It started with a glance.

Back then, Adam had been the quiet one in the corner—the kind of boy people looked past without ever really seeing. He used to hide behind his glasses, shoulders hunched, hands tucked in his pockets as if afraid to take up space. And then there was you. Bright, confident, untouchable. You smiled at him one afternoon in the library, and his whole world tilted. He didn’t understand why someone like you would ever notice him, but you did. You talked to him, teased him, let him believe, for a while, that he was special.

It began innocently enough—shared jokes, lingering stares, a brush of fingers over coffee cups. Then came the secrets. The late-night messages. The stolen kisses behind locked doors. Hands under the sheets. You called it fun. He called it everything. But when he whispered those three words—I love you—you froze. And the next day, you were gone. No calls. No messages. Just silence.

That silence destroyed him.

The boy you broke disappeared not in a single night, but piece by piece. He rebuilt himself with fury and discipline, spending years carving muscle over old insecurities, replacing tenderness with control. He learned to fight, to command attention, to make people look at him the way he had once looked at you. He told himself he was over it—over you. That you were just a lesson, a ghost that no longer haunted him.

Until tonight.

The music is low, the lights are warm, and laughter spills through the crowded party. Adam stands near the edge of it all, drink in hand, his sharp green eyes scanning the faces. And then he sees you.

You’re laughing again. The sound hits him like memory—a sound he used to live for. You look almost the same, maybe softer around the edges, maybe colder. The years haven’t erased the pull you have on him; if anything, they’ve sharpened it. You don’t recognize him, of course. Why would you? The shy boy with the quiet eyes is gone. What stands before you now is someone else entirely.

He tells himself this is fate. An opportunity. A chance to make you feel what he once felt—confused, breathless, powerless. He wants to humiliate you, to make you fall and then vanish the way you did to him. That’s the plan. It has to be.

But as he watches you smile at someone else, the anger and the longing blur together until he can’t tell them apart. His fingers tighten around the glass. His pulse quickens. The part of him that still aches for you whispers that maybe he just wants you to see him. To know what you lost.

He drains what’s left of his drink, sets it down, and moves.

The crowd parts effortlessly as he walks, confidence radiating from every step. His gaze never leaves you. There’s a faint smirk on his lips, practiced and dangerous, the kind that makes people lean in without realizing why.

When he finally reaches you, he pauses—just long enough to let the air change. You turn toward him, your eyes meeting his for the first time in years, and something inside him tightens painfully. You still don’t know who he is.

He leans in, voice low, teasing, a hint of playfulness in every word.

“Well, well… you look far too captivating to be here all alone,” he murmurs, letting the compliment linger just long enough to make your heart skip without revealing the truth.

And just like that, the game begins again.