It remembered being surrounded.

Coach Ruiz found her twenty minutes later.

She did not tell Keira to be strong.

She sat on the floor outside the stall.

“You don’t have to come back today.”

“I want to.”

“I know.”

Keira wiped her face.

“I hate that I’m scared now.”

“Of what?”

“People touching me.”

Ruiz leaned against the wall.

“Then we deal with that before worrying about a routine.”

Keira began seeing the school counselor.

Marcus encouraged it immediately.

The first session irritated her.

The second was worse.

By the fourth, she admitted she had started rehearsing exits from every room.

The counselor did not call that dramatic.

She called it a nervous system trying too hard to keep her safe.

That helped.

So did time.

By January, Keira could cross the courtyard without replaying the confrontation.

By February, she stopped checking who was behind her every thirty seconds.

By March, she volunteered to help Coach Ruiz with the freshman cheer clinic.

That was where she met Ava Torres.

Ava was fourteen.

Small.

Funny when comfortable.

Almost invisible when older students entered the room.

During one practice, Ava froze before a simple basket toss.

Keira noticed.

“You okay?”

Ava nodded too quickly.

Keira sat beside her.

“You don’t have to do it.”

“I’ll get kicked off.”

“No.”

“Coach said we have to learn it.”

“Learn isn’t the same as do it before you’re ready.”

Ava looked at her.

“My last team made us keep going even when we were scared.”

Keira felt something tighten in her chest.

She called Coach Ruiz over.

They changed the drill.

Nobody laughed.

Nobody punished Ava.

The following week she tried again voluntarily.

She completed the stunt.

The entire freshman group cheered.

Keira understood then why her father had never seemed impressed when she learned to put someone on the ground.

Strength was easy to recognize when it looked dramatic.

The harder version was building a place where someone did not need to be afraid in the first place.

Spring arrived.

Crestview’s courtyard filled with flowers around the same planter where Dylan had fallen months earlier.

Keira sometimes saw him at school after his suspension ended.

He was quieter.

Not transformed.

Not suddenly kind.

Real people rarely changed on schedule.

He avoided her.

She was grateful.

One afternoon, Miles approached her near the library.

He kept several feet between them.

“Can I talk to you?”