When I was younger, someone once told me that life is like a movie.
"Make your story better," they said. "Live every scene. And make sure it has a good ending."
Back then, it sounded simple. Almost comforting.
But as I grew older, I realized something: they were right. Life is a movie. Just not the kind we imagine. There are no retakes, no perfect scripts, and no guarantees of a happy ending.
Still... I wanted to create mine.
So I left.
I traveled to an unknown place, among unknown people, chasing something I couldn't fully explain. Maybe it was freedom. Maybe it was identity. Or maybe it was just the need to feel something entirely new.
At times, I felt like someone who had walked too far from the shore, uncertain whether the tide would carry me forward or pull me under.
I was nineteen when I left home again.
Leaving wasn't new to me. I had grown up in hostels, learning early how to fold longing into suitcases and carry it quietly. But this time felt different.
This time, I was supposed to be an adult.
Or at least I believed I was.
My hopes were higher. My dreams were louder. And my heart was wide open, almost recklessly so.
Even though I had spent most of my life away from home, I was still the most pampered one. My parents always tried to keep me close, as if they were silently making up for every moment distance had stolen from us.
But I had reached that restless age where staying felt like suffocating.
I wanted to explore the world. To feel life on my own terms.
So despite their quiet hesitation, I chose to leave my country and move to another place I will call Aldenmoor, because names matter less than what a place becomes to you.
Not because it was perfect. Not because it was certain.
But because it was unknown.
And somehow, the unknown always feels more alive than comfort ever could.
I joined an average college there, carrying something far from average inside me: hope. Hope of becoming someone new. Hope of building a life that truly felt like mine.
And secretly... hope of finding my love story.
I had believed in love since childhood. The kind you see in movies — the kind that arrives unexpectedly, changes everything, and stays.
When I arrived, my family came with me.
They tried to stay strong, smiling, encouraging, and pretending this was just another step forward. But I could see it in their eyes. The hesitation. The fear. The quiet ache of letting go.
My father stood slightly apart from everyone. He didn't speak much. He just watched me, as though trying to memorize every detail of my face, the way I stood, the way I held my bag, the way I was already half-gone.
"My little girl has grown up," he said softly. "How am I supposed to live without her now?"
Something inside me cracked at that moment.
I was the eldest daughter, the one who had always been protected, loved a little extra, and shielded from burdens. At home, I was allowed to dream freely, to exist softly. And now I was leaving all of it behind.
I hugged them tightly. The kind of hug that feels warm and final at the same time, like you are trying to hold onto a moment that is already slipping away.
My father broke first.
And seeing him fall apart, I couldn't hold myself together anymore.
Tears came without warning.
Goodbyes are strange like that. They carry everything at once, love, fear, excitement, and grief. You're not just leaving people behind. You're leaving versions of yourself. Familiar voices. Familiar routines. Familiar safety. And stepping into something completely unknown.
That was how my goodbye ended.
Messy. Heavy. Real.
And then I was alone.
I stood in front of my college, staring up at the building rising above me. Students passed by, laughing, talking, already belonging to something I had just stepped into.
But I just stood there. Still. Taking it all in.
For a brief moment, I felt like the heroine of a story standing at the beginning of something life-changing.
And then a brush of movement. A presence.
Someone walked past me, close enough to pull me out of my thoughts.
Tall. Lean. Around six feet. A maroon shirt that fit him effortlessly, stretching slightly across broad shoulders. He moved the way confident people do, not loudly, not performing, just existing in a way that made space for itself.
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't loud.
Just enough to make me notice.
A black thread tied around his wrist caught the light briefly as he passed. His steps were unhurried. His gaze was somewhere ahead, indifferent to everything around him, including me.
He didn't look at me. He didn't need to.
But I found myself watching him disappear into the crowd, long after I should have looked away.
And that was the moment something quiet and unfamiliar settled inside me, not quite excitement, not quite longing. Something that hadn't been named yet, sitting just beneath the surface like a word on the tip of your tongue.
That night, even after meeting new people, settling in, and convincing myself I was fine, my mind kept returning to a stranger in a maroon shirt.
I didn't know his name. I didn't know a single thing about him.
But he stayed with me longer than made sense.
Days passed. College life slowly took shape.
Lectures. Introductions. New faces. Small conversations that faded just as quickly as they began. I smiled when I was supposed to and listened when I had to, quietly collecting pieces of a world I hadn't yet understood.
But none of it stayed with me.
Because somewhere beneath all of it was him. Not a face I knew. Just a presence my mind refused to release.
Until one afternoon, everything shifted.
The cafeteria was loud, chairs scraping, trays clattering, and voices layering over each other into a wall of noise. I was halfway through my meal, half-present, half somewhere else, when a voice cut through it all.
"Hey, Greg. Over here."
I looked up without thinking.
And I saw him again.
The boy from that first day is this time closer and clearer. He was talking to someone across the room, completely unaware of me. He laughed at something, leaning back slightly, and it struck me how effortlessly real he seemed. Not performing. Not posturing. Just there, in the way that some people occupy a room and make it feel smaller.
My tray sat forgotten.
I don't know when I stood up. I don't remember deciding to. But I was moving carefully, quietly threading through chairs and clusters of people, trying not to lose sight of that maroon shirt.
My heart wasn't racing. It was something steadier than that. Deliberate, almost. Like it already knew where this was going even when my mind hadn't caught up.
And then he was gone.
Absorbed by the crowd, as if he had never been there at all.
I stopped. The cafeteria pressed in around me, suddenly too loud, too large, too indifferent. I scanned the room once, twice—nothing.
Just noise. Just strangers.
And then I felt it.
A hand on my shoulder, firm but light.
I turned sharply.
A boy stood behind me — someone I hadn't noticed before, someone who had clearly noticed me. He wasn't the one I had been following. But there was something in the way he looked at me, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and had already decided to spend some of it here.
He tilted his head slightly.
And smiled.
"Looking for me?"
The kind of question that has no good answer.
And somehow I wasn't sure I wanted one.