Ella
I chose my seat deliberately.
Not near Paige. Not near Luciano. And certainly not where the cameras would hover with their greedy, predatory lenses, waiting to feast on another manufactured reaction.
I selected a corner spot, quiet, unobtrusive, the kind of place people instinctively dismissed as irrelevant.
That was their mistake.
The classroom on the third floor of the Ublento Art Museum was vast, drenched in filtered daylight pouring through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Easels stood in precise rows, canvases pristine and white, like a field of untouched snow awaiting footprints.
The scent of oil paint hung thick in the air, sharp and nostalgic, tugging at memories I rarely allowed myself to revisit.
Luciano stood at the front like a self-crowned monarch, hands clasped behin
