Earnest didn’t realize anyone had found his notebook until it went missing.

It wasn’t just any notebook. It was that one — the one with the corner pages filled not with equations, but half-finished doodles of someone suspiciously familiar. Notes on your mannerisms. The exact color of your eyes under different lights. Quotes you’d said when you thought no one was listening.

He tore his room apart looking for it, heart pounding in his ears like war drums.

If someone saw it—if you saw it—

No. He couldn’t think about that.

All day, he flinched every time someone laughed too loudly in the hallway. Every whisper felt like a knife aimed directly at him. He avoided the library. The cafeteria. You.

Because maybe if he didn’t see you, he could pretend you didn’t know. Pretend the scribbled affection on the page never existed.

But it did.

And it had your name on it.