Right Where We Shouldn't Be

For four years, she loved him in silence - watching from afar as he moved through their high school halls, never daring to speak a word to the boy who seemed to occupy every quiet corner of her thoughts. They'd been in the same classes, sat just feet apart, yet they'd never exchanged more than the briefest, most deliberate avoidance. Hallways would clear for them as they'd turn away from each other, classrooms would feel heavy with their unspoken distance, and even their eyes would only meet in quick, stolen glances that they'd both pretend never happened.

When graduation arrived, it passed without so much as a nod between them - no goodbye, no acknowledgment that they'd shared four years under the same roof. She'd learned from his mother that he was leaving for university far away, a truth that stung even as she told herself it was for the best. She enrolled at a school just minutes from their old campus, finding her footing with batchmates from other strands and leaning on her only best friend, who was the only one who knew about the feelings she'd kept locked away.

Months passed in a steady rhythm of lectures and late-night cramming, until the door of her lecture hall swung open one morning. There he stood - tall, familiar, and looking just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. As he walked to the front to introduce himself as a transfer student, her heart hammered against her ribs. He'd not only come back to the city, but he'd enrolled in the exact same course as her. The distance they'd both embraced for years had vanished in an instant, leaving only the weight of all those secret stares and unspoken words between them.