I hear about it before anyone tells me.
That's how things work here — truth travels in shadows and half-smiles.
It starts with the silence.
The kind that isn't soft, but sharp. The kind that follows me down hallways. Teachers glance away too quickly. Students whisper quieter than usual.
And then Bear bursts through my door after school.
He doesn't knock.
He never does.
"Guess what," he says, too loud, too fast. "That boy—the one who dumped the box? He's gone."
I blink. My brain doesn't catch up right away.
"Gone?" I echo.
"Expelled," Bear says, like it's a punchline. "Like, pack-your-bag-and-leave gone. They made an announcement in some staff meeting. India's cousin heard it through the vent in the office. And Hannah and Ava? Suspended. Phones taken. Club stuff stripped. Everyone's freaking out."
He pauses. "Stair boy did it, didn't he?"
I don't answer.
Because I don't know.
Because maybe I do.
Because even if it wasn't just him, it felt like him.
Like someone finally stood up, loud and angry, when I couldn't.
I ask Luca about it later.
Under the stairs, where our quiet lives.
I don't ask directly. Just let the question settle between us like dust.
He looks at me for a long time. Then shrugs, soft.
"They deserved consequences," he says. "I just made sure there were some."
That should feel like something.
But it doesn't.
Not exactly.
At school, people don't look at me the same way anymore.
They don't mock me.
They don't speak to me.
They don't see me.
Just glances.
Guilt.
Avoidance.
Like I'm a walking fire alarm they don't know how to turn off.
Like justice turned me into something untouchable.
A counselor left a sticky note on my locker:
"Safe space if you need to talk. :)"
With a smiley face.
I peeled it off without reading the rest.
They didn't talk to me when it happened.
Just after.
Always after.
The boy who poured the box on me is gone.
But the stain isn't.
Sometimes, I still smell mango.
Feel the pulp on my skin.
The way it dripped down like shame. Like memory. Like proof.
Everyone keeps saying it's over.
But all I feel is that something broke, and now the silence is louder.
Like it's echoing through me.
Like it's asking:
Now that they're gone, what's left of you?
And I don't know how to answer.