There's a silence people don't hear until they're alone.
It's not the absence of sound.
It's the absence of attention.
When whispers dry up. When friends check their phones instead of your face. When you speak and no one listens.
Kellan Wicks was starting to hear that silence.
And I was the one turning the volume up.
I watched him from across the quad.
He stood with two of the junior varsity players, laughing a little too hard at something no one found funny. One of them glanced at the other, then looked at the ground.
They walked away before Kellan finished his sentence.
I didn't smile.
Smiling was for amateurs.
Instead, I slipped my notebook back into my bag and walked to third period like nothing mattered.
This was the art of erosion.
No explosions. No scandals.
Just pressure. Steady and quiet. Like water through stone.
I planted seeds.
Sent an anonymous message to a teacher with a screenshot of Kellan submitting the same essay three semesters in a row.
Left a vape pen in his locker before a random search.
Spread rumors about why Jenna really ghosted him—and let people "discover" the truth on their own.
Each one a push. Each one believable enough to be dangerous, but subtle enough to be deniable.
The trick wasn't to destroy him all at once.
It was to make him do it himself.
"Looks like Wicks is spiraling," Mira said at lunch, flipping through her notes.
"He's twitchy," Nolan added. "I passed him in the stairwell and he didn't even insult my hoodie. I think that's a first."
Evie kept sketching without looking up. "He doesn't sleep. I can see it in his eyes."
I didn't respond.
They didn't know.
Couldn't know.
This wasn't revenge.
This was surgery.
And I was carving the infection out of this school one nerve at a time.
Later that afternoon, I passed Kellan near the vending machines.
He didn't see me at first.
But when he did, he froze.
Just long enough to matter.
I kept walking. Eyes forward. Face blank.
But in the edge of my vision, I saw it—the way his shoulders stiffened. The way he looked around like he was drowning in a crowd.
I didn't need to say a word.
He already felt me.
That night, he snapped.
I wasn't there for it. I didn't need to be.
But word spread fast.
Kellan cornered Reese behind the gym, voice raised, hands shaking.
Said someone was targeting him.
Said someone was spreading lies, setting traps, playing a game.
Reese laughed.
Of course he did.
Called him paranoid. Told him to "man up."
But I knew what Reese really felt.
I saw it in his eyes the next morning.
The first crack.
Because Reese was smart.
Smart enough to know Kellan wasn't clever enough to pull off something this deliberate.
Smart enough to wonder…
If Kellan's being hunted, who's next?
By Thursday, Kellan was eating lunch alone.
Reese hadn't disowned him publicly—yet.
But the group dynamic was shifting.
I saw it in how they didn't invite him to cut class. In how his name didn't come up in jokes anymore. In how Reese stood further away when they spoke.
He was being unpersoned.
One inch at a time.
That afternoon, Kellan found me outside the library.
He didn't say anything at first.
Just stood there, staring.
"You need something?" I asked, tone light.
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
Then, finally: "Why now?"
I tilted my head. "Why what?"
"You know what I mean."
I looked him dead in the eye. Calm. Controlled. Breathing slow.
"Don't confuse karma with timing, Wicks."
And walked away.
I didn't look back.
Didn't need to.
He stood there long after I was gone.
A shadow with no crowd.