I hate this dining hall.
It's too clean. Not clean like hygienic — clean like curated. Like someone scrubbed the mess out of it and replaced it with polished wood floors and chairs that don't squeak when you sit. The ceiling's high enough to echo, and every laugh from the rich kids' table sounds like it was filtered through money.
I sit with them anyway. Because that's what I'm supposed to do.
Jeremy tosses a grape at Ava and misses by a mile. She shrieks like it's hilarious. Someone makes a joke about the scholarship kid with the off-brand shoes, and I smile because I'm supposed to.
But it doesn't feel real. None of this does.
My blazer is tailored. My tie knot is perfect. My family's crest is stitched into my sweater like a warning label: do not question. Do not embarrass us.
I chew my salad like it's a performance.
Across the room, a kid gets bumped in line and drops their tray. Nobody helps. Someone claps like it's a sitcom. My mouth tastes like metal.
I think my discomfort started years ago. Maybe at the first board meeting dinner I was forced to attend, where grown men in cufflinks laughed at jokes I didn't understand while my mother warned me, "Don't drink still water if they're drinking sparkling. Blend in."
Or maybe it was when I realized the kids at school didn't really like each other — they just inherited the same dinner party invitations.
But I didn't have the vocabulary for it then. Still don't, most days. Just this quiet itch under my skin. Like the air is too tight in rooms with expensive lighting.
"Luca," Jeremy says, nudging my shoulder, "you seeing this?"
He jerks his chin toward a table in the back corner — barely visible behind the bustle. There's a girl there, hunched over a sketchbook, hoodie up like armor.
Jeremy snorts. "She looks like she's auditioning for a sad indie film."
I don't laugh. Not even a fake one.
Something about her feels... heavy. Not in a tragic way. In a real way.
Like she's carrying something none of us could even name.
I look back at my table. At the polished forks and the too-shiny smiles. At the easy jokes and the way everyone talks loud enough to be heard but says nothing.
Then I glance at her again — fourth tile from the door, two to the right.
She's not looking at anyone.
Which is maybe the only reason I can't stop looking at her