NIGHT HAD FALLEN. Simon entered the common room. Vincent greeted him with a grin that the boy decided to ignore. He went to sit with Wilhelm, Valter and Henry. The ginger boy noticed the lollipop in Simon's mouth. He glanced over at Mae who was lying a little further away, her head resting on Madison's stomach as they were chatting with their friends.

      "Hey, Simon, you got another lollipop?" he asked.

      The boy shooked his head. "No."

      Henry sighed. "I'll give you 100 crowns. No, I'll give you 200 crowns right now. I'll even give you 300 up front."

      "You'd give me that much just for a lollipop?" Simon frowned.

      "It's not for me, okay, it's for Mae. She's been doing so great with food lately, I don't want her to relapse because of this stupid sit-in." Henry said. "If I had known this was gonna be a hunger strike, I wouldn't have gone along with it."

      "Me neither." Valter nodded.

      "Come on, this is exactly what they want." Vincent told them. "To break us, or that we'll give up. They're not gonna let us starve to death."

      "Yeah, but we should've thought about it." Nils declared.

      They had everyone's attention now. Mae straightened up and sat cross-legged so she could listen better as they were talking.

      "Yeah, I just didn't think that it would take such a long time." Vincent said.

      "You guys, you're complaining all the time." August sighed. "I mean, don't you find it, like... like quite nice to be a bit hungry sometimes, you know?"

      "Excuse me, but what's nice about being hungry?" Nils interrupted him.

      August shrugged his shoulders. "It's... motivating. Yeah, you might be a bit dizzy for a while and feel a bit nauseous, but that will pass when it subsides, it becomes like... it's as if it all goes quiet, in your head. A calmness all through your body."

      "That's more like an eating disorder." Mae spoke up and August turned to her, as well as her friends, who knew about it. "I mean, yeah, it feels nice at first because it's like... it's something you can control, you know? But the truth is it's controlling you more than you control it."

      "Totally." the third years laughed and Nils said "I wish my head would've quiet down soon 'cause the only thing I'm thinking about is pizza, burgers, pasta, candy."

      Even if he pretended to laugh with his friends, Mae noticed August's gaze. What she just said seemed to have made him think. And just like that, she knew they weren't so different.

★

      They had found some things to eat. A bag of chips, a can of soda, a bunch of cookies. They had opened an auction to distribute them.

      "One thousand eight hundred Swedish crowns! Any higher bids?" Fedrika exclaimed.

      "1900!" a girl raised her hand.

      "1900 crowns!" the brunette repeated.

      "Fuck! 2400!" Henry yelled.

      Fedrika made the announcement. "Two thousand four hundred crowns! Any higher bids? Going once, twice, thrice! And sold to the man over there with the red hair!"

      The description made Mae laugh as Henry cheered before grabbing the bag of chips Stella threw at him.

      "Thanks a lot!" he said before walking over Mae.

      He sat next to her against the wall and opened the pack. He handed it to her.

      "You paid for it." she said.

      "Yeah, for you." he replied as if it was obvious. "Come on, you need to eat."

      "You didn't have to do this." she told him. "You don't have to worry about me."

      "Well, I do, so... eat." he waved the pack.

      She grabbed it with a smile. "Thank you. But you need to eat too, so we're sharing."

      He kissed her temple and they both grabbed a few chips. After that, things went a bit out of hand. People had put on some music, they were riding on each other's backs, making animal noises. Some people had started to leave the room and were booed. A boy had pulled down his friend's pants and now everyone was singing "show your dick for Hillerska".

      "Come on, this is so out of hand." Felice said, as if she was reading Mae's mind.

      "Yeah, I mean imagine if the school inspection would've seen this." Madison added.

      "At least, then they would've had got it."

      Stella and Fedrika stopped laughing to look at Felice. "What do you mean, got what?"

      "How things can get here sometimes."

      "So you mean you mentioned it during the interview?"

      Mae was feeling uncomfortable now. Things were getting out of hand between her friends too.

      Felice hesitated. "I was just being honest—"

      "What do you mean? You talked about the initiation?" Stella exclaimed.

      "I didn't tell them what we do." Felice replied.

      "Are you being real now?"

      "Guys, it's no big deal, every schools have initiations, right?" Mae tried to calm them down.

      "Felice, I get that you've been really depressed and stuff, but you can't take that out on everyone else." Fedrika told her.

      "Guys, I'm sure if she said something that made them worried, they would've acted on it. I'm sure it's fine." Madison said.

      But the silence that followed made it clear that it wasn't.

★

      Mae woke up when Mrs. Hamilton and the housemasters opened the shutters. She was sleeping against Henry in an armchair, the bag of chips between the two of them. Even though the chair was small for two, Henry's arms were still very comfortable.

      "Did you sleep well?" the headmistress asked. "For those of you who feel like they're done with this stupid nonsense, breakfast is served."

      Vincent rubbed his eyes. "Excuse me, what are we actually waiting for? I mean, that our parents find out that their children are denied their education and are starving, or that the media are let in on it?"

      "I won't give it to blackmail, Vincent."

      "Yeah, but nobody has to know that this ever took place." Nils said. "If you just eased up the restrictions a bit."

      The woman seemed to hesitate for a moment but she finally smiled. "You know what? Here's the deal. You'll get access to your cell phones. But they are only to be used after school hours, okay?"

      Everyone started cheering.

      "And our graduation?" Nils asked.

      "What about the student dinner?"

      "And the athletics competition?" Britt exclaimed.

      The woman grinned. "Well... we'll include that as well."

      People started clapping and cheering before Vincent spoke again. "And the Score Hunt?"

      "Absolutely not. And that's as far as I'll go. And I want you to know, in case there's anyone else who plans an end-of-year ritual, or other degrading activities, that they are strictly forbidden." she said and everyone nodded. "Okay, then. No more starving. Let's eat."

— only two more chapters before the ending 🫶🏼