Saving Everest (Wattpad Books Edition)

The polished floors of Shady Hills Academy gleamed under the fluorescent lights, but the usual buzz of excitement was replaced by a chilling hum of whispers. It wasn't every day that the school's golden boy, Everest Finley, became the subject of hushed, morbid conversations.

Beverly walked through the throng, the poisonous words of her classmates swirling around her. 'Why are we even talking about him?' 'It's not like he actually died.' The callousness was a physical weight, pressing down on her.

She found herself drawn, almost unconsciously, towards the nurse's office, a terrible, dreadful monster of a feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. Even the teachers, usually stern and composed, were huddled, whispering behind cupped hands. This wasn't just another rumor.

An emergency assembly was called, and though Everest's name was never uttered, his absence screamed his story. Mr. Sticks, the principal, usually a figure of rigid authority, looked small and remorseful as he read a solemn statement about mental health. But the words blurred for Beverly, lost in the auditorium's buzz, as she grappled with the cold indifference of a school that once worshipped Everest. She, an outsider, felt a profound sympathy that seemed absent in everyone else. Just because his body wasn't dead, didn't mean his soul wasn't barely living.