They didn't talk every day. Not at first.
Sometimes he'd see her in the hallway — arms full of books, eyes downcast — and he'd nod. She'd barely glance at him. Other times she'd be in the library during lunch, curled up near the window where no one else sat.
He started showing up there, too.
Not right next to her. Just close enough.
A few tables away.
Then two.
Then across from her.
She didn't speak, not for a week. But she stopped flinching when he pulled out the chair. And one day — a Tuesday, cold and clouded — she slid her extra pack of biscuits across the table toward him.
No words.
Just a glance, soft and brief.
He took them. Smiled.
That was how it started.
---
"I don't like people," Ava said one afternoon as they sat behind the gym, hidden behind the storage shed. "They talk too much."
Alex huffed a laugh. "You say that like you're not people."
"I'm different."
He tilted his head, looking at her.
"You are," he agreed.
She blinked. "That was fast."
"I've been watching you for months. Trust me. You're not like anyone else here."
That earned him a look — half-wary, half-curious.
"What did you see?"
He thought for a moment.
Then: "You walk like you're always trying not to be noticed. Like you don't think the world has room for you."
She froze.
He didn't stop.
"But you still show up. You still take space. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when no one says your name out loud."
Her throat bobbed.
"Why do you care?" she whispered.
Alex looked down at his hands, rubbed a thumb over the old scar near his knuckle — the one from punching a wall in the ninth grade.
"I think I wanted to disappear, too. For a long time," he said. "But when I saw you… you made it look like surviving could be quiet. Gentle."
She didn't answer. But she didn't look away, either.
And when he offered his hoodie as the sun went down and the wind picked up, she took it.
Didn't say thank you.
Didn't have to.
Her fingers lingered at the cuff.
He didn't take it back.
---
A few weeks later, he started walking her halfway home.
Only halfway — she insisted. "The rest is mine," she said once. "I need something that's just mine."
So he stopped at the same corner every time, leaned against the same fence as she turned and walked the rest of the way alone.
But she always looked back.
And once — just once — she waved.
He waved back, heart thudding like a damn drum.
---
They weren't dating.
They weren't even friends in the traditional sense.
But something was growing between them — something fragile, unspoken, the kind of thing that only teenagers believe will last forever.
And for a while… maybe it did.
He wasn't scary then.
She wasn't scared yet.
They were just two quiet people who saw each other, really saw each other, in a world that kept shouting past them.
And that — back then — was enough.
---
He noticed her before he knew her.
Noticed the way she always hugged her books tight to her chest. The way she never lingered in the halls longer than necessary. The way she looked like she had a whole world in her head she wasn't inviting anyone into.
He ran into her — literally — the first time outside the old staircase by the English block. Her pen fell. He picked it up.
She muttered a thanks and darted off before he could say anything clever.
And after that, it kept happening.
At the vending machine. In the courtyard. That time in the library when she shot him a sharp look because he was being too loud — he remembered that one especially well.
Every time, she moved like she wasn't used to being looked at.
And that made him look more.
It didn't help that he already knew her name. Ava. He'd heard it in roll call, once. And it stuck — like a song he couldn't get out of his head.
So when they bumped into each other again, two weeks later, he wasn't surprised. The universe, it seemed, had a sense of humor.
She was walking too fast around the corner by the lockers, her papers slipping from her grip. He caught one mid-air.
"You really need to hold onto your stuff better," he said, crouching beside her.
"Or maybe you need to stop lurking around corners," she muttered, snatching the page from his hand.
He smiled, amused. "You always this feisty?"
"You always this nosy?"
He tilted his head. "I like this. A little banter before lunch. Builds the appetite."
She rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed, and stood. "Thanks for the help."
"Wait," he said, handing her the last page. "You're Ava."
"You already know that."
"Still nice to hear it from you."
She blinked. "Do you always flirt this badly?"
"Only when I'm trying not to scare someone off."
That got a smile — brief, reluctant, but real.
"I'm Alex," he said.
She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. I know."
He grinned. "Right. Infamous."
"You wish."
"I do, actually."
There was a pause — the kind that buzzed with something neither of them knew what to do with yet. The hallway quieted. Her fingers brushed his as she took the paper from him.
She looked down.
Then up.
Then said, "I have class."
"Shame," he said. "I was hoping you'd insult me again."
She turned away, but as she walked, she said, without looking back, "Try not to trip over another corner."
He watched her go.
And for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel bored. Or angry. Or tired of the place he was in.
He just felt awake.
Like something had started.
And he wanted more.
---
He told himself it was nothing. Just some weird magnetism. A fluke. A face he happened to keep running into on a campus of too many faces.
But that excuse wore thin.
Because she wasn't just a girl anymore — not to him.
She was a voice he could pick out in a crowd. A silhouette he could recognize even from across the field. The girl with the notebooks full of scribbles and margins full of doodles. She was the one who never laughed too loudly, who always sat at the edge of a group, who walked fast but never in a hurry.
And somehow, she was always just there.
In the library — sitting on the floor when all the chairs were full, shoes off, lips pressed together in concentration.
At the bus stop — lost in her headphones, mouthing lyrics like the world didn't exist.
In the cafeteria — reading during lunch, poking at her sandwich, never finishing it.
She wasn't trying to be mysterious. That's what made her so magnetic. She didn't care if anyone was watching.
But he was.
Always.
He noticed she flinched when people spoke too loud. That she avoided certain groups like it was instinct. That she clutched her phone too tightly, like she was waiting for a text that never came.
And then there were the times she smiled — really smiled.
He only saw it twice.
Once when a teacher complimented her essay. Once when she caught the first snowflake on her glove outside history class.
He knew he was in trouble the day he caught himself standing outside the library for fifteen minutes just to watch her through the glass.
He hadn't even realized he was smiling.
It wasn't normal. He didn't do this. He didn't orbit people. People orbited him.
But with her…
He couldn't even explain it.
She didn't try to impress anyone. She didn't laugh at his jokes unless they were actually funny. She didn't look at him like he was someone to admire. She looked at him like he was a puzzle she didn't have time to solve — and that only made him want to be solved.
It hit him hard one Friday after class, when he saw her sitting alone on the bleachers, hair in a messy bun, legs curled under her. She was scribbling something furiously into a journal.
He almost walked past.
Almost.
But he didn't.
He walked over, leaned down, and asked, "What are you writing?"
She startled, then narrowed her eyes. "You again?"
"Guilty."
She closed the book. "I don't like people reading over my shoulder."
"Relax. I can't read your chicken scratch."
She snorted.
Progress.
"I thought you had cooler places to be," she said.
"I do," he said. "But I keep ending up here."
"With me?"
He nodded.
There was a pause.
She tilted her head. "Why?"
He wanted to say something witty.
But what came out was honest.
"I don't know," he admitted. "You're just… different."
She blinked.
And for once, she didn't look like she was going to run.
Instead, she said quietly, "You're different too."
That was it.
That was the moment.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just two teenagers on a gray day under a gray sky, the world hushed around them.
And something in his chest shifted.
He didn't know it then, but he'd spend the rest of his life chasing that version of her. The girl who looked at him like he wasn't dangerous yet. The one who didn't know what he'd become.
He was already falling.
And he hadn't even touched her hand yet.