There are always a few students in every school who everyone knows.Not because they want to be known—just because they're impossible to ignore.
Sam Walker was one of those people.
Captain of the girls' basketball team, top of the leaderboard in the announcement club, and someone who had somehow managed to be both intimidating and effortlessly cool without really trying. She didn't chase attention. She walked into a room and became the reason people fell silent.
She had this way of standing with one shoulder leaning on the wall, arms crossed, smirking slightly as if she knew things you didn't. Her uniform always looked like she hadn't even tried—shirt a little wrinkled, tie half undone—but somehow, on her, it worked. Everything about her just worked.
Ruby Jane had known of Sam since the start of high school. But knowing of someone and knowing them were two very different things.
Ruby wasn't someone people noticed. Not in the same way.She worked part-time at her parents' restaurant after school, kept her head down in class, and could count on one hand how many people she spoke to regularly.
Two of them were her best friends—Becky Thomas and Felix Adkins.
Becky was blunt and funny and always wore mismatched socks like it was a personality trait. She had a loud laugh and an even louder mouth, especially when it came to teasing Ruby about the thing she refused to call a crush.
Felix, on the other hand, was the sarcastic, dramatic type. He had this half-permanent smirk that made it hard to tell whether he was serious or not, and a habit of appearing in conversations he hadn't technically been invited to. He also had a not-so-secret thing for Becky, though he'd probably rather eat nails than admit it out loud.
And Ruby? Ruby was the quiet one in their trio. Not shy, exactly. Just... softer. More observant. The kind of girl who memorized people's handwriting or noticed when someone changed their hair, but never said it out loud.
Especially not when it came to Sam Walker.
It had started small.
A few hallway glances. A scribbled name on the basketball lineup board. The way Sam's voice filled the school hallway every morning during announcements—low and steady, with just enough sarcasm to make even the boring updates sound interesting.
And then there were the little things. Like how Sam always held the door open for the teachers, or how she stayed back to help clean up after matches when everyone else had already left. She was calm. Controlled. Kind, but in a quiet way.
Ruby noticed everything. Every little act. Every careless smile.
What started as admiration had slowly, without her permission, turned into something else.
Of course, Sam didn't know Ruby existed. Not really.
They were in a few classes together. Sat on opposite sides. Sam was usually surrounded by a cluster of students—friends, teammates, her ex-boyfriend Alex Jones, who still seemed stuck in orbit around her like a forgotten moon.
Ruby, on the other hand, kept to her table, scribbled in her notebook, and tried to ignore the way her pulse picked up whenever Sam entered the room.
She never spoke to her.
She didn't need to speak to her.
Not when just watching Sam felt like standing too close to the sun.
"Please stop staring," Becky muttered one day as they sat on the lawn during lunch.
"I'm not," Ruby lied.
"You've been watching her eat the same yogurt cup for six minutes."
"She's very... elegant."
"She's stabbing the foil lid with a pencil."
Felix flopped down beside them, tossing his bag on the grass. "Did I miss Ruby composing love poetry in her head again?"
"No," Ruby said quickly. "I don't write love poetry."
Felix raised an eyebrow. "You literally made me read that thing where you compared Sam's handwriting to 'a galaxy of restraint.'"
"That was private."
Becky leaned in. "We're not judging you. We're just saying... maybe it's time to either do something about it or stop collecting things she drops like a crow with abandonment issues."
"I'm not—!"
She stopped. Because okay, yes, maybe she had kept that old note Sam threw out in the hallway. And maybe it was still folded and tucked into a tin box in her drawer.
"I'm normal," Ruby muttered.
"No, you're romantic," Becky said, and smiled. "That's not a bad thing. Just... maybe find a way to let her know someday?"
Ruby didn't answer. Because that would mean actually speaking to Sam Walker. And the idea of that made her brain turn to static.
That night, Ruby sat at her desk. Outside her window, the world was quiet. Inside, her head was loud.
She opened her drawer. Took out the note.
It was crumpled and pointless. Sam had probably forgotten it the second she threw it away.
But Ruby hadn't.
She held the paper like it meant something.
And she wondered—if she couldn't find the courage to speak...
Maybe she could write something instead.
[End of Chapter 1]
She didn't know me. But I knew her. And maybe that was enough to begin something.