Brian Clark didn’t want to be treated differently. Fainting at the ceremony was already embarrassing enough, and someone in the class had already secretly started calling her Lin Daiyu. That nickname was upsetting—as if just being a little weak meant people would call you Lin Daiyu. If that was the case, then the name Lin Daiyu was far too cheapened.

She pulled the newspaper out from under her and placed it beside her. “Grace Bolton, do you want to sit for a while? I’m fine.”

Grace Bolton smiled slightly and handed her another bottle of water. “If you’re not feeling well, you have to say so right away, don’t be shy.” There was a kind of mature liveliness about the girl, a feeling that was hard to grasp, because it was rare to see such a harmonious balance in a high school student.

Just as Brian Clark was about to say something, her breath caught. A not-so-unfamiliar figure was walking over. The boy had taken off his cap and was holding it in his hand, tapping it against his leg absentmindedly.

He was coming this way, and not far off, there were pairs of curious eyes watching.

“You bought the water?” Henry Webb was talking to Grace Bolton. He seemed indifferent, and when he spoke, that slight frown always made him seem hard to approach. “Can I take a bottle?”

He wasn’t talking to her. Brian Clark lowered her eyes, her gaze trembling as it slid downward. She gripped the water bottle in her hand tightly, frozen in place as if stunned, staring only at the sandy ground by her feet.

She didn’t know why her heart was beating so fast, a little panicked, but her ears were especially sharp. She heard the smile in Grace Bolton’s voice.

“Take it, don’t be so polite with me, take a few more if you want.”

“Thanks.” Henry Webb made a gesture. His gaze dropped, and he glanced nonchalantly at Brian Clark, then looked up and met Jason Walker’s eager eyes. Clearly, the girl was excitedly working up the courage to strike up a conversation with him.

Hopeless fangirl.

Henry Webb looked away with a hint of annoyance and turned to leave.

“Ah, you know Henry Webb?” Jason Walker asked Grace Bolton.

Grace Bolton replied with a calm, breezy air, “Yeah, we were classmates in junior high. Sometimes I was first in the class, sometimes he was. Unfortunately, I couldn’t beat him in the high school entrance exam.” The girl’s sense of superiority as a top student slipped out unintentionally, leaving Jason Walker to sigh in admiration, “You’re both amazing!”

There was no time to ask more about Henry Webb. A whistle blew, and Jason Walker had to pat Brian Clark on the shoulder. “Ugh, it’s starting again. I’m off!”

Brian Clark still felt her chest pounding uncomfortably. Once everyone had left, she felt safe at last and quietly let her gaze wander, searching for that tall figure among the sea of identical green uniforms.

From this distance, no one knew who she was looking for.

But she was hopeless—even from so far away, she couldn’t spot him. There was more than one tall boy in Class One besides Henry Webb.

She couldn’t tell if it was her stomach or her gut, but the discomfort was getting worse and worse. Brian Clark grabbed her cap and got up to head toward the restroom.

How awful. Ever since her first period, it had been extremely irregular. It had only been ten days, and it had come again. Brian Clark rushed out of the restroom in a panic, not even washing her hands.

A figure blocked her way.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” Henry Webb’s voice rang out clearly, and Brian Clark froze.

The campus was very quiet. Everyone was on the field for military training. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting halos on the boy’s face. She could see every detail of his skin.

Brian Clark felt her mouth go stiff and nodded mechanically.

“Don’t talk.” Henry Webb said just three words.

It sounded harsh. Brian Clark couldn’t help but clutch her pants, her face full of embarrassment. “What?” Her face, pale to the point of translucence, suddenly flushed bright red.

She truly didn’t understand this threat.

“Classmate, we met at the police station over the summer. Pretend you didn’t see anything. If you’re not stupid, you should understand what I mean.” Henry Webb’s words carried a natural hostility, completely at odds with the top student image Brian Clark had in her mind, and nothing like the boy who spoke on the podium.

Her throat felt tight. She lowered her head awkwardly and said, “I haven’t talked about you to anyone. I don’t even know you.”

Brian Clark thought Henry Webb might hit her.

She was actually very timid, afraid of trouble, and of course, afraid of being hit.

That accident over the summer—she didn’t even know where she’d found the courage at the time.

“Don’t know me?” Henry Webb let out a barely noticeable laugh, his arrogance tinged with a precocious sharpness. “But you know my name.”

Brian Clark couldn’t deny it, so she just nodded lightly.

Henry Webb didn’t look like a top student at all. The way he acted, he seemed more like a school bully who didn’t study and was always getting into fights and having his parents called in.

But if you looked closely at the boy’s features, there was a hint of emerging handsomeness, a scholarly air, but his every movement was tense and sharp.

Those eyes—the ones she remembered from summer—were now staring at her with no kindness at all. Brian Clark got so nervous she wanted to pretend to tie her shoelaces.

On impulse, she squatted down and mumbled, “Don’t worry, I don’t like talking about other people’s business.”

Her heart felt like it was shrinking into a tiny apricot pit.

His shadow fell across her shoes. Brian Clark’s fingers moved in and out of his shadow, now in the light, now in the dark. When she suddenly stood up, her vision went completely black for a moment.