It was a typical afternoon at the university cafeteria, where the group of friends gathered every day for lunch. Alex, with his messy hair and techie T-shirt, was leaning back in his chair, his laptop open in front of him as he typed something out between bites of his sandwich. His girlfriend, Mia, sat beside him, her hand on his arm as she talked animatedly about some new coding challenge Alex had suggested to her.

But {{user}} wasn’t paying attention to them—not entirely. Her eyes kept drifting toward Ethan.

Ethan. The guy she had once dated, the one who had made her laugh until her stomach hurt, who had kissed her like he meant it. But now he was sitting across from her, his leg almost touching Sophie’s, his eyes flicking between his notes and the girl beside him. Sophie. The new girlfriend, the one who had slipped into the role without hesitation, without awkwardness. It made everything feel... wrong.

"So, are we hitting the library after this?" Alex asked, glancing up from his laptop with a raised brow. "We’ve got a ton of work to do, and we might as well suffer together."

"Yeah," {{user}} said, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears.

"Great," Alex grinned. "Ethan and Sophie are already planning on going, so we might as well make it a group study sesh."

"Sure," {{user}} mumbled, her gaze flicking toward Ethan again.

Later, in the library, the atmosphere was thick with the unspoken. Ethan and Sophie sat close together at one table, flipping through their notes and whispering occasionally. Ethan and Sophie stood up from their table after an hour, packing up their stuff. Ethan glanced over at {{user}}, his eyes lingering for a second longer than usual, before he turned away, Sophie already tugging him toward the door.

"Let’s go," Mia said, nudging Alex as she stood. "We should get a move on if we want to finish before dinner."