There is nothing remarkable about the first day of a new semester.

Nothing ever changes. The same dull routine, the same neatly arranged desks, the same quiet hum of students filing into their assigned seats with the same tired expressions. Even the air is stale, tinged with the scent of old textbooks and freshly printed worksheets.

It is comfortable. It is predictable. It is exactly as it should be.

And then she arrives.

The door slides open, and the class is disrupted—not by force, not by volume, but by something more subtle. The shift is immediate. Conversations pause. Attention drifts toward the front. Even the teacher, a rigid and habitual man, allows the moment to stretch longer than necessary.

A transfer student.

Her name is Amara Johnson. Mexican. Her accent lingers softly when she speaks, shaping her words with an unfamiliar rhythm. Her posture is relaxed, and confident in a way that suggests she is not bothered by the dozens of eyes now fixated on her.

She is smiling.

That is the first thing to take note of—how naturally she smiles. It does not falter under the weight of scrutiny. If anything, she welcomes it. There is a kind of warmth to her presence, an ease that makes people lean in without realizing it.

The teacher gestures toward an empty seat. She walks to it without hesitation.

The lesson resumes.

Lina does not care.

She keeps her focus where it belongs—on the board, on her notes, on the work that actually matters. The classroom could be set on fire, and it would still be a pointless distraction. A new student is nothing. A new student is irrelevant.

And yet.

A voice, smooth and effortless, cuts through the silence during a question-and-answer portion of the lesson.

It is her voice.

Lina’s pen stills for a fraction of a second.

The teacher had barely finished the question before Amara answered. No hesitation, no uncertainty—just a flawless, confident response.

It is correct.

The class reacts with impressed murmurs. The teacher gives a nod of approval. Amara merely smiles again, as if she did not just invite herself into a place she does not belong.

Lina glances at her, just once. Just long enough to study her.

There is no arrogance in Amara’s expression, and there is no obvious attempt at superiority. It is as if the knowledge simply belongs to her—as if intelligence comes as naturally as breathing.

The pen in Lina’s hand presses against the paper hard enough to leave an imprint.

It is not irritation. It is not frustration. It is simply something to take note of.

She refocuses.

The first interaction happens at lunch.

Lina has no interest in wasting time on meaningless chatter, so she remains at her desk, pulling out her current reading material—an academic journal on behavioral psychology.

The background noise of the classroom fades into irrelevance.

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Until it doesn’t.

A presence looms, too close to ignore. Someone has approached.

When Lina looks up, Amara Johnson is standing at her desk, tilting her head slightly, as if studying her with mild curiosity.

A moment of silence stretches between them.

Then, the new girl speaks.

"You don’t talk much, do you?"

Lina does not answer immediately. It is not worth answering.

But Amara does not take the silence as rejection. If anything, it amuses her.

"What are you reading?" she asks instead, shifting her weight onto one foot, completely unbothered by the lack of invitation.

Lina could ignore her. She should ignore her.

Instead, her fingers tighten around the book. Behavioral psychology. Analyzing patterns, understanding human thought processes, and identifying motives.

Perhaps, in this case, testing responses.

"It’s nothing you’d be interested in." The words are delivered flatly, with the intention of ending the conversation.

But Amara laughs.

It is a soft sound, but something about it lingers.

"You don’t know that," she says easily. Then, as if it is the most natural thing in the world, she pulls out her notebook and places it on Lina’s desk.

It is open to a sketch.

A black dahlia.

Lina stares at it.

Not because it is particularly good—though it is—but because why that flower?

Amara taps the page lightly. "I don’t know. Just felt right."

Lina’s fingers hesitate over the page.

A black dahlia. A flower that symbolizes mystery, betrayal, and dark beauty. A flower with a history of violence attached to its name.

A flower that, somehow, represents her.

"Why that one?" Lina finally asks, voice carefully neutral.

Amara blinks as if the answer should be obvious. "It suits you."

There is something unsettling about that response.

Lina does not believe in fate. She does not believe in meaning beyond what can be proven.

But the idea that Amara—this girl—saw a black dahlia and thought of her…

She closes the notebook and slides it back. "It suits you," she says instead, though she is not sure why.

Amara just smiles.

And for the first time, something shifts.

Something that should not.

The rest of the day passes uneventfully.

Except it doesn’t.

Because Lina catches herself noticing.

Amara is not a distraction. Amara is nothing.

So why does Lina know exactly where she is sitting, without looking? Why does she hear her voice among the others, picking it out so effortlessly? Why does she remember the way Amara smiled at her, unbothered by the cold response?

She tells herself it is nothing.

It is simply a new variable. A new factor to analyze.

And yet.

As she sits through the next class, she notices the way Amara twirls her pen between her fingers, effortlessly fidgeting. She catches glimpses of her laughter, the way it comes so easily like she belongs here. The way others are drawn to her, leaning in, wanting more.

When she returns home that evening, she finds herself tracing the image of the black dahlia in her mind.

It is just a flower.

It means nothing.

And yet.

She remembers.

AND SHE DOES NOT FORGET.