Chapter 1 – The Comment That Lingers

At sixteen, Cordelia Hart had already mastered the art of hiding.

The mask was her shield. It wasn’t unusual in those days—plenty of students wore them when colds went around, or when the smog clung to the city like a heavy blanket. But Cordelia wore hers always. At first it had been because of an infection that left her parents fretting, and then because she realized that behind it, people didn’t look too closely. The mask blurred her edges, made her less noticeable. She preferred it that way.

Or at least, she thought she did.

Every evening after school, she trudged up the narrow staircase to Bright Minds Academy, the most sought-after tuition center in the city. Her parents insisted she attend, certain it would give her the academic polish she needed for college admissions. Cordelia never argued—she liked learning, even if the long hours left her drained.

What she didn’t expect was Adrian Anderson.

He was there in the front row from the very first day, his confidence filling the classroom before he even opened his mouth. He leaned back in his chair as though it were a throne, tossed out answers before the teachers had finished asking, and laughed in a way that made others glance over just to share in the sound. He wasn’t arrogant exactly—just effortlessly sure of himself, the kind of boy who carried light with him.

Cordelia, two rows behind, found herself watching him more often than she admitted. When he cracked a joke and the teacher rolled her eyes with reluctant fondness, Cordelia’s lips twitched under her mask. When he scribbled notes furiously, brows furrowed in concentration, she admired the intensity. And sometimes—only sometimes—he would turn slightly, and she thought she caught his gaze flickering her way.

Her heart would stutter at those moments, and she’d bury herself deeper in her notebook.

It was foolish, she knew. She was just the quiet girl in the mask, her voice muffled, her expressions hidden. But in the safety of her imagination, she let herself believe Adrian might notice her. Really notice her.

Weeks passed, and the tuition class became its own small universe. Thirty students packed into a room, the hum of ceiling fans, the scribble of pens on paper. Cordelia’s world was numbers, essays, formulas—and the boy whose laugh cut through all of it.

Her mask gave her courage, oddly enough. It was easier to speak up when her face was hidden. During discussions, her voice would ring out from behind the fabric, surprising even herself. The teachers praised her arguments; some classmates nodded along. Cordelia began to feel a quiet pride: maybe she wasn’t invisible after all.

Then came the mock debate exercise.

The teacher, eager to sharpen their reasoning skills, split the class into teams. Cordelia’s palms dampened instantly, but she forced herself to join in. Her team prepared hastily, whispering strategies, scribbling points. When her turn came, she stood at the front of the room, tugged her mask down just enough to speak clearly, and launched into her argument.

Her voice wavered at first, but soon steadied. She was making sense—more than that, she was making impact. Even Adrian, leaning against the wall on the opposing team, tilted his head slightly, as though listening.

By the time she returned to her seat, Cordelia’s heart was hammering—but with exhilaration, not fear. She’d done it. She’d spoken with clarity, with conviction. She dared a small smile under her mask.

And then, during the break, it happened.

The room buzzed with chatter as students stretched, swapping notes and jokes. Cordelia lingered near her desk, sipping water, when Maya—her only real friend in the class—nudged her.

“You should take off your mask, at least once,” Maya whispered. “You looked so confident out there. Why keep hiding?”

Cordelia hesitated. She’d worn the mask so long it felt like part of her face. But something inside her stirred. Adrian had looked at her while she was speaking. What if… what if he could see her, the real her, and not just the shadow behind the mask?

Her fingers trembled as she tugged it down. The cool air brushed her cheeks. For the first time in months, her full face was bare in that room. She tucked the mask into her pocket, her heart racing with both fear and a strange, giddy hope.

And then Adrian walked by.

He slowed, eyes flicking over her—just for a second. Cordelia braced herself, every nerve sparking, waiting for… what? A smile? A compliment? Something small but kind, something that would make her leap inside?

Instead, he smirked faintly, and with the casual cruelty of a boy who never thought his words might matter, he said,

“Oh. You look… kind of ugly without it.”

The words fell like stones into silence.

Cordelia’s stomach dropped. Heat rushed to her face, burning hotter than she thought possible. She froze, unable to move, unable to breathe. Ugly.

Ugly.

The sound echoed, bouncing off the walls of her mind, sharper than any insult she’d ever known. Because it was him. Because she had dared, just for once, to be seen—and this was the result.

Maya’s eyes widened, her mouth parting as if to protest, but Adrian had already turned away, laughing with a classmate about something else. As if his remark had meant nothing at all. As if he hadn’t just shattered something delicate inside her.

Cordelia tugged her mask back up so quickly her nails scratched her skin. She pressed the fabric tight against her face, as though it could erase what had just happened.

The rest of the class blurred. The teacher’s voice, the scrape of chairs, the shuffle of notebooks—all of it faded under the heavy weight of that word. Ugly.

When she reached home that evening, she locked herself in the bathroom and stared into the mirror.

There she was: Cordelia Hart. Ordinary brown eyes. Unruly hair that refused to lie flat. A nose she’d always thought was too sharp, lips too thin. She pressed her palms to the sink, trying to find something—anything—redeemable. But all she saw was the echo of his smirk, the word hanging like a label across her reflection.

“Ugly,” she whispered.

And for the first time, she believed it.

Later that night, she opened her journal, the leather-bound one she used for secrets too heavy to say aloud. Her handwriting was jagged as she wrote:

I should never have taken the mask off. I thought maybe—just maybe—he would see me. But he did, and now I wish he hadn’t. I was stupid to hope. I won’t make that mistake again.

The ink smudged where a tear fell, but she didn’t wipe it away. She filled three more pages with words she would never speak, sealing the pain into the book the way she sealed her face behind the mask.

From that day on, Cordelia swore she would never again offer someone the power to hurt her so deeply. She would be witty, guarded, untouchable. No one would see her vulnerability, not ever again.

But wounds have long memories. And though she tried to bury that moment, though years would pass and life would change, Adrian Anderson’s careless words remained lodged inside her, shaping her in ways neither of them could have predicted.

What Cordelia didn’t know then was that fate wasn’t finished with her story. The boy who had once called her ugly would one day sit across from her again—not in a classroom, but on a blind date that neither of them had expected. And the equation of their lives, once broken, would begin to change.

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