College changes the scenery, not the patterns.

Raquille sits beside you in a quiet lecture hall, notebooks open, neither of you really listening. For years, he thought he understood love because it was loud and demanding, because it kept him restless. He mistook admiration for devotion, dependency for depth.

You were never part of that confusion.

You were the one he studied with on the library steps, the one who shared cheap coffee on the walk back to the dorms. He called it comfort. He told himself it was habit, something that came from convenience rather than choice.

So he ignored it.

Time does its slow, honest work. The old feelings unravel, exposed as projection and longing for attention rather than connection.

One afternoon in the campus park, sunlight filtering through trees, you’re stretched out on the grass beside him. There’s no performance, no tension. Just ease.

That’s when it settles.

Love isn’t the chaos he chased for years. It’s this quiet gravity pulling him back to you.

Raquille turns his head, watching you laugh at something small, and realizes the truth too late and too clearly: the real love was never loud. It was patient. And it’s been sitting next to him all along.