Ella's POV
Ella's POV
The mall air was thick with the smell of perfume, a soundtrack of chaos all around me, there were shrieking kids, beeping carts, the distant thump of music from a gadget in the store. I was on a mission: get the birthday gift, maybe grab a coffee, and get out. My mind was already scrolling through my to-do list when the impact came.
It wasn't a brush. It was a solid, jarring shove from a shoulder that didn't bother to steer clear. I stumbled, my shopping bag flying from my hand with a pathetic rustle. My heart gave a hard, angry thump against my ribs.
And he just… kept walking.
I saw his back, very broad, clad in a stupidly expensive-looking dark sweater and he was retreating. No glance back. No pause. Nothing.
Heat flooded my face, a mix of embarrassment and pure fire. "Hey! Hello!!"
The word ripped out of me louder than I intended. A few people looked. He finally slowed, turning just his head. His eyes met mine. Blue, clear, and utterly blank. Like I was a sign he'd already read.
"You knocked into me," I said, my voice tight. I bent quickly, snatching my bag off the floor, my pride feeling just as scuffed.
"It's crowded." His voice was flat, smooth. An observation, not an apology. He even had the nerve to look a little bored, like I was interrupting something very important, probably his own profound thoughts.
The calm dismissal was gasoline on the spark in my chest. I took two quick steps forward, right into his space. "So 'sorry' isn't in your vocabulary? You just plow through people and that's it?"
He looked down at me. Really looked. But it wasn't with concern or shame. It was more like he was studying an interesting, slightly aggressive bug. His eyes flicked over my face, and I saw it, it was a flicker of annoyance. At ME.
"Are you done?" he asked, clipping the words. "I have somewhere to be."
Done? I was just getting started. But the sheer ice in his tone, the way he stood there taking up so much space without an ounce of remorse, it stole my next words for a second. All my clever comebacks dissolved into static.
When I looked at him, he looked so good and smelled so expensive. I was lost in checking him out for a second then i reminded my self 'this guy just bumped into you', then i replied his question
"Yeah," I finally hissed, the anger cooling into something hard and contemptuous. "I'm done. Hopefully your 'somewhere' teaches you how to be a person."
One corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile. Nothing that human. It was a tic of impatience. Then he turned, and just like that, he was swallowed back into the crowd.
I stood there, trembling. Not from fear, from pure, undiluted fury. My hands were fists at my sides. Who did he think he was? The entire interaction replayed in jagged pieces, the shove, the blank eyes, the cold, flat voice. I'd been dismissed. Thoroughly. I was so vexed at his attitude. He bumped into a pretty soft girl like me and couldn't say sorry. 'He is so so rude and arrogant', i said to myself
The coffee I got afterwards tasted like ash. The sunny day outside the mall windows felt like a lie. Everywhere I looked, I saw rude people, but none of them were like him the champion of them all.
I could not even get the stuffs i needed to get in the mall. I was so so annoyed that rude creatures like him still existed.
Back in my apartment, I slammed the door a little too hard. The quiet hum of my space usually calmed me. Not today. Today, it echoed with my own frustration.
"Don't let it get to you, Ella," I told the empty living room, dropping onto the couch. "He's nobody. Just a bad moment."
But the advice rang hollow. It had His dismissal had gotten to me and I didn't know why. . It wasn't about the bump. It was the absolute, unearned superiority. The way he made me feel small and shouty, and then just walked away. I hugged a cushion to my chest, trying to squeeze the irritation out.
I didn't know his name. I didn't know anything about him. But as I sat there in the settling quiet, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I hated him. A clean, sharp, and satisfying hate for the man in the dark sweater who couldn't be bothered to say sorry.
If only I'd known that hate could be a prelude. A first, furious note in a much longer, much more complicated song.