Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 35

**Charlotte**

By the time lunch rolls around, I’m already tired again. The hallways are loud, the classrooms are stuffy, the teachers talk like their voices are the only things that matter, and somehow everyone feels closer today. It’s as if the air has tightened around me and shrunk the space I normally hide inside. It isn’t that people are bumping into me, or whispering as I pass, or doing anything obvious enough to point at; it’s just the quiet awareness of eyes sliding over me and then away again. It keeps my shoulders tense even when I try to drop them. Shanti stays quiet for most of the morning, but I keep feeling that gentle tug in my chest now and then. Once during the second period, she murmured in my head that our mate was close, then fell silent again, as if satisfied with the reminder.

I try not to look for Blake, I really do, because every time I catch cedar and smoke in the corridor, my body reacts before my brain can talk it down. It makes me feel stupid and exposed, so I tell myself I’m focusing on Charlie, I’m focusing on classes, I’m focusing on surviving another day in a new school without drawing attention. The truth is, I keep noticing little things that don’t make sense. A teacher holding the door for me, even though I’m nowhere near it yet, a senior boy shifts his body slightly to block a group of kids from brushing past me in the corridor. A girl I’ve never spoken to slides her bag off the seat beside her without being asked. None of it is big enough to accuse anyone of anything, but it stacks up like small stones in my pocket until it starts to weigh.

Then the bell for lunch rings and the PA crackles above us, the office lady’s voice flat and bored as she announces that there will be no eating outside today and everyone is to remain indoors due to the weather. The room fills with groans and complaints and the scrape of chairs, while my stomach tightens because indoors means no slipping away, no finding Charlie on the oval, no sitting somewhere quiet where I can breathe. It means being stuck in this classroom, with people, smells, and noise. The teacher claps his hands like he’s thrilled, telling everyone to stay put, and the kids start digging into their bags while wrappers crinkle and lunch smells bloom in the air, like a cruel joke. My stomach clenches harder because I didn’t pack anything. I glance sideways without meaning to, and I see a boy two desks over unwrapping a thick sandwich like he’s never once had to worry about groceries. The smell wafts across the room in warm waves, and then he pauses. He lifts his head as his eyes meet mine for half a second, and something flickers across his face, before he lowers the sandwich slowly. I look away fast, cheeks heating with the kind of anger that has nowhere to go, because being seen like this makes me feel exposed even when no one has said a word. I push my chair back quietly and walk up to the teacher’s desk with the smallest, most even voice I can manage.

“Sir,” I say, and he looks up with that impatient expression teachers get when they’re interrupted. I tell him I forgot to pack anything today and ask if I can go to the canteen, and he studies me for a second like he’s weighing whether I’m worth the effort before he scribbles on a scrap of paper and hands it over with a sigh. “Be quick.” I thank him and leave before he can change his mind, stepping into a hallway that feels too quiet for a school at lunch. The lights hum overhead, and my shoes squeak faintly on the linoleum. For a moment, I let my shoulders drop because the empty corridor feels like space. Then footsteps sound behind me. I count three steps and then four, and when they’re still there, I glance back and see it’s the boy from my class. He gives me a small shrug like this is normal. “I forgot my lunch, too.” I blink because I know that’s not true, I saw it in his hands, I smelt it.

Instead of heading straight for the canteen, I turn down the hallway toward the girls' bathroom, because I want walls and locks and somewhere I can breathe. The boy follows, and my heart pounds hard enough that I can feel it in my throat. I push into the bathroom, the tiled air colder under fluorescent lights. I lock myself into the furthest stall and sit on the closed lid with my bag clutched against my stomach, holding my breath like it might make me invisible. When the bell finally rings, I stay put for another ten seconds because my instincts won’t let me trust it. Then I stand, knees stiff, and step out, washing my hands because I need something normal to do. Something that reminds me I’m still a girl in a school bathroom and not a trapped animal. When I step back into the hallway, my stomach sinks. The boy is there, leaning against the wall near the bathroom entrance like he’s been waiting. He lifts his eyes as if we’re old friends. “Is lunch already over?” I stare at him. “Why are you following me?” He shrugs ever so casually. “Pack sticks together.” Before I can say anything else, the corridor fills as students pour out of classrooms, noise rising, bodies moving, and the moment loses its sharp edge.

The rest of the day passes in a blur of teachers and bells and classrooms and strange closeness. Shanti stays quiet in the back of my mind, listening to something I can’t hear, while I keep my head down and do what I always do. I survive the hours in front of me. When the final bell rings, relief hits me. I find Charlie near the gates with that light in his eyes again, and we walk home together through the cold air that clears my head. We stop at the grocery store on the way because we need food. Under bright lights and narrow aisles, I fill a basket with things I know we can stretch. Charlie talks beside me about how the guys shared their lunch with him, how it felt like nothing and everything at the same time. I smile at that because I’m proud of him and because I want to let him have this. Then he looks at me, and his expression shifts as the thought hits late. “Shoot,” he says. “Did you eat?” I don’t hesitate, because lies like this are muscle memory now. “Yeah,” I say easily, dropping a couple more cans into the basket. “I went to the canteen.” Charlie’s shoulders ease as if the answer matters more than he wants to admit. “Good, sorry I didn’t even think.” I nod back, like I’m fine, like I didn’t sit in a bathroom stall with my heart hammering while a boy waited outside.