Greg paused for a second, studying me like he was trying to pull a memory from somewhere far away.
"Wait... are we in the same class?" he asked, a grin slowly forming, easy and unfiltered. "That's an unexpected twist."
Before I could even process it, he turned slightly, glancing past me as if I were only part of the moment, not all of it.
"Ethan," he called out, half-annoyed, half-amused, "I told you we needed to attend the introductory classes. Otherwise, we'd miss all the pretty girls. This is all your fault."
I froze.
There are moments when your body reacts before your mind does—this was one of them. Heat rushed to my face, a mix of embarrassment and something softer, something quieter.
Happiness.
He's in my class.
The thought settled into me, slow but certain.
The same person who had been nothing more than a passing moment—a glance, a brush, a feeling—was now part of my everyday life.
Not distant. Not imagined.
Real.
Greg turned back to me as if nothing significant had just happened.
"Hey, Sia," he said casually, like we had known each other longer than a few seconds. "Can I get your number? It'll help with assignments."
Assignments.
Right.
Before I could answer, another voice cut through the moment.
Calm. Measured. Too close.
"Yeah, Sia... I'd like to know how exactly you're planning to help with assignments that haven't even been given yet."
The air shifted instantly.
We all went still.
Slowly—almost reluctantly—we turned.
The professor stood right behind us.
For a second, silence pressed down on everything.
Greg's confidence slipped—just enough to make it obvious.
And just like that, his grand introduction—to the class, to the moment, to me—turned into his official introduction to the professor.
Marked absent.
Credits lost.
All within minutes.
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to suppress a smile as the moment settled into something oddly unforgettable.
Ethan didn't say anything.
He just walked in.
And I followed.
Greg, unfortunately, did not.
Inside, the classroom felt... different.
There were no fixed front benches or back benches. No invisible hierarchy deciding who belonged where. No corners to disappear into.
People sat where they could.
Wherever space allowed.
There was no hiding here.
No safe spot.
Just one quiet, unspoken rule—
You were visible.
No matter where you sat.
And somehow... that made everything feel more real.
Days passed.
Not dramatically. Not noticeably.
Just quietly—like pages turning on their own.
I slipped into a routine without realizing it. Coursework, lectures, familiar faces forming out of strangers. The college that once felt overwhelming began to soften around the edges.
It started to feel... livable.
And somewhere in between all of that—
Ethan and Greg became constants.
Greg remained exactly who he was—loud, effortless, the kind of person who filled silence before it could even exist. He spoke like conversations were his natural habitat, like people were puzzles he could solve in minutes.
Ethan was different.
Completely.
When I first noticed him, I thought he was calm in a way that felt older than his age. There was a quiet confidence in him—not loud, not attention-seeking—but steady.
It surprised me.
A nineteen-year-old who didn't feel like one.
But as days passed, that image began to shift.
I saw him in the back rows sometimes—head slightly lowered, attention not on the lecture but on his phone, fingers moving quickly across the screen.
A gamer.
The calm hid something else entirely.
And somehow... that contradiction made him more interesting.
Not less.
My life, in its own way, began to turn a new page.
I started focusing more. Studying more. Trying to become someone I had imagined when I first left home.
But along with that...
Came something else.
Loneliness.
Not the loud kind.
Not the kind that makes you cry.
But the quiet kind—the kind that sits beside you in a room full of people and reminds you that none of this is truly yours yet.
I met my roommates—Ammy and Becca.
They were kind. Easy to talk to. The kind of people who made conversations feel light, even when nothing important was being said.
But our worlds moved differently.
I was an early bird.
They were night owls.
While I woke up to silence and soft light, they lived in the hours when the world slowed down. Our schedules overlapped just enough for small conversations, shared glances, and half-finished stories.
We were getting there.
Slowly.
Because making friends was never new to me.
And neither was being alone.
I was the kind of person who could talk endlessly, laugh easily, and connect quickly.
But the moment things got deeper...
I hesitated.
Pulled back.
Ran.
Ethan stayed somewhere in between all of this.
Quiet. Observant. Distant—but not in a way that pushed people away.
Just... contained.
And for reasons I couldn't explain, I found myself drawn to that silence more than Greg's easy noise.
We weren't close.
Not really.
We didn't text. We didn't share stories.
But whenever we crossed paths, there was something there—
A pause.
A glance.
A moment that lingered just a second longer than it should have.
Still...
There was a line.
And I never crossed it.
Maybe it was shyness.
Maybe it was fear.
Or maybe it was just the quiet hesitation of a girl overthinking something as simple as asking for a phone number.
So I stayed where I was.
Watching.
Wondering.
Waiting.
About a week later, something shifted.
Small. Almost unnoticeable.
Ethan and Greg were absent that morning.
The first class was Algorithms.
Numbers, logic, patterns—things that required attention I didn't have the energy to give. The professor's voice faded into the background, turning into a dull, distant hum.
I opened my notebook.
And started drawing.
At first, it was nothing.
Just lines.
Then shapes.
Then something began to form—slowly, naturally—like my thoughts finding a way out without needing words.
Time passed without asking me.
By the end of the second period, it was complete.
I leaned back slightly, looking at it with quiet satisfaction.
It wasn't perfect.
But it was mine.
The bell rang.
Break time.
Students left in a rush—chairs scraping, voices overlapping, footsteps fading. I left my notebook open, the pencil resting beside it, and stepped out without thinking much of it.
It was just a drawing.
Nothing important.
When I came back—
Everything looked the same.
The classroom was quieter now. Sunlight slipped through the windows, settling gently across empty desks. The fan above hummed softly, stirring the air just enough to make the paper flutter.
My notebook was exactly where I had left it.
Open.
Waiting.
The pencil is still beside it.
Everything... unchanged.
And yet—
Something wasn't.
I stepped closer.
My breath slowed.
There, just beneath my drawing, was a line.
Written carefully.
Neatly.
In the local language.
A language I couldn't read.
I froze.
My fingers hovered above the page, not touching it, as if it might disappear if I did.
Someone had been here.
Someone had seen it.
Seen my drawing.
A strange feeling crept in—half curiosity, half something else I couldn't name.
Who wrote this?
What does it say?
Was it random... or meant for me?
I looked around instinctively, scanning empty seats, silent corners, and half-open windows—as if the answer might still be sitting there, waiting.
But there was no one.
Just silence.
And a message I couldn't understand.
And for the first time since I arrived—
Something shifted.
Not loudly.
Not obviously.
But enough.
Like the story had quietly taken a turn...
Without asking me first.