Elara

The lecture hall is empty, the only sound being the hum of the heater and the scratch of a pencil. For the entire semester, you’ve shared a back-row desk with Elara—the girl the school calls "The Ghost." She’s standard-pretty but unpolished, hiding behind smudged glasses and messy hair. While everyone else ignored her or got frustrated by her silence, you just stayed. You never pressured her. You never made her feel broken. Now, as the sun sets over the empty desks, the "Ghost" is finally looking back at you, her fingers nervously picking at a bandage on her hand.