Intrigued

As I walked through the halls of the very university where I had chosen to continue my law practice, a wave of familiarity washed over me. The scent of old books and fresh paper lingered in the air, mingling with the distant hum of students engaged in passionate debates. This place-these walls, these corridors-felt like home, yet somehow, today, they held a different weight.

I stepped into the lecture hall, scanning the rows of students settling into their seats. And then, I saw her.

Angela.

She wasn't like the others.

While the rest of the class chattered, flipping through their casebooks with varying degrees of enthusiasm, she sat still-calm, collected. Her posture was poised, her expression unreadable, yet her dark eyes burned with something beneath the surface. A silent hunger. A quiet, razor-sharp focus that set her apart from the eager, overeager students surrounding her.

I made my way to the seat beside her, heart thrumming a little too loudly in my chest.

"Kamala, right?" Her voice was smooth, deliberate, as if she weighed every word before releasing it.

I nodded, caught off guard by the way my name sounded coming from her lips. "Yeah. And you're Angela."

She gave a small smile, nothing more than a flicker at the corner of her lips. "I've seen you around."

"I could say the same about you." I leaned forward slightly, studying her face, searching for something-anything-that might tell me she saw me the way I saw her.

But Angela was an enigma. She held my gaze for a moment, then looked away, returning her focus to the notes in front of her. To her, I was just another classmate. A passing face in a sea of aspiring lawyers.

Little did I know-she didn't look at me the way I looked at her.