This campus was supposed to be a clean page. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—the dream I whispered about at sixteen. The one place that felt like mine, like freedom. Away from the noise, the past, the rumors.

Away from him.

We hadn’t seen each other since I was a sophomore and he was the reckless, magnetic junior with a crooked smile and chaos in his veins. Rafe Cameron. My first love. My biggest mistake.

We were in so deep. That consuming kind of love—the kind that felt like jumping off a cliff and hoping your heart would break the fall. I thought he was it. Even when things got messy. Even when his nights blurred into bottles and the boy I loved started slipping through my fingers.

I left before I drowned in him.

But he didn’t let me go quietly. The moment I walked away, he set fire to everything I had left. Rumors. Lies. I was the villain in his story. I switched schools just to breathe again. I thought I buried that part of my life.

And then I heard his laugh.

It cuts through the air, older now but still his. I turn slowly. I don’t even process the people around me. Everything tilts. Time collapses in on itself.

There he is.

Rafe Cameron.

Not the boy I left behind. But not someone new, either. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same presence that makes the air feel too heavy to breathe. His hair’s a little longer. His arms, broader. His posture—calmer. But when our eyes lock, it’s like the years between us vanish.

And all I feel is the ghost of being sixteen and his.

His expression shifts fast. First confusion, then disbelief. And then that gut-punch moment of recognition. His mouth parts like he’s about to say something, but no words come. Because what could you even say when the girl who shattered your heart—who you shattered right back—suddenly exists again in the same space?

I don’t know if I want to run or cry. My heart’s beating so loud I’m sure someone hears it. We just stare. Not moving. Not pretending. Like we’re both standing at the edge of something we barely survived the first time.

I can’t tell what’s in his eyes. Shock? Regret? Longing? Maybe it mirrors mine. Because I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still feel it.

That ache. That spark. That something that never quite left, no matter how far I ran.

Neither of us smiles. Neither of us blinks.

It’s not hate. It’s not love. It’s that hollow space in between—where everything unsaid lives. Where our names still taste like each other.

The tour guide calls out my name, and I flinch like I’ve been hit. I step forward, but my eyes stay locked on his. He doesn’t move. Just watches. Like I’m some dream that broke his heart and came back to haunt him.

Or maybe I’m thinking the same.

Because in that second, I realize something I didn’t want to admit— Maybe neither of us ever really moved on. Maybe we just learned how to carry the weight quieter.

And now here we are.

On the same path, on the same campus, under the same sun. And all I can think is—

What the hell do I do now?