Chapter 5 Aslan
Aslan
The hostility after the Silver Star and the horse incident stopped being subtle.
People didn’t just avoid me anymore—they participated. Chairs scraped back when I got close. Someone bumped my shoulder in the hall and didn’t even bother pretending it was an accident.
Garrett made sure I was miserable. I hated that guy so damn much… yet, every time he was near, my pulse would spike from one to one hundred, which I hated even more.
And then, he crossed the line.
I was in the cafeteria, passing his table with my tray, when his foot slid out—smooth. Intentional. I went down hard, food splattering across my shirt, my hands, the floor…. Laughter erupted before I even caught my breath.
This wasn’t funny. Some of my clothes were secondhand, sure—but I’d picked up every extra goddamn shift at the restaurant just to afford that blazer. And unlike these assholes, I only had one.
“Oops,” Garrett said mildly. “My bad.”
I pushed myself up, face burning, fists already clenched. This was fucking cliché. What was he, twelve …?
“But look at the silver lining,” he went on, eyes flicking over the mess on me. “Maybe now you’ll shower. You were starting to stink. No offense.”
I stepped toward him.
And that was when someone grabbed my arm.
“Calm down, lion,” one of his friends muttered, holding me back. “No need to get feral.”
Another leaned in and sniffed exaggeratedly. “And, for the record, Garrett was right. You do stink.”
More laughter.
“What, don’t they have soap at the trailer park you came from?”
Something snapped.
My vision tunneled. My hands shook. Heat rushed to my face so fast I thought I might pass out. Evan’s grip tightened on my other arm, keeping me from lunging forward.
Garrett stood up slowly and stepped closer, invading my space like he wanted me to feel every inch of the difference between us.
“What’s wrong, little lion?” he asked softly. “You gonna cry?”
He leaned in, close enough that I could smell his cologne, his voice dropping just for me.
“Why don’t you go back to whatever ass-land you crawled out of,” he said. “You don’t belong here.”
“Back off.”
A new voice. Strong. Unamused.
Max Holt, representative of the ordinary students and a football star—from what I’d heard—stood a few feet away, broad shoulders squared, football jacket unmistakable. “You don’t drop it right now, I’m reporting this. All of it.”
For a second, no one moved.
Garrett smiled—tight, dangerous—but he stepped back.
“Relax,” he said. “Just a misunderstanding.”
They drifted away, laughter trailing behind them like smoke as I finally exhaled.
By the end of the week, my nerves were shot.
My chest stayed tight. My hands shook when I tried to focus. I caught myself thinking things I didn’t like—ugly, mean thoughts that scared me more than they helped.
Maybe I should’ve let that horse kick that pretty face of his.
The thought came out of nowhere and lingered just long enough to make me sick.
I shoved it down and kept going.
I didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t here to win popularity contests. I wasn’t here to play nice with a bunch of entitled assholes who thought cruelty was a personality trait. I was here to work. To graduate. To get out.
I’d survived worse than this. Real worse.
The kind of shit that sticks to you for life. That crawls under your skin and never really leaves, no matter how hard you pretend you’re fine.
And now—now this was my chance to heal. To build something solid. To get my mom out of the life we’d been stuck in.
A bunch of rich posers weren’t going to take that away from me.
From us.
So I focused on my curated project—the one thing that still made sense.
Art History. Research. Structure. Meaning.
Lame as it might sound to most people, I loved it. The process. The quiet logic of it. Standing in front of a piece of art and figuring out what the artist had tried to say without ever opening their mouth.
I was good at that.
Good at reading what lived between the lines. Between the strokes. Understanding what someone had walked through to put something like that into the world.
Because if I could paint worth a damn, I’d have a lot to say too.
I poured myself into that assignment—staying late in the art wing, cataloging pieces, scribbling notes, losing myself in brushstrokes and eras and intention….
Until suddenly… it was gone.
I noticed when I reached into my bag and felt empty space. No folder.
My stomach dropped.
I checked again. Then again, faster. Shuffling through my papers, pulling out every book, as panic crept up my spine. I retraced my steps, backtracking through the hall, my thoughts racing louder with every second.
Someone laughed nearby as I saw the art storage room door slightly ajar.
Hope flickered—thin and desperate.
Oh… I got you, motherfucker.
I stepped inside, and the door slammed shut behind me. The sound echoed, sharp and final.
“No,” I whispered, spinning around and yanking at the handle.
It didn’t move. My breath hitched.
The room was dark. Windowless. Packed tight with covered frames, crates, and shelving that loomed too close. The air felt thick, pressing in on my chest.
I knocked once. Hard. Then again.
“Hey!” My voice came out higher than I meant it to. “This isn’t funny!”
Nothing. The silence stretched, and something cold wrapped around my ribs.
My heart started racing—too fast, too loud, pounding like it was trying to escape my body. My palms went slick as the walls felt closer. Smaller.
Not again.
I pressed my forehead to the door, breathing shallowly, counting in my head like I’d been taught. In. Out. Slow it down. Control it.
But my body didn’t listen. The dark shifted, and suddenly I wasn’t here anymore.
I was younger. Trapped.
The smell was wrong—dust and rot instead of paint and polish—but my body didn’t care about the difference. It recognized the dark immediately. The air that didn’t move. The door that wouldn’t open no matter how hard I pulled.
Middle school.
My mom had gone on one of her long training trips, trusting the wrong people, trusting that I’d be safe. At school, a group of kids laughed as they shoved me inside an abandoned storeroom behind the gym. The lock clicked shut, and someone yelled that “now, I could finally come out of the closet.”
I remembered pounding on the door until my hands hurt. Screaming until my throat burned. Then nothing. Hours blurring into night. Night into day. Hunger. Thirst. The way time stretched until it stopped meaning anything at all.
Two days.
That was how long it took before someone finally opened the door.
My chest seized.
The present rushed back in too fast, too sharp, but the panic stayed. My heart slammed wildly, out of control, like it was trying to break its way out of me. My hands shook as I stumbled back, breath coming in short, useless gasps.
I was banging on the door before I realized I’d started.
“Please,” I said, the word tearing out of me. “Please—”
My chest contracted, sharp and terrifying. Dizziness washed over me. I slid down the door, knees hitting the floor, hands shaking so badly I had to grip my sleeves to keep them still.
I was going to pass out. I was going to—
Light flooded the room. The door opened, and I flinched back instinctively, blinking hard.
Aitor stood there, flashlight in hand, face pale, eyes locked on me.
He didn’t say anything. He just held the door open and waited.
I don’t remember standing. Only that I was suddenly moving, following the beam of light like it was the only thing keeping me upright.
He led me to his music studio—quiet, insulated, safe. Sat me down and pressed a bottle of water into my hands. Then wrapped a blanket around my shoulders without asking.
He stayed. Didn’t rush me. Didn’t talk. Just sat there until my body stopped freaking out.
Being next to him felt… good.
Not like Garrett—who made my nerves go haywire just by existing—but something softer. Safer. And that scared me almost as much.
After a while, he reached into his bag and handed me my folder.
Untouched.
“I found your project,” he said quietly. “It’s good.”
I swallowed hard. “Why? You’re one of them…”
He met my eyes, steady and sincere. “I hate wasted talent.” Then, softer, like it was something sacred. “My mother used to say… art is the only real thing.”
I nodded, unable to trust my voice yet.
For the first time since arriving at Crownwell, the shaking stopped. Not because I was safe, but because someone had seen me.
And somehow, I knew that was gonna cost me.