The workshop started before the sun had even properly stretched itself across the sky.
Ethan was already there when I arrived—because of course he was—adjusting chairs with this kind of quiet precision like the fate of the workshop depended on chair symmetry. I watched him for half a second before walking in like I hadn't.
"You ready?" he asked, voice low but somehow still warm.
"No," I answered, setting my bag down. "But we're doing it anyway."
He smiled. Just a little. "Exactly."
A few minutes later, Aditya strolled in like he hadn't just woken up and decided to dropkick my emotional equilibrium.
"Morning, mentally overwhelmed nerds," he grinned, holding two packs of biscuits and a stack of post-it notes. "I'm emotionally available and marginally caffeinated. Where do you need me?"
Ethan blinked. "You're… helping?"
"Day off. Don't make it weird."
And just like that, he was part of it.
I'll give him this—he was good. Kind, quick with students, somehow making them feel both heard and not observed. I hated how easily he did that. How effortless it seemed.
Midday hit like a tide. The room was buzzing—discussions, group sessions, one-on-ones. At one point, someone dropped an anonymous card into the box. I read it out loud.
"What if I'm only still here because no one's noticed I'm not okay?"
My throat closed. I blinked twice. Tried again.
"Sometimes... surviving is the loudest thing you can do."
I didn't even remember sitting down after that. Ethan picked up where I left off. His voice was steady but not rehearsed. It held weight. And care.
It grounded me.
Later, while sorting supplies, Aditya said softly, "You're good at this."
"I fake it well."
"Still good," he said, passing me a pen. "Also—if our parents hadn't already sort of... claimed us, I feel like we could've been friends."
I looked at him. He wasn't teasing.
"I think so too," I said. And I meant it.
There was something about him. Reliable but hard to pin down. A sharp, unspoken understanding we never acknowledged, but always noticed.
The last student left as the sun began to slide beneath the buildings. The air had that post-storm kind of quiet, even though there hadn't been rain.
Ethan and I stayed behind. Aditya said he had to make a call and stepped outside.
The room felt warmer. Like it had seen something sacred and didn't know how to forget it.
I packed up slowly. Unnecessarily. Just… letting time pass.
"You want me to walk you back?" Ethan asked, his voice soft, unreadable.
"Yeah," I said, slinging my bag over one shoulder. "That'd be nice."
Outside, the campus was gold-washed and quiet. Lamps flickered on like they were embarrassed to interrupt. We walked in silence.
It wasn't awkward. Just full.
Every few steps, our hands brushed. Neither of us pulled away.
"You were amazing today," he said suddenly.
"I almost cried reading a quote."
He smiled. "That's what made it amazing."
I stopped walking. So did he.
I turned to face him. "I don't know what this is."
He didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Neither do I."
My breath caught. "But it scares me."
"Me too."
And somehow, that admission didn't break anything. It built something. Softly. Slowly.
He stepped closer. I didn't move.
I could feel the tension between us like a string. Pulling tighter. Waiting.
His hand brushed mine again. He didn't grab. Just… waited.
I leaned in. Just enough.
Our foreheads nearly touched.
My heart was a hammer in my chest, but I didn't back away.
Then—
A rustle.
Movement.
A shadow behind us.
Ethan turned slightly—eyes flicking toward the hall entrance.
Aditya.
He was standing just far enough to look like a bystander. Phone in hand. His back to us. He didn't interrupt.
He just... walked past.
And we didn't say anything.
The moment had passed.
I stepped back.
Ethan ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. "We should... yeah. Head back."
I nodded. "Yeah."
And we walked.
At the dorm gate, Aditya was waiting.
"Figured we could walk you both back," he said casually, like nothing happened.
We walked together. The three of us. Our shadows long, our words short.
Ethan didn't bring it up.
And me?
I held that silence like a secret. A bruise only I could feel.
---
I closed the dorm gate behind me with a soft click, my breath fogging faintly in the cooler air. The sky had gone that specific kind of violet that only exists for about five minutes—just long enough to remind you the day is really over.
My hoodie sleeves hung past my wrists, tugged down without thinking. My hands felt too exposed. Too seen.
I kept my head down as I climbed the stairs, like I could out-walk the tension still buzzing under my skin.
When I pushed open the door to our room, the soft light was already on. The air smelled faintly like Amelia's vanilla shampoo and popcorn from the communal kitchen. Normal things. Comfortable things.
I let the door close behind me and tossed my bag onto my chair like muscle memory. My limbs felt heavy in that post-emotional-overload way—when even sitting down feels like a task you have to earn.
Amelia was curled up on her bed, phone in her hand, giggling softly. Like, actual giggling. The kind I'd only ever heard when she was stalking cute cat reels or mocking astrology memes.
But this wasn't a meme-giggle.
This was the soft I-like-you-but-don't-want-to-jinx-it kind of giggle.
I turned slowly. "Okay... what's so funny?"
She didn't look up right away. Just kept typing something, then paused dramatically.
"Oh. It's nothing."
I raised an eyebrow. "Nothing sounds an awful lot like someone."
She blinked at me innocently. "Fine. It's just Jhonathan."
I tilted my head. "Just?"
She shrugged, too casual. "He was telling me this story about a client he once had who kept a stress ball shaped like a screaming potato. He named it Gary."
I blinked. "What?"
"And the best part," she continued, barely containing another laugh, "is that he genuinely used Gary as a therapeutic metaphor for like... six sessions before the guy realized Jhonathan was dead serious."
I stared at her.
She was glowing.
Not like "lit from within" metaphorically, I mean like actually. The light caught her cheekbones in a way that made her look airbrushed. Her voice was softer. Her smile lingered longer.
And then it hit me.
Oh.
Oh, no.
"Oh my god," I whispered. "You like him."
She looked scandalized. "I do not!"
"You're smiling with your whole face!"
"I always smile with my whole face."
"Not like this. This is a rom-com smile. This is a 'he made me playlist with old Bollywood instrumentals and now I'm losing my mind' smile."
She threw a pillow at me. "Shut up!"
I caught it mid-air. "You like him."
She groaned and fell back into her mattress like the drama queen she is.
"Okay. Maybe I do," she mumbled into her blanket. "Just a little. A microscopic amount."
I smirked. "Sure. That microscopic amount just sent a ten-minute voice note about a potato named Gary."
She peeked out from under the blanket, her cheeks flushed. "He has good voice note etiquette. Do you know how rare that is?"
I laughed. Full, unfiltered laughter. For the first time all day, it didn't feel like I was forcing it. It just... came out.
"Wow," I said, dragging my blanket over to my bed and collapsing into it. "You really found yourself a pookie therapist boy. What a plot twist."
"Don't call him pookie," she said through a grin.
"He's definitely a pookie."
"Alexis, I swear—"
I held up my hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. Noted. But for the record—he's so into you."
She said nothing, but her face said everything.
As I curled into my side of the room and stared at the ceiling, I felt the warmth of something I hadn't realized I missed: softness. Friendship. The quiet understanding that life could still surprise you. That maybe, just maybe, the universe was done being cruel for a minute.
I closed my eyes and let the silence settle—not heavy, not painful. Just there.
Amelia giggled once more, muffled by her blanket.
And somewhere inside me, I whispered to myself:
We have a couple coming.