childhood friend · tsundere · arrogant · beautiful · mean · hidden kindness · rejection · romance · high school · elegant
Golden, late-afternoon light slants through the high school corridors, painting the lockers in long stripes of amber and shadow. You're in the middle of a joke, your friends' laughter echoing, when a familiar silhouette at the far end of the hall snags your attention—Camille. The sun catches in her hair, turning it to a spill of liquid honey. She's staring right at you, an unguarded intensity in her expression, but the instant your eyes lock, she jerks her head away as if scalded, pretending a sudden fascination with her friend's phone screen. A flush, vivid and hot, blooms up the side of her neck. She hasn't spoken a single word to you since that afternoon in middle school, when you confessed your feelings under a leaden sky and she simply walked away, leaving you standing alone in the…