News travels faster than truth.
By morning, it wasn't if people knew.
It was how much they thought they knew.
I didn't announce anything.
I didn't post anything.
I didn't even explain.
But by the time I stepped out of the hostel, the air had already shifted.
It wasn't loud.
No one shouted my name.
No one pointed.
It was quieter than that.
The kind of quiet that watches.
Walking across campus felt like moving through a room where a conversation had just ended.
Laughter lingered, but it wasn't meant for me.
Eyes flicked up, lingered half a second too long, then darted away.
Smiles curved with meaning I hadn't agreed to yet.
Someone brushed past me and whispered, "Aww."
Another smiled like I had finally done something right.
Someone else looked at me with something close to envy.
I hadn't changed.
But the way people saw me had.
Inside the lecture hall, seats filled quickly. I sat where I always did, bag on my lap, notebook unopened.
The room buzzed with low voices, soft laughter, the shuffle of feet.
Then Anthon arrived.
He didn't hesitate.
He didn't scan the room.
He came straight to me.
"Morning, my girl," he said easily, like the words had been waiting on his tongue.
My stomach dipped, not sharply, just enough to notice.
"Morning," I replied.
He sat beside me, close enough that his arm brushed mine. Not possessive. Not aggressive. Just present.
But presence is loud when everyone is watching.
I felt it immediately.
The pause in conversations.
The subtle lean-ins.
The way heads tilted just enough to confirm suspicions.
So it's true.
They're really together.
It finally happened.
Us.
They said it like it had always been obvious.
Like I hadn't woken up still unsure how to carry the weight of it.
Anthon spoke quietly, pointing something out on his phone. I nodded, smiling at the right moments, aware of how carefully I was being observed. As though I had stepped onto a stage without rehearsal.
During the lecture, I tried to focus. I really did.
But it was hard to concentrate when your name had acquired a new meaning.
Lauren-with-Anthon.
Lauren-the-one-he-chose.
Lauren-and-the-class president.
I hadn't agreed to any of those titles.
Yet they settled on me anyway...without warning.
It was sometime during the lecture that I noticed the shift.
Not noise.
Not movement.
Just… awareness.
I lifted my head instinctively and that's when I felt it.
Eyes on me.
Not the casual curiosity I had grown used to.
Not the teasing interest of friends.
Something sharper.
I turned slightly.
Theo.
He was seated a few rows away.
I had seen him before, of course.
He was usually around Anthon...close enough to be familiar, distant enough to remain undefined.
He blended into spaces without trying, never drawing attention, never demanding it either.
But this time, he wasn't blending.
He was watching.
The moment our eyes met, he turned away.
Not slowly.
Not awkwardly.
Instantly.
Like someone who had touched something hot by mistake.
A strange tightness formed in my chest.
I looked back down at my notebook, unsettled by a feeling I couldn't name. It wasn't attraction. It wasn't fear.
It was discomfort. Annoyance.
Like stepping into a room and realising you aren't welcomed.
The lecture ended in noise, chairs scraping, voices rising, laughter spilling out. Anthon stretched and slung his bag over his shoulder.
"Let's go," he said.
We stood together, moving with the quiet synchrony of people who had already been observed enough for the day.
Outside, the corridor buzzed. Students leaned against walls, discussing the lecture, complaining about deadlines, laughing too loudly.
Theo stood nearby, speaking to someone else.
When Anthon called his name, Theo turned.
His eyes found mine again.
This time, he didn't look away immediately.
There was no curiosity in his gaze.
No warmth.
Just distance.
Not avoidance something firmer than that.
Like a line had been drawn, and I was standing on the wrong side of it.
And it made me a bit furious.
Anthon clapped him on the shoulder. "You good?"
Theo nodded. "Yeah."
His voice was flat. Controlled.
He didn't greet me.
Didn't smile.
Didn't even acknowledge that I was standing there.
It wasn't dramatic.
That was the worst part.
When we walked past him, I felt it clearly, the unmistakable sensation of having crossed into a space I wasn't welcome.
Later, as we walked together, I said lightly, "I find your friend unappealing?"
Anthon laughed, dismissive. "Theo? Nah. That's just how he is."
I nodded.
But something inside me stayed unconvinced.
There's a difference between quiet and closed.
Between reserved and resistant.
Theo wasn't neutral.
He was pulling away.
Over the next few days, the pattern became impossible to ignore.
Whenever I entered a room, Theo seemed to find a reason to leave, and if he didn't, he looked at me with something I note as disgust.
Whenever Anthon reached for my hand, Theo's attention drifted elsewhere.
Whenever someone joked about us, Theo went silent.
Once, our eyes met across a corridor.
Just once.
The look he gave me wasn't anger.
It was disappointment.
And I didn't know why.
People kept talking.
They always do.
"They're cute together."
"They make sense."
No one asked how I felt.
No one noticed the hesitation behind my smiles.
The careful way I responded instead of reacted.
The quiet confusion blooming beneath the surface.
From the outside, everything looked right.
I had been chosen.
Claimed.
Placed neatly beside someone people approved of.
But somewhere between whispers and smiles,
between my girl and you two,
I became aware of something else entirely.
A presence that observed without engaging.
A distance that felt deliberate.
A boy who looked at me like I had disrupted something fragile.
I didn't understand it then.
I didn't ask.
I didn't push.
I just felt it.