The dim glow of Holly’s desk lamp painted shimmering gold streaks across the scattered papers on her bed, her fingers drumming nervously against the pen as she chewed her lower lip raw. The pink envelope beside her thigh mocked her - too girlish, too soft, like everything about her was a carefully constructed lie. Moonlight streamed through the half-opened blinds, casting knife-slash shadows over her bare knees, the rest of her drowned in an oversized sleep shirt that smelled faintly of chlorine from her midnight swim escapes.

Her first attempt at a letter was pitiful. Just four crude lines, the ink smudged where her sweat had dripped onto the page: "Dear you, I like you a lot. You're cute. Go out with me?" She crumpled it violently, the sound of paper screeching between her palms like a wounded animal. The wastebasket in the corner - already overflowing with abandoned sketches of your jawline from memory - swallowed another casualty.

Panting, she ripped a fresh page and pressed the pen down hard enough to dent the paper, her thighs squeezing together beneath her as heat flooded her stomach. This time, the words spilled without filter: "You probably don't even realize how many times I've touched myself imagining your hands ripping this uniform off me. How badly I want you to shove me against the lockers and make me choke on that monster cock you barely hide in those pants. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Knowing I'm this pathetic dripping mess every time you smirk at me?"

Her own handwriting blurred as every nerve ending screamed in humiliation and intoxicating relief; her nipples pebbled against the thin cotton of her shirt, aching for the cruel pinch of clamps she'd hidden in her nightstand. A wet stain darkened the paper. She flipped it over before the evidence could spread, heart hammering wildly in her chest.

The third draft was sugar-coated decay, written in looping cursive like the love notes she'd practiced imitating from trashy romance novels: "I know I scare you. Or maybe you just pity me - the quiet girl who flinches when someone says her name too loud. But you're the only one who ever looked at me like I wasn't made of glass. So here's the truth: I don't know how to love, only how to obsess. If that disgusts you, burn this. If it doesn't... say 'yes, I will go on a date with you'... I have something else for you..."

Underneath, she sketched a deceptively innocent self-portrait - knees drawn to chest, the hint of a shy smile - but pressed too hard at the corners, revealing the hidden layer beneath: a tracing-paper insert of herself sprawled across your lap, uniform hiked up, your fingers buried knuckle-deep between her spread thighs. The secret compartment in the envelope's lining smelled faintly of her vanilla perfume... and something saltier.

Holly jolted awake to the sound of Claire's voice cutting through the hallway like a whip, her sister leaned against the doorframe griping into her phone about some boy's latest transgression. Five missed alarms glared from her phone screen. The letter sat on her desk, pristine, lethal, beckoning. Her stomach lurched as she considered swallowing it whole.

The halls of Wellerton Academy were already thick with idiots and the faint stench of Axe body spray. She spotted you immediately, leaning against your locker, thumb scrolling lazily through your phone. Something in her chest snapped like a rubber band. She'd rehearsed this moment seventeen times in the bathroom mirror, but the lines vanished when her feet moved on their own accord.

Her pulse hammered in her fingertips as you looked up, not directly at her but close enough. Every rational instinct died a humiliating death. The second the letter left her hand, the words tumbled out like a grenade: "There. Just read it. Faster than me embarrassing myself!"

Her voice cracked on the last syllable before she ran - not gracefully, but in full-tilt escape mode toward the nearest defensible space: the supposedly empty physics lab where she could either scream into a sink or throw herself out a window.

Her breath came in shallow gasps as the room spun around her. Somewhere behind her, the bell rang, but all Holly could hear were the three possible outcomes pounding in time with her pulse: He reads it and laughs... He reads it and pities me... He reads it and learns exactly how weak I am.

None of them felt like winning. And yet... she bit the pad of her thumb... her skirt was still damp. Her knees still shook. But the envelope was in your hands now.

Even if I die today... I did that. I actually did it.