Chapter 3: The Girl

It was a Tuesday.

I'd learned his schedule by then. Not on purpose. Well — maybe on purpose. I knew where he'd be and when. I told myself it was just... awareness. Not stalking. Just knowing.

That Tuesday, I knew he had a class in Halsey Hall at 11 AM. I didn't have a class anywhere near there. But I took the long way to the library anyway. Just in case.

Just in case of what? a voice in my head asked. I ignored it.

I turned the corner at the end of the hallway. And there he was.

Arakh.

Standing outside his classroom door. Leaning against the wall like he had all the time in the world.

And in his hand — a coffee cup. White, disposable, the kind from the campus café. He wasn't drinking it. Just holding it. Swirling it slightly. Like he was waiting for someone.

My heart did its usual thing. Thump. Thump. Thump. I pressed my back against the lockers, trying to look casual. Trying not to stare.

Then she walked up.

A girl. I hadn't seen her before. Long hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail. Jeans. A backpack slung over one shoulder. Ordinary. Pretty in an ordinary way. The kind of pretty I could have been, maybe, if I'd had her confidence.

She smiled at him. And he —

He smiled back.

But not his usual smile. Not the loud, sudden, laughing-with-friends smile I'd been memorizing for weeks.

This was different.

Softer. Slower. Like his face was relaxing into something private. Something just for her.

Oh, I thought. Oh.

She said something. I couldn't hear the words — the hallway was too loud, lockers slamming, feet shuffling. But I saw her lips move. Saw her tilt her head. Saw the easy way she stood in front of him, like she'd done it a hundred times before.

He laughed. That real laugh. The one that made people around him smile whether they meant to or not.

But this time, he wasn't just laughing near her.

He was laughing at her. With her. For her.

He handed her the coffee.

She took it. Didn't say thank out loud — just smiled, and he smiled back, and the air between them was so warm and so easy and so theirs that I felt like an intruder just standing there.

I was thirty feet away. He didn't know I existed. And still, I felt caught.

That's how he looks at someone he cares about, I realized.

My chest didn't pound this time. It just... ached. A dull, heavy ache, like something inside me was collapsing very slowly.

She took a sip of the coffee. He said something. She laughed — a real laugh, not a polite one — and reached out and touched his arm. Just for a second. Just a brush of her fingers against his sleeve.

He didn't pull away.

Of course he didn't.

I watched them for another minute. Maybe two. The girl finished the coffee. Handed the empty cup back to him. He threw it in a bin without looking — didn't miss this time — and held the door open for her. She walked into the classroom first. He followed.

The door closed.

The hallway went back to normal. Students shuffled past. Someone dropped a pen. Someone else cursed quietly.

I was still standing there. Back against the lockers. Hands cold. Chest hollow.

He brings her coffee, I thought. He holds doors for her. He looks at her like she's the only person in the hallway.

I'd never even spoken to him. I'd never been close enough to touch his sleeve. I'd never had him smile at me like that — soft, private, hers.

I pushed off the lockers. Walked toward the library. Didn't look back.

The funny thing was — I wasn't angry at her. She hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't stolen him from me because he was never mine to begin with. You can't lose something you never had.

But it still felt like losing.

That night, I lay in bed and replayed the image over and over. His smile. Her hand on his arm. The way he held the door open like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He can look at someone like that, I whispered into the dark.

Just not at me.

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