I woke up to chaos.
It wasn't the kind of gentle morning noise you'd expect in a shared apartment like the clinking of dishes or the faint hum of a kettle. No. This was the sound of a hurricane disguised as a human being.
Clatter. Bang. Humming so loud it could probably rattle the windows.
I groaned, buried my head under the pillow, and prayed the universe would grant me silence. Instead, the noise grew louder, sharper, more deliberate. Pots crashed like cymbals. A cabinet slammed shut. Adrian's voice followed, singing a pop song way too enthusiastically for seven in the morning.
Seven. I cracked one eye open at the clock on my nightstand. Seven. In. The. Morning.
I shoved the blanket aside, stumbling toward the bathroom with my hair sticking out in every direction. I just needed five minutes to wash my face, brush my teeth, and maybe convince myself that living with Adrian wasn't a punishment from hell.
But of course, the bathroom door was locked.
Steam poured out from the crack beneath it, and Adrian's voice carried through the wood, muffled but unmistakable. He was singing. No—belting. Like the shower was his stage and he was auditioning for the finals of some talent show.
I banged my fist against the door. "Adrian! Hurry up!"
The singing didn't stop. In fact, it grew louder, like he was competing with my annoyance.
"Adrian!" I shouted, knocking harder. "Some of us have classes, you know!"
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the lock clicked. The door swung open, releasing a wave of steam so thick it nearly knocked me back. And there he was Adrian, towel slung low around his waist, droplets of water clinging to his shoulders, grinning like he had all the time in the world.
"Morning, roomie," he said, his tone obnoxiously cheerful.
I blinked at the puddle forming around his feet. "You've drowned the floor."
"Adds character," he replied, stepping past me as if leaving a small flood in the hallway was perfectly reasonable. "Careful not to slip."
I stared after him, clutching the doorframe, and muttered under my breath, "I hate this guy."
Still, I shut the door behind me and stepped into the warm fog, telling myself not to think about the grin that lingered in my head longer than it should have.
By the time I shuffled into the kitchen, coffee was my only lifeline. I needed caffeine. I needed order. I needed silence.
What I got was Adrian, once again proving that he thrived in chaos.
Three pans were on the stove eggs sizzling in one, bacon spitting grease in another, and some kind of pancake batter dripping onto the burner from the third. He was humming again, spatula in hand, hair still damp and curling at the edges.
I stood in the doorway, horrified. "Are you cooking or waging war?"
"Both," he said brightly, flipping something that could only loosely be called a pancake. He glanced over his shoulder, flashing that grin again. "You're welcome, by the way."
"I didn't ask for breakfast."
"Yeah, but you're getting it. Sit."
"I'm not sitting."
He shrugged, unbothered. He was juggling too many things at once telling some ridiculous story about a classmate while waving the spatula like a conductor's baton, nearly flinging eggs onto the floor.
"This is unsanitary," I muttered, pouring myself coffee before he had the chance to ruin it.
"This is art," he corrected.
And, annoyingly, it smelled good. The eggs were perfectly golden, the bacon crispy. Even the pancakes lopsided as they were had a warm, sweet scent that made my stomach betray me with a low growl.
"Sit," he repeated, gentler this time. And before I could protest, a plate was shoved into my hands.
I sat.
Not because he told me to. Just… because the food was there.
Campus wasn't much better.
Adrian was a social magnet. Everywhere he went, people followed. Classmates waved. Strangers laughed at his jokes. Even the old lady running the convenience store on the corner seemed to light up when he walked in.
Me? I preferred shadows. Corners. Backgrounds. I wasn't built for his kind of spotlight.
But somehow, by lunchtime, I found myself at a crowded table in the cafeteria, surrounded by his friends. They were loud, messy, vibrant. Adrian sat across from me, effortlessly holding court, grinning like the sun.
Every so often, his eyes flicked to mine. Noticing. Including. Dragging me into conversations I had no intention of joining.
I hated it. I hated how easily he pulled me out of my solitude.
And I hated how part of me didn't entirely mind.
By evening, I told myself things would calm down.
They didn't.
Adrian declared we were "cooking together." Which meant I did the actual cooking while he leaned against the counter, stealing vegetables from the cutting board and tossing them into his mouth like snacks.
"You're supposed to put that in the pan," I scolded.
"I am," he said, chewing. "Eventually."
"Eventually doesn't season the food."
He laughed, low and warm, and brushed past me to grab something from the shelf. Our shoulders bumped, just for a second. It shouldn't have meant anything. But I froze, my knife hovering over the cutting board, my chest tightening in a way I didn't understand.
He didn't notice or pretended not to. He just went on talking, filling the silence with stories about his day, about people I didn't know, about things I didn't care to remember.
But I remembered the way his hand brushed mine when he reached for the cutting board.
I remembered the spark.
Night fell, and finally, I thought I'd found peace.
I curled up on the couch with my textbook, determined to at least salvage something of the day. Adrian sat at the other end, scrolling through his phone, quiet for once.
But the silence didn't last.
He set his phone down, looked at me, and asked, "Do you ever get tired?"
I blinked, thrown off. "What?"
"You always look like you're carrying the whole world on your shoulders," he said, softer than I'd ever heard him. "Don't you ever… get tired?"
The question hit too close. Too sharp. Too real.
I looked away, flipping a page in my book I didn't even read. "That's none of your business."
"Maybe," he said. "But you're my roommate now. That makes it kind of my business."
The words lingered long after he went back to his phone.
And I hated absolutely hated how much I wanted to hear more.
But Adrian's voice cut off, just like that, as if he realized he'd slipped too far. The silence that followed wasn't casual it was heavy, stretching across the room like a curtain drawn tight. I could hear his breathing, shallow but deliberate, as though he was weighing whether to say more or to lock it all away forever.
My throat felt dry, but I forced out a laugh that sounded too thin, too sharp.
'You can't just stop there, Adrian. What happened next?'
For a long moment, he didn't answer. Then he turned his head slightly, his profile catching the faint light from the window. His lips curved, but it wasn't his usual smirk it was softer, almost vulnerable.
'Some stories,' he said quietly, 'aren't meant to be told all at once.'
The words lodged inside me like a thorn. It was both a dismissal and a confession, and I couldn't decide which one burned more.
I rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling, trying to will my heartbeat into something normal. But my mind wouldn't stop replaying that half-sentence, the weight behind it, the way his tone had cracked at the edges. What was he hiding? Why did it matter to me so much?
The night pressed in closer. I shut my eyes, but instead of darkness, all I saw was him Adrian, with his careless walls and his careful silences.
And that's when it hit me:
This was only the beginning.
Whatever Adrian wasn't saying, whatever he was running from, I was already tangled in it. And deep down, I knew I wasn't going to stop until I heard everything he was too afraid to tell."