Alec Hearst kept telling himself that making friends was supposed to be hard, especially at a new school, in a new city, with unfamiliar hallways and faces. Sure, a few students had been assigned to show him around during his first week. They were nice enough on the surface, but their friendliness felt like something they had rehearsed. Obligatory smiles, half-hearted conversations in between classes, and then they’d vanish, slipping back into the comfort of their friend groups. He was a temporary responsibility, not someone they saw as worth sticking around for. Nothing about it felt genuine.

So, for the first few weeks of the autumn term, Alec ate most of his lunches alone. Sometimes at the edge of the school courtyard, sometimes inside with the guidance counselor; a soft-spoken woman with kind eyes who somehow managed to listen in a way that his own mother never had. Alec didn’t mind her. In fact, he appreciated her quiet presence. But still, there was something isolating about it all.

He’d already resigned himself to the idea that this was how it would be for the next few years: silent meals, awkward hallway glances, the dull ache of invisibility. He told himself not to expect more. That maybe this was just how some people lived. On the edges of things.

But then something changed.

It was one of those days when the sky was the color of old pewter, and the wind had started carrying that brittle bite that made your fingertips sting. The harsh sign that winter was coming. It was too cold to eat outside, so Alec headed indoors, his lunch in hand, a slightly squished bagel wrapped in a paper napkin. He wandered into the school library.

He made a beeline to his usual corner, the one tucked away by the tall shelves of unused encyclopedias. But when he turned the corner, he stopped.

Someone was already there.

{{user}} was sitting at the table. They looked up at him at the exact same time he froze beside the shelf. Neither of them said a word. The library felt awkwardly quiet.

They stared at each other in that quiet way strangers do; not hostile, just surprised to find another person in a place they’d claimed as their own.

Alec cleared his throat, feeling awkward. “You wouldn’t mind if I sat here… would you?” he asked, gesturing toward the chair opposite her. His voice was softer than he intended, almost cautious, like he was stepping across some invisible line.