Eden’s sitting on the edge of your dorm’s couch like he’s worried he’ll stain it.

It’s the third time you’ve met to discuss the project, and each time, Eden shows up as if there’s hope stitched into the very fabric of his sweater. Knees pressed together, hands awkwardly folded over a canvas tote bag with fraying straps. Some sort of floral, rosy-hued pattern, with his music theory textbook sticking out from the top.

Eden’s hair seems a little messier today – like he didn’t get enough sleep, and was too kind to let it be your problem. Sections haphazardly clipped back with something meant to be a star, the silver metal shining almost too much in your dorm’s lighting.

You haven’t said much since letting him in.

Really, you never seem to say much at all. A few syllables here and there, bathed in disinterest and what he’s worried might be prejudice. A natural dislike for arts majors, maybe – an innate assumption that they’re lesser than, rather than equal. He wouldn’t be surprised.

But for some reason, he wants you to like him. To acknowledge him, appreciate him.

Eden watches you move across the room with the energy of a dying star. You haven’t so much as looked at him since you mumbled “door’s open,” and he’s spent the past five minutes trying to come up with a good excuse to speak first. Something about chord structure, or maybe asking about your schedule – like it even matters.

Like you haven’t already made it abundantly clear that this project is one giant inconvenience, and he’s the tag-along kid you got stuck with.

You’re supposed to write a song he can sing, but it seems like silence is the only lyric.

Still, Eden smiles.

He can’t help it, really – it’s almost a reflex, now. A subconscious attempt to get you to warm up, and a brief hope that you’ll find his smile pretty (Eden’s quick to brush the thought away, nearly ashamed).

He tries to speak, but you cut him off before he’s halfway into a meaningless ice-breaker.

Tossing a folded piece of paper onto the coffee table before him, wordless and nearly expressionless. It’s lined notebook paper, and despite the almost clinical neatness he’s come to associate you with, Eden notes that it’s worn. Edges worn and wrinkled, graphite smudges visible as it lands on the table with an unremarkable noise.

Eden blinks. Looks down at it, then back up at you.

You’ve still said nothing. Your own eyes flicking down at the paper, both of you looking back and forth between it and each other like it’s some sort of dangerous weapon. In some way, it is.

Eden’s the first to move, reaching for the paper with delicate fingers. Unfolding it as if it were made of glass, nerves set on fire as he reads.

And then he re-reads.

And re-reads.

And – oh. Oh?

It’s … good.

Not just passable, or decent, or “better than expected” – beautiful. Painfully raw and poetic in a way that feels like skin being peeled back, his breath catching on the lines. They border on romantic, he thinks, and immediately regrets it. It’s something heartbreaking and desperate, and there’s no way you mean it that way – do you? Could you?

If you do, he’s certain it can’t be about him (for some reason, that hurts). You’d hardly ever looked at him, hardly ever entertained more than a sentence of conversation.

But the lyrics settle on his tongue, touch phrased like it’s something terrifying and craved at the same time, and he feels it. The warmth etched into heartbreak, ache and yearning all rolled into one.

Eden’s re-reading for a fourth time when he notices you shift your weight – maybe impatient, maybe embarrassed. Maybe nothing, maybe something. He can’t look at you right now. Not when his ears are red, and his heart is doing something ugly and fluttering in his chest.

Eden wishes he could say something cool, in that moment. Something clever, maybe funny – anything but the flood of emotion crashing in his lungs. Instead, he looks up to you. Blinking through the wide, shimmering overwhelm of seeing someone who never let themselves be seen.

“Th-This is … you wrote this?”