I can see you

Chapter 1

                          (ROSY'S POV)

I was late to class that day. Not just late, I was running like the hallway might collapse behind me. My shoes slapped against the floor, every echo bouncing off the empty lockers like a countdown. My bag kept slipping off my shoulder. I tightened my grip and sped up ignoring my heart hammering against my ribs.

That’s when I hit him. Or maybe he hit me. Either way, it was hard. There was a loud thud as we collided and my books spilled across the floor like I’d been hit by a wall. My water bottle rolled away, clattering against the wall. Pens skittered like bugs. A total mess.

“I—I’m so sorry!” I said instantly, already crouching to gather my things.

It was so embarrassing I couldn't even look up. I expected a groan, a curse, a sharp sigh or maybe at the very least a muttered insult. That’s what people usually do when they get bumped into. Don't they?

But instead, he laughed. A soft, low chuckle that felt warm and strange, like the echo of something I’d heard before, maybe in a dream, or a memory from another life that I couldn't quite place. The sound curled around the moment like smoke, delicate and wrong, refusing to belong. The sound didn’t quite match the situation.

When I looked up to examine everything froze. The world softened around the edges, the light blurred and the sounds dimmed. And for a single, fragile second, I was certain that my heart had stopped working.

He knelt across from me, brushing hair out of his eyes. He looked calm and elegant yet something else too... Dangerous that was the word that hit me first. Something inside of me warned me he's dangerous but not in a bad way. He didn’t look like he’d hurt me. He looked like someone who could. Like a forest fire beautiful from far away but fatal up close.

He had sharp cheekbones, a jaw that looked like it was carved by someone with a grudge against softness, and black hair that fell slightly over his brow. His eyes, God, his eyes were golden. Not hazel, not brown but Golden like sunlight caught in glass.

He smiled again, just a little bit, but enough for me to go blind from the beauty, “You okay?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, but my voice got tangled in my throat. Then finally “Y-yeah. Sorry again. I wasn’t looking.”

He bent down to pick up a pen I hadn’t even noticed and handed it to me. As his fingers brushed mine, my body flinched like I’d touched a spark.

"It's alright." He said as he helped me gather my stuffs.

We both finished collecting our things. I stuffed papers into my bag, heart still rattling in my chest and the heat of his fingers still lingering on mine. I barely breathed until he stood up and walked past me, heading down the hallway like nothing had happened. But something had. I swear something definitely had.

I was still kneeling when I noticed his student ID. It had fallen near the edge of the wall, barely visible under the shadow of the lockers. I picked it up and read the name. Edward. Just a first name. A student number. His photo. But it felt like the most important thing I’d ever seen. His name lingered in my mouth like a taste.

Edward.
Edward.
Edward.

It was perfect, clean and timeless. The kind of name you’d write on your wrist with red ink. The kind you whisper under your breath like a prayer. My fingers gripped the card tightly. I should have chased after him and told him he dropped it but I didn’t.