One morning in autumn, she was gone. Transferred, the principal said. No forwarding address. Stellan sat through history class with a substitute who smelled of tobacco and had no hands worth watching.
But for a moment, the air smelled of lilac soap and chalk dust. And Stellan smiled — not with joy, but with the strange relief of having survived his own story. -CM-Lust.och.Fagring.Stor.-All.Things.Fair-.199...
He swore he wouldn’t.
One afternoon in late April, he stayed after class to ask about the war. Not the great wars in her books — his own private war. The one raging under his skin. One morning in autumn, she was gone