Its gone
Chapter 39
SOPHIA
"Oh my gosh, Shopi!"
I hear Clara before I see her, her frantic voice arriving in the room a mile ahead of her. Then her arms are around me, pressing me into a hug that is slightly too tight for the vicious headache still throbbing behind my left eye.
But I don't tell her that. Instead, I ignore the blinding pain and force a small smile. "It's okay, Clara. Truly. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She pulls back, staring at me with the exact expression of someone who has accepted the information but is actively choosing not to believe a word of it.
Maria stands right beside the bed, watching us with the quiet solidarity of someone who has already lived through the chaos of the last hour and is now just present for whatever disaster comes next.
I don't fully remember what happened after the impact.
The sequence is a blurry mess fragments of panicked voices, the blurry ceiling of the school corridor, the phantom feeling of being carried in someone's arms.
I only woke up properly when Maria told me to change out of my ruined uniform.
Now, I am wearing her expensive black skirt, a white blouse, and Maria's designer necklace, mostly because she insisted the outfit wasn't complete without it.
I said absolutely nothing to object. I was too deeply moved by the fact that she cared enough to assemble an entire outfit for me while I was sleeping. The clothes probably cost more than a month of my school supplies, but I actively choose not to think about that right now.
"Nothing about this is okay, young lady." Clara turns a sharp gaze on Maria.
"What did the doctor call it again?"
"Acute sleep deprivation," Maria says, casting a brief, apologetic look in my direction.
"Yes." Clara nods firmly, already gathering my things from the chair beside the bed with the focused efficiency of a woman who has shifted into caretaker mode and has no intention of shifting back out.
"But I'm fine now, honestly," I try to argue, swinging my legs over the edge of the cot. "I'm not even tired anymore..."
"I don't want to hear it. Get ready, we're going home." Clara grabs my backpack and pauses, turning back to Maria with a soft expression. "Thank you, sweetheart. For being here with her."
"Of course," Maria says softly.
The moment Clara disappears through the clinic door to fetch the car, Maria turns to me, her eyes shining. "Your aunt is amazing."
"She really is," I admit, sitting up to tug on my sneakers—my own shoes, because I drew a firm, non-negotiable line at borrowing Maria's stiletto heels.
"Shopi." Maria's voice suddenly drops. She shifts into that specific, careful register she uses when she is about to say something she isn't sure how to deliver. She turns toward me, her knuckles whitening around her phone.
My stomach instantly drops. Cold dread floods my veins.
What did I do while I was unconscious?
Did I mutter something?
"What?" I gasp.
Without a word, she pulls out her phone and turns the screen toward me.
I feel my heart hit the absolute floor.
Instagram. Photos , someone has already posted photos of the incident and the comments beneath them are dozens deep, multiplying by the second. I snatch the phone from her hands, my fingers trembling violently as I scroll through the feed.
The photos load one by one, bleeding onto the screen. And then my thumb freezes.
It is a crystal-clear photo of Lorenzo carrying me across the field. My face is pressed weakly against his broad shoulder. His massive arm is wrapped securely around my back. The harsh corridor light catches the sharp, tight angle of his jawline.
"He... he carried me," I whisper out loud. To no one in particular.
"Yes, girl, he did," Maria says.
A small, involuntary smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, one she is clearly trying and failing to suppress.
"This is not funny, Maria!" I shove the phone back toward her face, pointing at the screen. "According to this comment, I fainted on purpose just to get his attention!"
"They are all just jealous," she says simply, swiping the phone away.
"How am I supposed to ignore this when I am literally trending at my own school?"
I press my fingers hard against my temples, trying to stop the pounding.
The headache has officially been joined by a warmer, far more complicated panic.
"And now it is cyberbullying. Because the universe apparently decided I don't have enough drama in my life and keeps finding twisted new ways to connect me to Lorenzo Calloway."
I want to scream. I genuinely want to.
"Okay, but..." Maria starts, and something about her sudden hesitation makes my head snap up.
"When I ran to the lockers earlier to get those clothes... I walked past our art classroom."
A heavy pause. She bites her lower lip, the exact way she does when she's calculating how to drop a bomb. "Vivienne was inside."
I go completely rigid.
"What?"
"And Shopi... she looked like she had been crying."
I lung forward, grabbing Maria's arm in a vice grip. "What?!"
"I know." Maria looks genuinely puzzled. "She had clearly seen everything on the field"
"No, no, no, no" The panic arrives before the full thought can even form in my brain. "My sketchbook."
"What about it?"
"My sketchbook! I left it in the classroom, on my desk right before practice. If Vivienne was in there, and she found it..." I am already off the bed, sprinting toward the door before my legs can even register the jelly-like weakness.
"I have to go."
"Shopi, slow down! You have a head injury!" Maria yells, her heels clicking frantically on the linoleum behind me.
I completely ignore her.
I take the stairs to the second floor faster than anyone with a concussion ever should. I slam through the heavy art classroom door, rushing straight toward my seat in the back left corner by the window. I tear through the space, flipping over papers, checking folders, searching under desks.
"It's not here."
"What?" Maria asks, breathless as she catches up in the doorway.
"My sketchbook. I left it right here. I know I left it here."
The panic inside me turns entirely specific and ice-cold. If Vivienne found it. If she opened it. If she saw my drawing
"Maybe it's in the main art storage room?" Maria tries to soothe me, stepping closer. "Hey, it's okay. I can just buy you a new one"
"No! You don't understand!" I shake my head violently.
"Why does it matter so much? Shopi, it's just a book of drawings..."
"Because I drew him, Maria!"
Silence. The entire classroom goes suffocatingly quiet.
Maria stares at me, her mouth dropping open.
"I drew him. In it. His face. And if anyone sees it, I am completely, utterly finished."
I don't say his name out loud. I don't have to.
Maria's eyes go impossibly wide. She bites down on her lower lip so hard I think it might bleed, looking at me with the expression of an actuary doing rapid, terrifying calculations about the sheer severity of a nuclear disaster.
"Oh," she whispers.
"Yes."
"Oh, this is bad."
"It's not just bad."
I stare at the stark, empty surface of the desk where my life used to be safe.
"It is a total disaster."