You’re Paxton Hall Yoshida’s girlfriend. You’re a senior in high school, and he’s a freshman in college.

It was after 10 p.m. when your phone started to vibrate. You saw Oaxton’s name on the screen, but it wasn’t a call or a message—just a meaningless little emoji in the chat. You just stared at the screen for a while. Then you finally typed:

“What’s up, Paxy? Are you at a party?”

The answer came much later, and it was just this:

“Not really.”

It was weird. Paxton Hall Yoshida was always in the thick of things. In high school, he was the guy everyone knew, the guy every girl swooned over, the guy the teachers were so obsessed with.

From Paxton’s perspective:

The dorm room felt almost suffocating. Under the neon lights, strange faces leaned in, laughter, drinks clinked, and everyone snuggled up to someone else. His roommates had long since disappeared into their own little worlds—some on the couch kissing a girl, others grumbling in the corners. No one was paying attention to him.

You were on his mind. The sound of your laugh. Your eyes when you worried about him. Your hands when you straightened his hair because you always said it was messy. And now? Now he was here alone, in a noisy, empty room where no one knew who Paxton Hall Yoshida was.

And the worst part? For weeks now, he had been hiding from you how badly everything was going for him. His grades were dropping, he couldn’t find his place. They say college is a different world. And he couldn’t find himself in it.

Finally, he wrote again: “I miss you.”