High school. A place where people find their cliques, where identities start to form. I didn’t care about any of that. I was the troublemaker, the one teachers hated, the one always getting called out for some stupid prank or skipping class. Rules never made sense to me. Why follow them when it was more fun to break them?

Then there was her.

She wasn’t like the rest of the crowd. She stood out—not in the loud, flashy way like the popular girls, but with a kind of quiet confidence. She was smart, the type who always raised her hand in class and had her homework done a week ahead. She walked like she had everything figured out, like the chaos of high school couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t stand that at first. I didn’t get how someone could be so... perfect.

We were like night and day. Where I thrived on breaking the rules, she followed them to a T. I used to think people like her were boring, predictable. But something about her made me curious. Maybe it was the way she always looked so calm, like nothing fazed her, even when I’d make a scene in class. She didn’t judge me like the others. Instead, she’d just give me this look—a look that told me she knew I was acting out, but she wasn’t impressed. It drove me crazy.

One day, I got paired with her for a project. I thought it would be hell, having to sit next to Miss Perfect for hours. But it wasn’t. She was different. Smart, yeah, but also mature in a way I hadn’t expected. She talked to me like I wasn’t just the guy with a bad reputation. She treated me like I had something to offer, even when I wasn’t sure I did.

There was this... mahika about her, this magic that pulled me in. It wasn’t like those cheesy love stories where everything changes overnight. But with her, I felt different. I didn’t want to cause trouble around her. I wanted to be better, like maybe if I tried, I could be someone worthy of her time.

I started showing up to class more, stopped messing around so much. And when people asked why, I just shrugged it off. But I knew. It was her.