Chapter 1 THE SCHOLARSHIP GIRL

Ivy's POV

The note is still in my pocket when I walk into English class.

I found it an hour ago, folded through my locker vent. I don't read things like that in hallways. Too many people. Too many chances for someone to catch your face changing. I read it in the bathroom stall with the door locked and someone blow-drying their hair on the other side.

Does the scholarship cover your lunch or do you have to beg for that too?

No name. There's never a name.

I fold it back up, put it in my pocket, wash my hands like I touched something dirty. Then I walk to class with my bag straps held tight and my face arranged into the expression I've been practicing for three years. The one that says nothing happened, I'm fine, keep moving.

I'm not fine. But I'm functional. At Ashridge Preparatory Academy, functional is enough.

My name is Ivy Monroe. Senior year. Scholarship student. My grandmother spent the last three years of her life fighting for this scholarship. Every Sunday morning she sat at our kitchen table with reading glasses held together by a rubber band, writing essays about potential and excellence and what education could do for a girl with nothing but her own mind.

She died four months before the acceptance letter arrived.

I keep it in my wallet. Not for motivation. Just because sometimes I need to touch something she touched, and that letter is the last thing she fought for that I can still hold.

Someone turned it into a joke this morning.

English. Room 204. I slide into my middle back row seat, uncap my pen, write the date at the top of the page. The note sits in my pocket like it has weight. Like it knows it got through.

Then the door opens.

Jace Holloway walks in six minutes late and the whole room shifts. Girls sit up straighter. Boys do the chin lift. Even Mr. Davenport, who once made a varsity captain cry over a misplaced comma, just waves toward an open seat like he's honored by the chance.

I know who Jace Holloway is. Everyone at Ashridge knows. Starting quarterback since sophomore year. Team captain. Son of Richard Holloway, whose name is on three buildings at this school. Tall, dark-haired, walks like he's never once had to think about whether he's allowed to be somewhere.

I have a rule about people like him. Eyes down. Don't engage. Don't exist anywhere near their orbit.

The only open seat is directly in front of mine.

Of course it is.

He drops into it and pulls out a leather notebook, real leather, and uncaps a pen. He smells expensive. Takes up space the way people do when they've never had to calculate how much they're allowed.

The note in my pocket feels heavier.

I write the date again. It's already there. My pen presses too hard.

Eleven minutes into the lecture he turns around. Not to talk to someone. To look at me. His eyes move across my worn cardigan, my lunch bag, my two-dollar notebook. Then he turns to Marcus and leans in.

He doesn't whisper quietly enough.

"Who brings a brown bag lunch to Ashridge?" Almost amused. "What is she saving up for, a second scholarship?"

Marcus laughs. Someone nearby covers their mouth. Class keeps moving like nothing happened.

My face stays completely still. That's the one thing I can always control.

The note in my pocket makes complete sense now. The handwriting I didn't recognize. That specific word, not poor, not different, but scholarship. Someone who knew exactly where to aim.

He turns back to the front.

He never looks back.

My grandmother wrote eight applications. Got rejected four times. Kept writing. She died not knowing if any of it worked, and she kept going anyway because she believed in me on the days I couldn't believe in myself.

I reach into my pocket and touch the note.

Then I reach into my wallet and touch the letter.

Her handwriting versus theirs. Her belief versus their punchline.

The bell rings. Jace grabs his bag and walks out without looking back once. I sit still while everyone files out and I breathe and I think about what I know.

This year is going to be brutal.

What I don't know yet is that I'm going to end up living in his house. That I'll hear him crying through walls he thinks are thick enough. That I'll learn things about Jace Holloway he's never said out loud to anyone.

It all starts with a video I never meant to record.