I’m embarrassed now to admit it, but I had grown rather fond—some might say obsessive—of one of my classmates. Not just any classmate, but one from the exclusive Greek class Julian taught. I had convinced myself it wasn’t obsession, though. Just a curious preoccupation, a strange romanticism I felt toward him. Nothing more.

Which, of course, was normal. Wasn’t it?

He was everything I wasn’t: privileged, wealthy, effortlessly charming. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy him, didn’t sometimes wish to be him. Looking back, it seems almost delusional. Perhaps I was. But back then, I didn’t see it that way.

What began as late-night study sessions after grueling translation work turned into something unexpected. Friendship, perhaps. Or something like it. With him, I found a connection I lacked with the others. It was unsettling how comfortable I felt around him, as though we understood each other in ways that words failed to capture.

And I think he felt it too.

At first, I chalked it up to the novelty of friendship, nothing more. But then there were those moments—strange, fleeting thoughts that lingered when I didn’t see him for days. The way my chest tightened when I thought about him, the way I missed him without fully realizing it. And every time our hands brushed, even accidentally, I could feel something electric stir inside me.

But why did these feelings feel so different from the fleeting infatuations I had with others? Why was I so certain it was nothing more than obsession when it felt like something else entirely?

We were at Francis’s country house, lying on the grass, slightly removed from the rest. He was reading, his long frame bent over the book, his face serene in the dimming afternoon light. I sat beside him, doing nothing, unable to stop myself from staring. For some reason, I found comfort in his face, in the quiet way he existed. And for a while, I just watched him.

But of course, there was nothing strange about that.

At least, that’s what I told myself back then.