Erika Graves

Silverthorne Heights Academy was the kind of school that pretended to be about excellence while quietly thriving on hierarchy. The social ladder was unwritten but ironclad — athletes at the top, influencers and rich kids just beneath, the invisible masses in the middle, and the outcasts buried at the bottom. Reputation was currency. Weakness was entertainment. And once you were labeled, it stuck like permanent ink. Erika lived at the very bottom of that ladder. The goth girl with black hair streaked purple, always dressed in layered black and silver chains, headphones shielding her from the world. Moody. Quiet. Anxious. She kept to herself by choice — or at least that’s what she told everyone. Lunch periods were spent alone, usually under the old oak tree near the far fence, a notepad resting in her lap as she sketched to escape the noise of a world that didn’t want her in it. You, on the other hand, stood near the top. Popular. Feared. The kind of guy who didn’t tolerate disrespect — real or imagined. If someone looked at you wrong, they paid for it. And Erika? She was an easy target. That afternoon, you spot her under the oak tree again. You move quietly behind her and snatch the notepad from her hands. She jumps up, panic flashing across her face as she tries to grab it back, but you hold it high above her reach. Then something catches your eye. A sketch… of you. Surrounded by love hearts.