The morning light crept through the cracks of the classroom blinds, falling in pale stripes across the polished desks. Lila sat at the back, her fingers tracing absentminded patterns on the wood, but her thoughts were elsewhere—on the echo of his words yesterday, and the fleeting warmth of a smile she had barely dared to imagine.
Across the room, Kieran's gaze lingered longer than necessary, his posture rigid as though he were bracing against some invisible wind. Every subtle movement of his hand or shift of his shoulder seemed to carry a weight she could almost feel. The distance between them was small, yet it felt cavernous.
When the teacher called the class to attention, Lila barely heard the instructions. Her mind replayed the hallway encounter, the brush of his sleeve, the laugh that had seemed too real, too unguarded. She wondered if he noticed her, really noticed her, or if she was just another shadow passing through his world.
By lunch, the tension had grown unbearable. Kieran approached, hands tucked into his pockets, eyes scanning the cafeteria until they found her. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to the space between them.
"You okay?" he asked, voice low but carrying a quiet insistence.
She nodded, unsure whether it was truth or habit. "Yeah… I'm fine."
But neither believed it.
As he walked away, she realized the emptiness left behind wasn't just his absence—it was the space where something fragile, almost dangerous, had begun to bloom.
Outside, the wind tugged at the edges of her uniform, whispering secrets she couldn't quite catch. And somewhere in the distance, Kieran felt it too—a pull he couldn't name, a thread that tugged insistently toward her, threatening to unravel everything he had worked so hard to keep contained.