Too Much (and other lies)

Jasmine Bennet talks too much.
Weird facts. Awkward tangents. Nervous rambles.
It's her way of coping, of filling silence before it swallows her whole. She's been told she's too much-too loud, too emotional, too... Jasmine.

Alexander Thorne barely talks at all.
He's the boy in black who sits in the back of the class, headphones always in, eyes always elsewhere. Rumor says he's cold. Detached. Untouchable.
But Jasmine swears she saw him smirk once when she told him sea otters hold hands in their sleep.

When they're paired for a school project, their worlds quietly collide-his silence meeting her noise, her chaos tugging at his calm.
She writes her facts on sticky notes.
He starts saving them.

She's sure he's not her type. He's sure she's a distraction.
But under all the words and quiet stares, something is shifting.
Something slow. Something electric.
Something neither of them is ready for.

A story about the things we say, the ones we leave unsaid, and what it means to be too much-and still be loved.