walked out—
leaving her with the words echoing like a spell, cast but never broken.

Elle sat frozen at her desk, the sonnet still unraveling inside her, and for the first time she wondered if Ashriel’s silence wasn’t emptiness at all—

but memory.