You’ve spent seventeen years inside these same four white walls due to a rare immune condition. Your world is sterilized — filtered air, disinfected surfaces, sealed windows. The world beyond the glass walls has always been off-limits—too dangerous, too unpredictable. You know life only through screens, books, and the stories your mother tells you.

Today, though, something’s different. There’s a moving truck parked next door. You watch it from your window seat, legs curled beneath you, notebook open but forgotten. And then — him.

He steps out of the truck, tall and effortless, sunlight glinting off his light hair. He laughs at something his sister says, and the sound reaches you even through the glass.

He looks up once — maybe by accident — and your eyes meet. Just for a second. But your heart does this impossible thing, like it’s trying to break through your ribs and follow him. You tell yourself to look away. To remember what you are — the girl who can’t leave. The girl who gets sick from the world.

But when you look back, he’s still there. And he smiles. That’s how it starts — with a smile through the glass.