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The sun was soft today.
Golden, warm, but not harsh. The kind of light that glimmered like melted honey on the pavements and made everything feel a little magical, like the whole city had just taken a deep, satisfied breath.
I adjusted the ribbon on my straw hat and huffed, sticking my hands into the pockets of my soft yellow dress. Mama said I looked like I was auditioning for some 1800s period drama, but she still clicked about fifty pictures before we left our home.
I was holding Mama's hand - more like she was dragging me like a rag doll through the wide paths, chatting a mile a minute, her eyes flitting from one building to the next like she was reliving some young fantasy of her own.
She nudged my side, grinning as she adjusted her aviators. "That's the main quad, Ren. It's prettier in spring, you'll see. And that tower?" she pointed with a perfectly manicured finger, "they say it's haunted."
My eyes widened. "Haunted?!"
She snorted. "Oh please, baby. That's just what the students say to sound poetic."
I blinked up at the Gothic spires of the University of Glasgow, half-expecting a crow to caw dramatically from above.
Well, it wouldn't be completely out of place.
We strolled into the courtyard, my flats clicking softly against the flagstones. Students bustled around us-some rushing with iced coffees in hand, others sitting lazily on benches with earphones plugged in and necks craned toward the sky.
Everyone seemed like they knew where they were going. Like they belonged.
"This," Mama said, swinging her handbag dramatically as we passed a statue of some Scottish philosopher whose name I didn't catch, "is where they all come to pretend to study. But really," she leaned in with a conspiratorial wink, "they're just scouting for boyfriends."
"Mama!" I hissed, scandalized.
"Oh don't give me that look, Miss Lancaster," she laughed, looping her arm through mine. "You think your mama wasn't young once?"
I pouted as we turned a corner onto a tree-lined path that overlooked the Kelvin River. The view was breathtaking-verdant, romantic, a bit wild.
And then I saw it.
A couple curled into each other under the branches of an elm tree. The boy had his hands in her hair. The girl had her fingers under his hoodie. They were kissing like... like they were the last two people on Earth.
