The third-period bell didn't just ring; it shrieked, a piercing metallic wail that felt like it was drilling directly into Sophie's overstimulated brain.
Sophie sat at her usual spot, a scarred wooden desk in the back corner of Room 302, where the linoleum was peeling and the radiator hummed a constant, low-pitched tune. Her notebook was open to page fourteen, but the margins were currently being sacrificed to a series of increasingly elaborate geometric patterns. She was supposed to be tracking the timeline of the Industrial Revolution, but Mr. Harrison's voice had long since faded into a rhythmic drone, no more distinct than the sound of a distant lawnmower.
Her attention wasn't on the 19th century. It was fixed firmly on the back of a head three rows down and two seats over.
Ethan.
The name felt heavy and electric in her mind. He was the new arrival, a mid-semester transfer who had dropped into their small-town high school like a stone into a still pond. He wasn't "Webnovel CEO" flashy—he didn't wear designer labels or have a brooding, dark aura that demanded silence. Today, he was just wearing a charcoal-grey hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
But there was something about the way he held himself. Even sitting down, he seemed settled, as if the world around him didn't quite have the power to rattle him. Sophie, who felt rattled by something as simple as a barista asking for her name, found it utterly magnetic.
She watched the way he leaned his head on one hand, his fingers occasionally tapping against his temple as he listened to the lecture. Her heart did a strange, clumsy somersault. It was a physical sensation, a sudden, hollow thud in her chest that made her breath catch.
Get a grip, Sophie, she scolded herself, forcing her eyes down to her paper. He's just a boy. A boy with very nice hair and a very calm face, but just a boy.
A sharp, bony elbow suddenly connected with her ribs.
"You're doing it again," a voice hissed.
Sophie jumped so violently that her pen skidded across the page, drawing a long, jagged ink line through her carefully drawn cubes. She looked up to see Lila, her best friend since kindergarten, leaning over the aisle with a look of pure, unadulterated mischief.
"I—I'm not doing anything," Sophie stammered. Her voice felt three octaves too high. She desperately tried to smooth out the ink smudge with her thumb, only succeeding in staining her skin blue.
"You were staring," Lila whispered, her eyes dancing behind her thick-rimmed glasses. "You were doing the 'Sophie-is-lost-at-sea' look. It's embarrassing, really. I can practically see the little hearts floating around your head."
"I'm looking at the chalkboard, Lila. It's called being a good student," Sophie replied, her cheeks beginning to glow with a heat that felt like a localized sunburn.
Lila smirked, leaning back in her chair. "Sure. And I'm the Queen of England. You haven't blinked in three minutes. If you keep it up, your eyes are going to dry out and fall right onto his desk. That would be a great first impression."
Sophie groaned, burying her face in her hands for a fleeting second. The air in the classroom felt suddenly stifling, thick with the scent of chalk dust and the faint, citrusy smell of someone's cleaning spray. Why was she like this? She had spent sixteen years being perfectly sensible, and now, because a boy with a lopsided smile had joined her History class, she was losing her ability to function as a human being.
She stole another glance. Just one.
The sun was filtering through the high, narrow windows of the classroom, catching the golden-brown strands of Ethan's hair. He shifted slightly, and for a terrifying second, Sophie thought he was going to turn around. She immediately snapped her head toward the front of the room, staring at Mr. Harrison's diagram of a steam engine with such intensity she felt like she might burst into flames.
Focus. Just focus.
But her brain was a traitor. It didn't want the steam engine. It wanted to analyze the way Ethan's brow furrowed when he looked at his textbook. It wanted to wonder what his voice sounded like when he wasn't just answering "Present" during roll call.
Suddenly, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor echoed through the room—a sharp, jarring screeech that made half the class wince. Ethan had reached down to pick up a dropped highlighter. As he straightened up, he didn't return to his notes. Instead, his head turned.
It happened in slow motion.
His gaze swept the back of the room, casual and unhurried, until it landed directly on her.
Sophie's heart didn't just flutter; it felt like a bird was trapped in her ribcage, wings beating frantically against her lungs. For a heartbeat—maybe less—their eyes met. His were dark, unreadable, but framed by a look of mild curiosity.
The world went silent. The hum of the radiator, Lila's muffled giggling, the scratching of pens—it all vanished into a vacuum.
Panic, cold and sharp, spiked through her. Sophie's survival instinct kicked in, and she did the only thing she could think of: she looked down at her blank notebook and began to scribble with manic energy. She wasn't even writing words; she was just drawing frantic, messy lines, her pulse thrumming in her fingertips.
Did he see? Did he catch me? Oh god, I'm a creep. I'm the creepy girl in the back corner.
"Oh my god," Lila's voice was a sharp, delighted needle popping her bubble of panic. "He totally caught you. That was a Moment, Sophie. A capital-M Moment."
"It was a coincidence," Sophie hissed, her heart still racing at a speed that felt medically concerning. "He was just looking at the clock. Or the door. Or literally anything else."
"He looked at you," Lila insisted, packing her bag as the final bell finally rang, signaling the end of the period. "And you looked like you were trying to pretend you were a statue. It was hilarious."
Sophie gathered her things with trembling hands, her movements clumsy and uncoordinated. She stuffed her stained notebook into her bag, not even caring that the corners were getting bent. All she wanted was to get out of this room before her legs gave out.
As they moved toward the door, the crowd of students created a bottleneck. Sophie found herself pinned between a group of loud juniors and the row of desks. And there, only five feet away, was Ethan.
Up close, he was even more devastating to her composure. He was taller than she'd realized, his backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder. He was talking to the teacher, nodding politely, a small, faint smile playing on his lips. It wasn't a big, flashy grin—just a subtle lifting of the corners of his mouth that made him look incredibly kind.
Sophie felt a wave of dizziness. She kept her head down, staring at the scuff marks on her old sneakers, praying for the crowd to move.
"Relax, deer in headlights," Lila whispered, giving her a playful shove toward the hallway.
"I'm fine," Sophie lied, her voice sounding thin and breathy.
They made it to the cafeteria, the air transitioning from the quiet dustiness of the classroom to a chaotic symphony of clattering trays and shouting teenagers. Sophie led them to a quiet corner table, dropping into her seat with a heavy exhale.
"You're obsessed," Lila said, popping open a soda. "Admit it. You're gone. Hook, line, and sinker."
"I'm not obsessed," Sophie murmured, opening her lunchbox but not feeling the least bit hungry. Her stomach was still occupied by the restless fluttering that had started the moment Ethan walked into her life. "I'm just… curious. He's new. It's natural to be curious."
"Sure. Curious," Lila teased. "Is that why you're looking at the door every five seconds?"
Sophie opened her mouth to argue, to defend her dignity, to claim she was perfectly in control—and then she saw him.
Ethan stepped into the cafeteria. He paused for a moment, his eyes scanning the crowded room for a place to sit. Sophie froze, a piece of her sandwich halfway to her mouth.
Then, it happened again. His eyes found hers across the noisy, crowded space. This time, he didn't just look away. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod—a polite recognition of the girl from the back of the room—before turning toward the lunch line.
Sophie didn't move. She couldn't. Her heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, and a small, giddy smile began to tug at her lips despite her best efforts to stay "normal."
"See?" Lila nudged her, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "He noticed you. Again."
Sophie didn't answer. She just watched him walk away, her mind already spinning with a thousand questions, a thousand "what-ifs," and the terrifying, wonderful realization that this semester was going to be unlike any other.
She opened her journal later that night, the ink-stained thumb still a reminder of her morning panic. She picked up her pen and wrote a single line:
He noticed me. And for the first time, I think I'm in real trouble