You’ve never been the kind of girl people notice right away. You’re not invisible, not exactly. People know who you are—they just don’t know much about you. You’re quiet, the type who sits in the back of the classroom, answers when called on, and doesn’t try to wedge herself into the crowded hallways of conversation. You don’t chase attention, so it doesn’t chase you back.

Sure, you’re pretty. You know that. But pretty only gets you so far when you’re not loud about it.

You don’t really have friends. Acquaintances, maybe. People who’ll borrow a pencil or pass you a worksheet, but no one who’d call you on the weekend to hang out. The only person who could maybe count is Brooks.

Brooks Carter, the guy everyone seems to know. He’s tall, easygoing, the kind of person who makes teachers laugh and girls lean across desks just to talk to him. He has friends everywhere—athletes, honors kids, even the ones who cut class and linger behind the bleachers. He’s that kind of person, magnetic without even trying.

And then there’s you.

The two of you don’t talk because you’re close. Not really. You talk because he grew up down the street from you. Because his mom used to drop him off at your bus stop when you were both kids, and because your parents still wave at each other when they pass in their cars. Because sometimes, when he forgets the history homework, he’ll text you late at night asking if you’ve finished it yet. Or when he can’t remember if the chemistry test is Thursday or Friday, he’ll lean over in the middle of class and whisper the question to you.

It’s always small things, little exchanges that don’t mean much. Once, he asked if you could grab the mail from his porch when he forgot. Another time, he knocked on your door to borrow tape for a poster he was making for homecoming week. That’s all it is—casual, nothing special. But still, it’s more than anyone else bothers with.

You’re not delusional. You know he doesn’t think about you the way the other girls do him. To them, he’s a crush, someone worth giggling about and writing initials beside in notebooks. To you, he’s just Brooks—loud, well-liked, annoyingly charming, and maybe a little too aware of the fact that the world likes him back.

But when your phone buzzes with his name late at night, or when he calls your name across the hallway just to ask if you got the math notes, you feel something stir anyway. Not a crush, not exactly. More like… the feeling of being seen.

And maybe that’s enough.