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It was nothing in the beginning, just daily catch-ups, but they progressed every day. The messages got longer and longer. They contained more and more detail.

And soon, we were opening up to each other. Sharing more and more of our lives with each other.

I confess, doing it online instead of face-to-face made it so much easier. All I had to do was type, and by the next day, like clockwork, there was a new message from her. It was something else to read that wasn’t homework or plans or assigned texts. Jolie’s messages were a new spark of joy to find in this dark world.

One day at the academy, a boy in my class called me an orphan. It came out of nowhere. He wanted to assert his dominance, and what better way than to degrade me like that in the hallway in front of his peers? He had an audience. He had the confidence.

But he should’ve chosen an easier target.

I punched him as soon as the dirty word left his mouth, anger fueling my arm and bitterness roaring through my mind.

It seemed I hadn’t learned my lesson from that day with Mr. Lockwood.

After the show, I bragged to Clement and Baptiste of my victory, and of the elation that came from knocking out a bully, but not about the shame I had felt from being called an orphan, which made me react in the first place.

But I told Jolie. I didn’t know why I did so, but I told her how it really felt to be stung with that label. I told her about the pain in my heart.

She reacted, not with indifference, but with kindness. Everyone else wanted to congratulate me on knocking out a bully, but she comforted me.

You’re more than what people call you, Fabien.

You are loyal and brave and ambitious.

You are going to rule the world one day.

I know it.

No one had ever, ever made me feel like that.

And I asked her about herself. And she let me in. Email after email about her ambitions. She told me she’d started reading about finance. She thought she could make a difference there. Make money and invest in the right companies. Force a change in the world. Day by day, I witnessed her growing and maturing.

I thought she was so smart.

You are going to rule the world with your brain, Jolie.

I bet you’ll be whoever you want to be.

She began to send me articles about the art world. She got books to read about it, trying to understand my passion. She told me all about the artworks she’d seen and how they’d moved her.

Do paintings calm you?

Numbers and systems seem to calm me.

I can’t explain it, but I love the puzzles.

I got so damn excited every time I got an email notification. I couldn’t help but smile when I spotted her name on my screen.

And day by day, with each forbidden message, the rage inside me diminished. My desire for vengeance still lingered, but it simmered instead of boiling. I didn’t punch anyone anymore.

It was all because of her. She showed me a life... a world... where my anger didn’t have to own me.

Because of Jolie Auclair, I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

* * *

“If my brother saw us now, we’d both be dead.”

Jolie was so real, standing in front of me. She was no longer words on a screen that I patiently waited for every single day. Panic spread across her face as we stood in the dark kitchen.