You’d gone to the same campus for months without ever really seeing each other.

Two single-sex schools sharing stone paths, libraries, and courtyards — boys in uniform jackets passing girls in pressed skirts, all pretending not to look. Your friend groups overlapped easily. Laughter crossed tables. Inside jokes traveled from one side of campus to the other.

But you and Todd?

You were ghosts to each other.

Not because you didn’t notice him — you did. You noticed the way he walked with his shoulders slightly hunched, as if apologizing to the air. The way he always sat a little apart from the others. The way his laugh, when it escaped, sounded surprised, like he hadn’t meant to make noise.

And Todd noticed you too. He noticed your quiet presence, how you listened more than you spoke despite people thinking you were shy only because you chose to be. He noticed how you tucked your hair behind your ear when you were nervous. He just never believed someone like you would want to talk to someone like him.

So you passed each other every day.

And said nothing.

Until your friends interfered — because of course they did. They’d noticed the glances, the awkward pauses, the way both of you went still whenever the other was nearby. One gentle push here, a “go sit with them” there, and suddenly it was unavoidable.

That was how it started.

Softly. Carefully. Like neither of you wanted to scare the moment away.

You became friends in the quietest way possible — sitting beside each other, not always talking. Sharing notes. Trading shy smiles. Both of you flushing every time your fingers brushed by accident, as if it were something scandalous instead of innocent.

Neither of you were brave. But together, you were comfortable.

That afternoon, after classes ended, you found yourselves in the yard — not the busy center where everyone gathered, but a hidden corner near the old stone wall, half-shaded by trees. The noise of campus felt far away there, muffled and distant.

You sat on the grass beside him, knees drawn in slightly, notebook resting on your lap.

“So,” you said softly, voice barely louder than the breeze. “What did you think of the lecture?”

Todd swallowed. He always did before speaking.

“I—um,” he began, then stopped, embarrassed already. You waited, patient, not looking at him too directly. “I liked… the part about imagery. When he talked about how—how words can make you feel things.”