Sight UnseenChapter 1

On my very first day at my new school, the resident bad boy decided to make my life hell.

All because I accidentally wore a similar outfit to the school’s "Queen Bee." Suddenly, I was labeled a "pick-me girl" and a "try-hard."

The bad boy, Jace, deliberately poured a carton of milk over my head. Then, with fake sincerity, he apologized while roughly messing up my wet hair.

When he noticed my mismatched eye color, he sneered.

"Wow, wearing colored contacts on the first day? Who are you trying to seduce?"

I looked at him calmly. "It’s not a contact lens. It’s a prosthetic."

* * *

"What?" Jace looked like he hadn't heard me right.

He frowned, his expression shifting from arrogance to something weirdly unsettled.

"What did you just say? If it’s not a contact, what is it?"

I sighed internally. The one thing I dreaded about transferring schools was happening immediately.

Calmly, I swatted Jace’s hand away. I slicked my milk-soaked hair back, wiped the white streaks from my face with a tissue, and revealed my pale forehead and bloodless complexion.

I locked eyes with him. "Watch closely."

Jace’s brow furrowed in confusion.

The next second, with practiced ease, I lifted my eyelid. Right there in front of the entire class, I popped the prosthetic piece out of my left eye socket.

I placed the golden-hued artificial eye on the desk in front of a now pale-faced Jace. I repeated myself, my voice flat.

"This isn't a contact lens. It’s a prosthetic eye."

"Was I clear enough?"

The rowdy classroom instantly fell into a deathly silence.

Jace stared at my empty eye socket for a long time, then stumbled back two steps in disbelief.

"How...?" He looked dazed, his hand instinctively reaching out as if to touch my face, but I blocked him.

I lowered my head and quickly slipped the piece back in, adjusting it until it sat right.

I knew I must look pathetic right now—soaked in milk, blind in one eye. But it didn't matter. I’d been through worse. This was nothing.

When I looked up again, Jace was staring at me with a complicated expression.

"I thought you were..." His lips trembled, like he wanted to say something else.

But the bell rang.

I didn't wait. I walked right past a stiff-as-a-board Jace and went to my desk.

My hair was dripping wet. I wiped it silently with tissues, but it didn't help much. It just left that gross, sticky feeling of drying milk.

I ran out of tissues quickly. I ignored the mess on my hoodie and pulled out my textbook.

Jace stood by my desk, frozen.

He watched me try to clean myself up without saying a word, his hand still gripping the empty milk carton.

When I finally stopped wiping, his gaze lingered on my damp hair.

After a long pause, Jace kicked the chair of the girl in front of me—Chloe.

"Give me a pack of tissues," he rasped.

Chloe glared at him. "Jace, what is your problem? The teacher’s coming. Sit down."

"I said, give me the tissues!" Jace’s voice suddenly spiked. "Do you not speak English?"