Chapter 1: The Beginning

I was going to Physique class.

That's the only reason I was in that hallway at all. Tuesday , 10:15 AM. The same walk I'd done a dozen times before. Nothing special about the light. Nothing special about the air. Just the usual crowd of students shuffling between buildings, heads down, late for something.

I wasn't looking for him. I wasn't looking for anyone.

And then — suddenly — my eyes fell on him.

I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't like I scanned the hallway and chose him out of a crowd. It was more like… my gaze *stopped*. Like my eyes had found something they'd been searching for without telling me.

He was standing by the window, surrounded by friends. Three of them, maybe four. They were laughing about something — I couldn't hear what, and honestly, I wouldn't have been able to tell you even if someone put a gun to my head. Because I wasn't looking at his friends.

I was looking at his smile.

Not a polite smile. Not a smirk. A real one — the kind that starts somewhere deep and reaches his eyes before his mouth even moves. His head was tilted back slightly, just a little, like the laugh had surprised him. His teeth were white. His cheeks had the faintest crease on one side.

And my heart — my stupid, traitorous, never-done-this-before heart — slammed against my ribs so hard I felt it in my throat.

I stopped walking.

Someone bumped into me from behind. Muttered "sorry." I didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe.

He turned to say something to his friend. The smile didn't fade. It just… shifted. Became softer. Private. Like I was watching something I wasn't supposed to see.

*What is happening to me?*

I'd seen cute boys before. I'd thought, "Oh, he's handsome," and kept walking. This wasn't that.

This was my chest caving in. This was my palms going damp. This was the hallway tilting sideways and my feet refusing to take another step toward Physique class because how could I sit in a lecture hall and think about *forces and motion* when that smile existed in the world?

He and his friends started walking. Toward me. Past me.

He didn't look at me. Of course he didn't. Why would he? I was just a girl in a hallway, frozen like an idiot, clutching my notebook like it could save me.

But as he passed — three feet away, maybe less — I caught the edge of that smile one more time. A dying ember of it. And I knew.

I knew I was in trouble.

I didn't know his name. Didn't know if he was kind or cruel, smart or average, single or taken. Didn't know anything except the shape of his mouth when he was happy.

And I didn't care.

I watched him disappear around the corner. The hallway went back to normal. Students shuffled past. Somewhere, a door slammed.

I stood there for a long time. My heart was still pounding.

Then I whispered it to myself — not out loud, but in my head, like a secret I was finally admitting:

*This is my first love.*

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