I didn't open the notebook again for two days.
Not because I was afraid.
I just wasn't ready to see what else she already knew.
The first time I read my name in it, it wasn't just written. It was dissected. She'd described me like I was a subject under a microscope.
"Adrian Vale – manipulation through silence. Patterns of dominance. Charm used as distraction. Reaction to being ignored: high irritation threshold breached in under ten seconds."
It didn't feel like a diary.
It felt like a file.
I wasn't her classmate.
I was her target.
Rhea didn't acknowledge me for a week after she gave the notebook back.
No glances. No words. Nothing.
I'd think maybe I imagined her—if not for the fact that every time she passed, my pulse kicked like it was being jolted by an invisible wire.
And I noticed things. Small, sharp things that shouldn't matter.
Like how her ribbon changed color every Thursday.
How she tied her laces left over right, always.
How she never walked under the old oak tree in the center courtyard—always around it. Like she hated that specific patch of ground.
I asked around.
Nobody knew where she came from.
No one even remembered her arriving.
It was like she'd always been here—waiting for something.
By Friday, I was done pretending.
I cornered her after class. Not rough, not loud. Just… final.
"You knew my name before I ever told you."
She looked up slowly. "Yes."
"Why?"
She tilted her head like I was asking the wrong question.
"I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice."
"That you were watching me?"
She smiled. That smile. The one that felt like a dare carved into porcelain.
"No, Adrian. That you were never in control to begin with."
Later that night, I couldn't sleep.
So I reread the notebook.
This time, I noticed something else.
A second name—written again and again in the margins, nearly invisible under scratched ink.
R. M. Vale.
It wasn't hers.
It was mine....