EPISODE 4: The Shift
937 Words
It started with a look.
It always did.
Rasimie had seen Andrew across the campus walkway that morning — sleeves rolled up, headphones dangling around his neck, a faint smile on his lips as he balanced a stack of books in one hand. The sun caught his hair, turning the edges gold, and for one wild heartbeat, she forgot how to breathe.
It wasn’t fair, she thought. No one had the right to look that effortlessly calm while she stood there, frozen and dazed like a total fool.
She ducked her head, pretending to scroll through her phone, but her eyes betrayed her, drifting toward him again. He looked up at that exact moment. Their gazes met — brief, steady, and impossibly electric.
Her chest tightened. Her heart started its usual betrayal — thudding too loud, too fast, like it wanted to escape.
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That day in class, Rasimie couldn’t focus. The lecturer was explaining complex gene expression systems, and though genetics was usually her favorite subject, her notes were a mess of doodles and random phrases that made no sense. Every few minutes, her mind drifted back to him. The way he said her name. The small things he did — the quiet patience, the calm confidence that made her want to understand him even more.
When the class ended, she sighed in relief, slinging her bag over her shoulder — only to find him leaning by the doorway.
“Hey,” he said simply, as if he hadn’t just hijacked her thoughts for an entire hour.
“Hey,” she replied, trying (and failing) to sound normal.
“Library?” he asked.
Her brain short-circuited. Was that an invitation? A casual suggestion? Or was she reading too much into it?
“Um… yeah,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t c***k. “I—I was going there anyway.”
He smiled a little. “Then let’s walk together.”
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The path to the library was quiet, lined with flowering trees and the soft hum of student chatter. He walked beside her, not too close, not too far. The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable — just heavy with everything unspoken.
“So,” he said after a while, “you’re a genetics student, right?”
She nodded, glancing up at him. “Yeah. It’s… complicated but fascinating. I like knowing how tiny things can decide everything about us.”
“Like DNA?”
“Exactly.” She grinned. “It’s like life’s way of keeping secrets — and we get to uncover them.”
Andrew chuckled quietly, a sound she hadn’t heard from him before. “You make it sound poetic.”
She shrugged. “Maybe science is poetry. Just a quiet kind.”
He looked at her then — really looked — and she felt that familiar flutter again, the one that made her forget how to speak.
Inside the library, they took a corner table. Andrew worked silently, focused, while Rasimie stared at her laptop screen pretending to type. Her mind was chaos — his voice, his hands, his faint cologne, the sound of his breathing. Everything about him filled the space inside her head.
At some point, he noticed her staring.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
She jolted. “Y-yeah! Totally. Just… mitochondria.”
He raised an amused eyebrow. “Mitochondria?”
“Yeah,” she stammered. “You know, powerhouse of the cell. Super intense topic.”
He tried — and failed — not to laugh. “Right. Very intense.”
Her face burned. She wanted to melt into the floor. But his laughter wasn’t mocking — it was warm, low, and genuine, and somehow it made everything worse in the best way.
---
Later, as they left the library, the sky had turned grey, heavy with clouds. They walked side by side, and for a moment, she forgot to be nervous.
“Can I ask you something?” she said quietly.
“Sure.”
“Do you… ever feel like you’re living too carefully? Like you’re afraid to feel something too deeply because you’re not sure what to do with it?”
Andrew was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Yeah. More than you’d think.”
Their eyes met again, and she felt it — that shift.
The air between them changed.
It wasn’t just curiosity anymore. It was connection.
He smiled faintly, looking away. “You think too much, Rasimie.”
“Maybe,” she whispered. “But you make me think.”
He didn’t reply, but his expression softened — the kind of softness that said he understood her without needing to say anything.
When they reached the campus gate, he paused. “You heading home?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Work,” he said. “Evening shift.”
She wanted to ask more — where, what kind of work, why — but she didn’t. Something about the way he said it made her realize he didn’t want to talk about it.
“See you tomorrow?” she asked instead.
He gave her that small, calm smile that never failed to make her heartbeat stumble. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
As he walked away, Rasimie stood there under the fading sky, her chest tight, her pulse wild. For the first time in her life, she knew what it felt like to be completely, helplessly drawn to someone — to want to know everything about them, even the parts they hid.
And deep down, she already knew — this wasn’t just a crush.
It was the beginning of something she couldn’t name.
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- Writer
