Chapter 162 Harder To Erase

Chapter 162 Harder To Erase
The problem with fear was that it did not always arrive dramatically.

Sometimes it sat beside you in the library’s east gallery while you pretended to annotate a chapter about political alliances and underlined the same sentence three times like panic could be converted into comprehension.

I stared down at my open textbook.

The words stared back. Neither of us was winning. My eyes kept drifting to the notice pinned near the library doors.

WINTER BENEFIT BALL — FINAL GUEST AND ENTRANCE PROTOCOL TO BE RELEASED THIS EVENING.

Entrance protocol. Because apparently, at Fletcher, even walking into a room had a hierarchy.

I tried to go back to my notes. My brain supplied, very unhelpfully, an image of my father in a black service jacket, carrying a tray past students who knew exactly how to make people feel invisible while staring directly at them.

My pen pressed too hard against the page.

I looked up.

Krizzy slid into the chair across from me, blazer sleeves pushed up, a ribbon from some committee packet tied around her wrist like she had survived a war with decorative planning materials.

“I’m studying,” I said.

She glanced at the page. “You wrote ‘therefore’ twice and then stopped mid-word.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Your face says fine,” she whispered, “but your soul looks like it’s drafting a formal apology.”

I lowered my gaze. “It’s just the Ball.”

“The Ball,” she repeated, not believing me at all.

“The protocol. The rumors. Everyone acting like who walks in with who is somehow an international crisis.”

“At Fletcher, it kind of is.”

The truth pressed against my throat. I could tell her. My father might be working that night. If I walk in with Isaac, they might not just punish me. They might punish him too.

But the words felt too bare. Too humiliating. Too real.

So I only closed my textbook and said, “I need a minute.”

Krizzy watched me carefully. For once, she did not push.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Take one. But don’t disappear inside your own head. It’s weird in there.”

I managed the smallest smile. “Noted.”

She stood. “I have to drop these committee forms before Madame Liora decides I personally ruined the Ball’s floral symmetry.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Fletcher-level tragic.”

Then she left me with my open textbook, my ruined margin, and the notice by the door still waiting like it knew exactly where to press.

Yesterday, I had decided I would not run. Today, I realized bravery was not a single decision. Sometimes it had to be chosen again.

And I was suddenly terrified I would choose wrong.

I gathered my books slowly, mostly because moving too fast felt like admitting I wanted to escape.

The east gallery had emptied while I was busy pretending to be functional. Only a few students remained near the reference shelves, whispering over tablets and color-coded notes.

I should go back to the dorm. I should finish the assignment. I should do any number of sensible things that did not involve staring at a Ball notice.

Instead, I slipped into the private study alcove behind the biography shelves and shut the glass door halfway.

I set my books on the small table and sat down. On my tablet, the Ball notice refreshed.

ENTRANCE DETAILS PENDING FINAL REVIEW.

My chest tightened. Maybe I should not go. The thought came so cleanly it scared me.

Not because it was new, but because it sounded practical. Responsible. Like the kind of choice a smart girl would make if she remembered that feelings did not pay school fees, protect jobs, or stop legacy girls from turning kindness into weakness.

“If I back out now,” I whispered, “maybe it gets easier.”

“No,” Isaac said from the doorway. “It gets quieter.”

My head snapped up. My heart reacted with no respect for the situation.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.”

I should have been annoyed. Mostly, I was relieved, which felt more dangerous. Isaac stepped inside and closed the door behind him, just enough to make the noise outside fall away.

“You left the gallery fast,” he said.

“I walked at a normal academic speed.”

“You forgot your pen.”

I looked down. Of course I had. He held it out.

The pen looked ridiculous between us. Small. Ordinary. Like my whole body was not suddenly aware of the space between his fingers and mine.

I took it carefully. “Thank you.”

He did not move back immediately. “You were going to change your mind.”

The silence answered for me.

“I know what I said yesterday,” I whispered.

“I didn’t ask.”

“I decided I wouldn’t run. And I meant it. But that was before I had to sit here and imagine every possible way this could go wrong.”

Isaac’s face changed slightly. Sharper. Like he was listening beneath the words.

“My father works here,” I said. “They know that. Farrah knows that. And if I walk into that room with you, I’m not the only one they’ll see.”

“I know.”

The quiet way he said it made my throat burn.

I let out a breath. “Maybe this is a bad idea.”

Isaac looked at me for one long second.

“It probably is.”

I stared at him. “You are terrible at reassurance.”

“I’m not trying to lie to you.”

“That is an interesting strategy for making me feel better.”

“I’m not trying to make it pretty either.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

His eyes stayed on mine.

“Tell you that bad idea or not,” he said, voice low and even, “I’m not letting you walk into that room alone.”

The words landed quietly.

He did not say he would stop the whispers. He did not promise Farrah would not smile across the room like she already knew where to cut. He did not tell me my father would be untouched by whatever this school decided to turn into entertainment.

Isaac Fletcher, for once, did not offer me control.

Only himself.

I swallowed. “You can’t protect me from everything.”

“I know.”

“Then why say it?”

His gaze did not move from mine.

“Because I can stand beside you while you protect yourself.”

For a second, I forgot how to answer. Because that was not a rescue. That was not him stepping in front of me until I disappeared behind his name.

It was worse, somehow. Harder to refuse.

He was offering presence. A choice.

A place beside him that did not require me to become smaller just to fit there. My fingers tightened around the pen he had brought back to me.

“Then don’t walk ahead of me,” I said.

Isaac’s eyes sharpened.

“Where do you want me?”

My pulse stumbled.

“Beside me.”

Something moved across his face, brief and restrained, but I felt it anyway.

“Then beside you,” he said.

For the first time, I wondered if standing beside Isaac Fletcher might not make me weaker. Maybe it would make me harder to erase.

And at Fletcher Academy, that was exactly the kind of thing people tried to punish.