bruises in moonlight

The bell had barely finished ringing when Iris slipped into the desk beside mine, carrying the cold smell of rain and a notebook pressed flat against her chest.

“Morning,” she whispered.

I moved my backpack off the chair before she could ask. “You’re late.”

“By twelve seconds.”

“You counted?”

“I’m new. I have to make an impression.”

Her smile appeared quickly, bright and careful. It made me want to earn the real one - the one she kept hidden behind that polished expression.

Second period was in the classroom near the east windows, where the glass rattled whenever buses rolled past. Gray light spilled over Iris’s desk. She tucked her hair behind her ear, opened her notebook, and leaned close enough that her sleeve brushed mine.

I forgot what the teacher was saying.

Not because she was beautiful, though she was. It was the small things: the way she tapped her pencil three times before writing, the tiny crease between her brows when she concentrated, the fact that she had already learned my name but still glanced at my desk to make sure she had spelled it right.

Ven Marlowe.

She had written it in the corner of her notes.

I looked away before she caught me staring.

“You’re doing it again,” she murmured.

“Doing what?”

“Pretending not to look at me.”

“I’m looking at the board.”

“The board is behind you.”

I turned too quickly. A few students laughed under their breath, and Iris lowered her head to hide another smile. Warmth climbed up my neck.

Then her pencil rolled off the desk.

I reached for it at the same time she did. Her sleeve pulled back.

The bruise ran along the inside of her forearm, dark enough to stand out against her skin. Not one mark. Several. Finger-shaped shadows, fading at the edges and deep in the center, as if someone had grabbed her hard and held on.

My hand stopped inches from hers.

Iris noticed.

For half a second, everything narrowed to the rain ticking against the window and the blue-black marks beneath her sleeve.

Then she yanked the fabric down.

“You okay?” I asked.

Her fingers closed around the pencil. “Fine.”

“That doesn’t look fine.”

“It’s nothing.”

The teacher called my name from the front of the room. I faced forward because Iris did, but the lesson broke apart into meaningless sounds. My eyes kept dragging toward her arm.

She wrote steadily, her hand too calm. That was what bothered me most. Her expression didn’t change. She had hidden the bruise before I’d even found a question.

I leaned toward her. “Did someone do that?”

Her pencil stopped.

The room seemed to tilt toward us. I could hear the scratching of twenty other pencils, the hum of the old heater, the soft hiss of tires outside.

Iris didn’t look at me. “You ask a lot of questions for someone who barely knows me.”

“I know you sit next to me in almost every class.”

“That’s not knowing me.”

“I know you hate the cafeteria coffee.”

“It tastes like wet cardboard.”

“I know you count seconds when you’re late.”

“Very impressive.”

“And I know you’re hiding your arm.”

Her jaw tightened.

The teacher turned toward the board. Iris pulled her notebook closer, putting it between us like a wall.

“It was a door,” she said.

I stared at her.

“A door?”

“I walked into one.”

“You walked into a door shaped like a hand?”

Her eyes flashed toward mine. The softness vanished. “Do you want me to draw you a diagram?”

The sharpness should have made me back off. Instead, it made the bruise feel worse. People didn’t get defensive over nothing. They didn’t build walls around accidents.

I lowered my voice. “I’m not trying to embarrass you.”

“Then stop.”

The word landed harder than it should have.

I sat back, my knee pressed against the underside of the desk. She kept writing, but her letters had become cramped and uneven. A strand of hair fell across her cheek. She didn’t brush it away.

I wanted to. The thought came so suddenly that I clenched my hand around my pen.

The class dragged on. When the bell rang, everyone surged toward the door, loud and restless. Iris waited until the crowd thinned before standing. She moved carefully, keeping her injured arm tucked against her ribs.

I caught the edge of her notebook. “Iris.”

She looked down at my hand, then at me.

For a moment, I thought she might let me say it. The concern. The fear that had settled beneath my ribs and refused to leave.

Instead, she tilted her head. “You’re in my next class.”

“So are you.”

“That’s usually how schedules work.”

“Sit with me again.”

Her mouth curved. “You’re very attached to this seating arrangement.”

“I’m making sure you don’t get lost.”

“I’ve been in the building for one day and a half.”

“Exactly. Dangerous territory.”

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. It was quiet, but real. I felt it like a hand against my chest.

Then she pulled her notebook free and stepped into the aisle.

I followed her into the hallway.

The corridor smelled like wet coats and floor cleaner....