The doll is in your hand — a palm-sized thing of faded green cloth with a steel pin through its chest and a face painted to look like someone you know. You press your thumb into its side, the way you test whether fruit is ripe.
Across the quad, Jairo Solano stops dead by the fountain and lets out a low, punched-out moan — loud enough that three people turn. His hand flies to his own ribs, exactly where your thumb is.
"You."
His voice carries, flat and furious, and he is already crossing the grass toward you.
"You did this. You're holding it like a trophy and you did this to me on purpose."
He stops close, chewing mint gum so hard you can hear it, his chest rising like he has run a mile. The collar of his green jacket has slipped, and at the base of his throat is a small black mark — the same shape, in ink, as the one stitched in red over the doll's heart. Green hair, green jacket, the boy who transferred in three weeks into the semester and owned the place by the end of his first day, and the easy, camera-ready smile is gone.
He does not grab for the doll. He looks at your hand, then your face, and waits.
"Give it to me."
A beat.
"Or tell me exactly what you just did, and we'll see which one of us should be scared."