Clara Wren had gone to bed late the night before, but she’d slept unusually well. Maybe it was those few quiet words from her mother, soft and awkward, that loosened the little knots of resentment that had been sitting in her chest for so many years.

She woke up with dark circles under her eyes, but her mood was light.

In her head, she told herself, Don’t forget the past—but walk toward the future anyway.

She left through the gate of the apartment complex and headed toward school. At the corner where the street bent toward the campus, a girl was walking toward her. The morning sun was behind the girl, outlining her in light, so bright that for a second Clara felt as if the girl herself were glowing.

Because of the glare, Clara couldn’t see her face clearly.

“Hey, Clara,” the girl called, voice bright and easy. “I’m your classmate, Summer Hayes.”

“Hi, Summer.” Clara smiled back, a little shy but trying to match the warmth in the other girl’s tone.

“New environment, right? Must feel pretty weird.” Summer fell into step beside her, as if they’d been walking together for years. “We’re classmates now. Some people in our class have sharp tongues, don’t take it personally. If you have any problems, you can come to me.”

“Thanks.” Clara glanced down at herself, then at Summer, then at the students walking around them.

Her clothes were clean, freshly washed, but she could see it now—the difference in cut, in fabric, in how they hung on her body. Summer’s jacket had neat stitching along the seams, a soft sheen to the material. Other kids wore hoodies and sneakers that looked like they came right off the racks of brand-name shops. Clara’s clothes were sturdy and plain, the sort Grandma bought from market stalls where everything was folded in piles.

She’d never minded, not really. With Grandma, clean was enough. But here, among these kids, that difference suddenly felt sharp and obvious.

“I can walk with you to and from school, if you want,” Summer said, as if the thought had just occurred to her. “It’s on my way anyway. My place is just straight down this road.”

“Mm-hm. Okay,” Clara said, lifting her head to look at her properly.

Summer’s expression was completely open, her eyes clear, the smile on her face earnest and a little stubborn, as if she’d already decided they were going to be friends and that was that.

They were at the age where their bodies had started changing, drifting awkwardly toward adulthood. Summer had already grown into something quietly stunning—smooth skin, soft dark hair, long legs, and a delicate jawline that turned heads when she walked past.

Next to her, Clara looked small and spare—skin darkened by years of sun, arms and legs thin, her hair cropped short around her ears. In her oversized school uniform, she looked more like a skinny boy than a teenage girl.

Standing beside Summer, Clara felt a faint sting of inferiority, like standing next to a polished mirror while still covered in dust. And yet, there was something different about Summer compared to the other students; nothing sharp or cruel in her gaze, just an easygoing kindness.

Before they even reached the classroom, Clara heard a boy’s voice ring out behind the doorway.

“Hey, Darkie’s here!”

Clara didn’t realize he meant her. She stepped into the classroom and caught several boys glancing at her, shoulders shaking as they tried to hold in their laughter.

She ignored them. She had already decided: she was here to study, not to please anyone. If she managed to make good friends, that would be a blessing. If she didn’t, she could live with that too.

After all, back in the village she’d had plenty of friends, people who had run barefoot through fields with her. And there was Lucas Hartley, the boy she missed more than she let herself admit.

There was only a year and a half left until junior high graduation. Clara’s plan was simple and solid in her mind: get into the best high school in the city, then get into a college she truly liked.

During class, paper balls occasionally arced through the air and bounced off her shoulder or landed on her desk. Sometimes, when the teacher’s back was turned, someone would sneak up behind her and stick some weird drawing or stupid note to her back—little monsters, crude jokes, a messy “HICK” scribbled in blocky letters.

At first, they only whispered “country bumpkin” behind her back. Later, they stopped bothering to hide it and said it straight to her face.

Clara never responded. She didn’t beg them to stop. She didn’t fight back. She just stared at her textbook, turned the pages, took notes, and pretended not to hear.

After a while, the insults lost their edge. Routines got old. The name-calling faded. The pranks died down.

Clara assumed it was because they’d gotten bored—that there was no fun in picking on someone who never reacted.

She never knew the real reason.

One afternoon when Clara wasn’t around, Summer had stood up in front of the class and said calmly, “If you bully Clara, you’re bullying me.”

Everyone knew Summer had an older brother who was mixed up in the rougher parts of town. The kind of brother people whispered about. The kind of brother whose name was enough to make people reconsider their choices.

Summer had good grades and a beautiful face, the kind that made people want to write her love letters. Someone once did. When her brother found out, no one knew exactly what he said or did. Rumors flew around the school—some said he’d cornered the boy after class, others swore he just made a phone call. Whatever the truth was, the boy transferred to another school soon after, pale and tight-lipped, refusing to talk about it.

The story grew legs as it passed from one mouth to another, getting wilder every time. By the time it made a full circle, Summer’s brother had gone from “kind of scary” to a myth you didn’t dare test.

After that, nobody wanted to mess with Summer. Not the boys who liked her, not the boys who hated her, not even the girls who were jealous of her.

And if no one wanted to mess with Summer, no one wanted to mess with the girl Summer had claimed as “hers.”

Clara, of course, knew nothing about any of this.

Because of poor nutrition growing up, she had always been small and thin. At thirteen, her body still felt like it was lagging behind everyone else’s. That was the year her period finally came for the first time.

She hadn’t been prepared at all.

She realized something was wrong when a strange dampness spread across the seat of her pants, accompanied by a dull, twisting ache low in her abdomen. Even so, she didn’t panic. She’d learned about this in biology; she understood what was happening in theory. Still, knowing the science and feeling the reality of it were two very different things.

Her cheeks burned, prickling hot. She kept her eyes on her textbook and didn’t move for the rest of the period.

When the final bell rang and students poured out of the classroom in a rush of laughter and scraping chairs, Clara stayed glued to her seat, knuckles white where she gripped the edge of the desk. She listened to the footsteps fade down the hallway, waiting—heart hammering, breath tight in her chest.

Only when the room finally fell silent and empty did she slowly, carefully push back her chair and stand up, ready to clean the stain off the seat before anyone could see it.