Sunlit Hallways
I went to bed still smiling.
That's the thing about certain evenings, they don't fully end when you step through your door. They follow you in, settle into the room, linger in the quiet while you go through the motions of getting ready for bed. I caught myself replaying small things. The way he'd looked at me under the fairy lights. The particular warmth of his hand. The way he'd said "I'm not going anywhere" like it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world.
The moonlight came through my window in long silver panels. I lay in it for a while before sleep finally pulled me under.
Morning arrived bright and unhurried. I was just reaching for my bag when a knock came at the door.
Daniel. Grinning like he'd been awake for hours and enjoyed every minute of it.
"Ready for school?" he asked.
"Almost." I slipped on my shoes, trying to ignore the flutter that had started the moment I saw him. "Give me a second."
He waited, and when I came back he held out his hand. I took it without thinking, pwhich was becoming a habit, and I wasn't sure I minded.
"Race you to the car," he said, already nudging me off balance.
I stumbled. He caught me, laughing, and for a second we were just standing there in the doorway, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him, both of us laughing at nothing.
The drive to campus was easy the way mornings with the right person always are. Sunlight through the windows, conversation that went nowhere in particular and didn't need to.
I kept thinking: this is what it's supposed to feel like.
Campus greeted us with its usual morning energy, friends calling across the quad, the smell of fresh grass, the low hum of a day beginning. We moved through it together, and I noticed the way the noise seemed to sit at a slight distance when he was beside me. Like we were inside something the rest of the world was just outside of.
Classes blurred pleasantly. We shared notes, whispered jokes through the duller lectures, kept each other awake through a particularly uninspired presentation on fiscal policy. Every small exchange, a glance held a beat too long, a shared eye-roll, his knee briefly against mine, added another quiet layer to whatever was building between us.
At lunch, our friends were already deep in weekend planning and assignment complaints when we slid into our seats.
"Still mad I beat you at bowling?" Daniel asked, fingers brushing mine briefly under the table.
"You had home-field advantage," I said.
"It's a bowling alley. Nobody has home-field advantage."
"You did."
He laughed. So did I. Our friends looked between us with the expressions of people who had opinions they were keeping to themselves, which honestly made it better.
After lunch we found a tree outside, away from the cafeteria noise. The sun had warmed the grass and the leaves above filtered the light into loose golden patches. Daniel stretched out on his hands, talking about a group project he was actually excited about, which I found endearing, the way enthusiasm for something specific always is.
I was half-listening, half-watching the yard, when I spotted Saraph.
She was standing with a small group of classmates, laughing at something a tall guy with an easy smile had said. I knew that laugh. More importantly, I knew that particular tilt of her head, the one that meant she was absolutely, deliberately being charming and absolutely, deliberately pretending she wasn't.
"She's on a mission," Daniel said, following my gaze.
"No kidding."
"Saraph could charm a statue into apologizing for being in her way."
We watched her toss her hair and make the guy laugh again. Effortless. Devastating.
Across the lawn she spotted me watching, grinned enormously, and gave a thumbs-up with the energy of someone filing a formal announcement.
I gave her a slow nod that I hoped communicated both I see you and please be normal.
Daniel leaned back, eyes closing briefly against the sun. "You know what I like about this?" he said.
"The tree?"
"Being here. With you. Like this." He opened one eye. "It makes everything feel quieter. In a good way."
My heart did something inconvenient. "Yeah," I said. "It does."
The afternoon passed in that unhurried way good days tend to. But when the end-of-day rush came and students surged toward the gates, I looked around for Daniel.
He was gone.
No message. No goodbye. Just, gone.
I stood in the middle of the moving crowd and felt the warmth of the day develop a small crack. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't even necessarily something. But it was there, that hollow, slightly confused feeling of a moment that ended without a proper ending.
I pushed it aside and found Saraph waiting at the gate, cheeks still flushed.
"He talked to me," she said immediately, grabbing my arm. "And he asked if I was free this weekend. I think he's actually going to ask me out."
I let her excitement pull me out of my own head. "You're irresistible, Em. He never stood a chance."
We walked home through familiar streets that somehow felt full of new possibilities, her gushing about the tall guy, me telling her about the tree and the afternoon and the strange abrupt ending.
She nudged me. "Maybe he had a reason. Boys go weird sometimes. But Nuella, he likes you. It's obvious."
"I hope so," I said, and meant it more than I wanted to admit.
At my doorstep we hugged goodbye. I stood there a moment after she left, watching the sun sink behind the rooftops, the sky going soft at the edges.
Something was growing between Daniel and me. I could feel it the way you feel weather changing, not seeing it yet, just knowing it's coming. Even the unanswered questions, the sudden goodbye that had no explanation, none of it was enough to dim what the rest of the day had been.
If anything, the uncertainty just made me more aware of how much I wanted to know.
And I fell asleep that night still wondering what tomorrow would bring.