My Sunshine
The first day of senior year should’ve felt exciting—new beginnings, fresh notebooks, and people reuniting after a summer apart. But for Liana Hayes, it was just another reminder that nothing really changed.
Same school. Same faces. Same aching silence where her mom’s voice used to be.
She tightened her grip on the straps of her backpack and stepped off the school bus, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. The sky was unusually grey for September, clouds rolling in thick and heavy like her thoughts. She kept her eyes low, earbuds in, hoping no one would try to make small talk. Liana preferred blending into the background. It was safer there.
Then, a deep rumble cut through the morning air.
A sleek black motorcycle pulled into the school parking lot, drawing attention like a magnet. Heads turned. Phones came out. Even the group of boys pretending to be too cool for anything paused their conversation.
The rider wore a black leather jacket, helmet tucked under his arm, dark hair tousled like he'd just walked out of a movie. His gaze swept over the campus with the kind of disinterest that came from knowing you were more interesting than anything around you.
Kieran Wolfe.
The name spread like wildfire even before first period. The new boy. Mysterious. Dangerous. The kind your parents warned you about. The kind with secrets and stories he’d never tell.
Liana tried not to care. She didn’t do drama. She didn’t do boys. Not since her heart had become something she folded up and packed away with her childhood.
But when she walked into her homeroom and found the only empty seat… right next to him, the universe apparently decided otherwise.
He looked up as she approached, eyes sharp, calculating. Then—without warning—he smiled.
“You gonna sit or keep staring, sunflower?”
Her heart did a weird flutter. Sunflower?
“I—I wasn’t staring,” she mumbled, sliding into the chair beside him and pulling out her notebook.
He leaned back lazily. “Sure you weren’t.”
She ignored him, willing the heat in her cheeks to disappear. Who even talked like that?
The teacher arrived moments later, rattling off attendance and launching into a welcome speech that no one really listened to. Liana doodled small sunflowers in the corner of her notebook, annoyed that his nickname for her had somehow crept into her head.
“Name’s Kieran,” he said suddenly, tapping his pencil against the desk.
“I didn’t ask,” she replied, still not looking at him.
“But you were dying to.”
She turned then, finally meeting his eyes—stormy grey and full of mischief. “You’re not as charming as you think you are.”
“And you’re not as invisible as you think you are.”
She blinked. That one hit harder than she wanted it to.
Kieran just smirked, eyes returning to the front of the room.
The bell rang a few minutes later, but Liana remained seated for a beat longer.
For the first time in a long time, something had stirred in her quiet little world.
And it had stormy eyes and a smirk that spelt trouble.
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