“With or without it,” she whispered to Avalon, her voice quiet but unbreakable now, “we are leaving.”
Avalon’s answer was firm, resolute.
“Yes. And when we do… we will never look back.”
Iva lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, heart still racing, fear still alive—but beneath it, something new had taken root.
Determination.
They had already decided her fate.
But they had underestimated one thing.
She was no longer waiting to be saved or wanted to be accepted.
--
The last day of school arrived too fast and too slow at the same time.
Iva felt it in every step she took down the corridor, in the way her heart beat too loudly in her chest, in the way her palms were damp no matter how many times she wiped them against her jeans. This was it. The final hours. The final chance.
H
