The air was thick with the warmth of a late summer evening as we strolled through the quiet campus courtyard. Everything around me seemed to slow down each step, each whisper of wind, every soft murmur of the leaves stirred feelings I’d tried so desperately to ignore. For weeks, I had guarded my heart, building walls high enough to keep the world, and especially Ethan, at a safe distance. But that evening, something shifted. The distance I had enforced was finally crumbling under the weight of my own longing.
We’d spent the past few weeks slowly rebuilding our connection, a tentative conversation here, a shared laugh there. Yet, tonight was different. Tonight, the air itself vibrated with unspoken promises and the possibility of something real. I could feel it in the gentle brush of his h
