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Elena's POV
The cafeteria was too loud. It always was.
Elena pressed her headphones in tighter, not because she was listening to anything, but because silence—her kind of silence—was safer. People were too loud when they thought no one was paying attention. And Elena was always paying attention.
Her pencil glided over the sketchbook page. She was halfway through shading the soft curve of a girl's jawline, head tilted toward a window, eyes full of something unspoken. That something—longing, maybe, or regret—was easier to draw than to feel.
"Elena," a soft voice called.
She glanced up. Leah, her only real friend, was sliding into the seat across from her.
"You've been in sketch-mode for twenty minutes. You haven't touched your food."
Elena gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Wasn't hungry."
Leah rested her chin on her palm. "You know people think you're mysterious."
"Let them."
She meant it, too. People made fewer assumptions when they didn't know where to start.
Leah leaned in, lowering her voice like she was sharing a scandal. "Jayden Cole was looking at you."
That got her attention. Elena's pencil paused mid-stroke.
She looked across the cafeteria, toward the corner where the loudest table always sat—where he always sat. Jayden. The golden boy. Tall, effortlessly handsome, with a camera always hanging from his neck like it was part of him.
And yeah... he was looking at her.
No—watching her.
Their eyes met for half a second.
Elena blinked and looked down at her sketchbook.
No. Nope. Not interested. Not in him. Not in whatever that was.
Jayden Cole didn't just look at girls like her. He flirted. He played. He moved on.
And Elena Rivers?
She didn't play.
She didn't get involved.
Because she knew what it felt like to be left behind.
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The cafeteria buzzed with the usual chaos — trays clattering, laughter echoing, a football flying across the table before Coach Simmons shouted someone's name.
Jayden Cole leaned back in his seat, spinning his soda can between his fingers. "I'm telling you, man," he said, glancing at the girl across the room. "She's not heartless. Just... quiet."
"Yeah, and you're not arrogant — just charming," his friend Ryan shot back with a grin.
Jayden shrugged. "Maybe I like a challenge."
Zara, the only girl at the table who could call him out without flinching, raised an eyebrow. "You're saying you could get Elena Rivers to fall for you?"
Jayden followed their gaze to the girl sitting alone near the window. Head bent over a sketchbook. Headphones in. Like the whole world didn't exist.
"She's just... guarded," he said.
"Then prove it," Ryan said. "We make it interesting. Three weeks. Make her fall for you."
Jayden blinked.
"Unless you're scared."
That word. Scared. He hated it. He smirked, already reaching for his phone. "Three weeks?"
"Three weeks," Ryan nodded. "If she falls for you, you win."
Jayden tapped his fingers on the table, then looked across the cafeteria again.
Elena Rivers. The girl who never looked up. The girl no one could get close to.
He stood.
"Deal."