The Boy That stayed

Chapter Thirteen - Campus

Morning came quietly.

I woke to pale sunlight slipping through the curtains and spreading across the unfamiliar room.

For a few seconds, I stared at the ceiling, trying to remember where I was.

Then it came back to me.

The university.

The dorm.

my Room .

I turned toward the other side of the room.

Leah was already awake, sitting at her desk with one earphone in. She was scrolling through her phone, completely absorbed in whatever she was looking at.

"Good morning," I said.

She glanced up.

"Morning."

I reached for my phone.

There was a message from Mum.

Good morning, baby. How did you sleep?

A smile touched my lips.

Good morning. I slept well.

Her reply appeared almost immediately.

Make sure you eat breakfast. And don't get lost.

I laughed softly.

That sounded exactly like her.

I put my phone down and looked around the room.

Yesterday had been too exhausting to explore anything properly. Today, I wanted to see as much of the university as I could before classes began.

The cafeteria.

The library.

The sports complex.

The lecture halls.

The student center.

Maybe a few other places along the way.

I grabbed my clothes and headed to the bathroom.

I brushed my teeth, washed my face, took a proper shower, and changed into something comfortable enough for walking around campus.

When I returned, Leah was still sitting at her desk.

"I'm going to look around the campus," I told her.

She nodded.

"Okay."

I picked up my phone and left.

My first stop was the cafeteria.

I had already decided that finding it would be one thing off my mental list.

I followed the signs, but after a few minutes, I realized the directions weren't as straightforward as they looked.

One sign pointed toward the academic buildings.

Another sent me toward the student center.

I took the wrong turn twice before finally spotting a large building with students coming in and out.

The smell of food confirmed it.

I smiled.

"Finally."

I walked inside.

The cafeteria was much larger than I expected.

Rows of tables filled the room, and almost every seat seemed occupied.

Students were laughing, talking, eating, and moving between the food counters.

I bought something small and found a table near the window.

While I ate, I watched the room.

A group of girls were laughing over something on someone's phone.

Two boys were arguing playfully over a football match.

Someone at another table nearly knocked over a drink and caught it just in time.

The whole place felt alive.

I finished my food and stood.

One place checked off.

Now, the library.

That should have been easy.

It wasn't.

I followed a sign that said LIBRARY → and walked for several minutes.

The path eventually led me to a courtyard.

No library.

I checked the sign again.

Maybe I had misunderstood it.

I retraced my steps, turned down another walkway, and ended up beside a building I had never seen before.

Still nothing.

I pulled out my phone and opened the campus map.

The library was apparently somewhere behind the humanities building.

I walked around the building.

Nothing.

I tried another path.

Still nothing.

At this point, I was beginning to wonder whether the university had deliberately hidden the place.

Eventually, after another ten minutes of wandering, I noticed a narrow stone pathway between two buildings.

There was a small sign almost hidden beneath the branches of a tree.

LIBRARY

I stared at it.

"You have got to be kidding me."

I followed the path.

The building appeared at the end.

It was beautiful.

Large glass windows stretched across the front, and the entrance was tucked slightly behind the surrounding trees.

I pushed open the door.

The noise from outside disappeared almost immediately.

Silence.

Complete silence.

The atmosphere was so different from the cafeteria that I instinctively lowered my voice, even though nobody had asked me to.

I walked slowly between the shelves.

Books filled row after row.

Some students sat at tables with their laptops open.

Others were reading quietly.

I wandered deeper into the library.

As I turned into another aisle, I noticed someone farther ahead.

A silhouette.

Something about the figure seemed familiar.

I stopped.

My mind went back to the previous night.

The lonely light.

The person I'd seen sitting beneath it.

I looked again.

It was him.

The same guy.

This time, I could actually see him properly.

He stood near one of the shelves, looking through a book.

Dark hair.

Tall.

Quiet.

There was something effortlessly attractive about him.

Okay... he's kind of good-looking.

The thought came so unexpectedly that I almost laughed at myself.

I quickly looked away.

It wasn't my business.

I continued walking down the aisle, pretending I hadn't noticed him.

A few seconds later, the boy paused.

He slowly turned his head.

Something had caught his attention.

He looked down the aisle.

Nothing.

He glanced toward the other shelves.

Still nothing.

Whoever had been watching him was already gone.

He shrugged and returned to his book.

I kept exploring.

I spent some time looking through different sections, checking out the study areas and finding a few quiet corners where I could imagine myself reading between classes.

Eventually, I left.

The sports complex was much farther from the library than I expected.

I walked for what felt like forever before I started hearing something in the distance.

A whistle.

Then shouting.

Then cheers.

I followed the noise.

The closer I got, the louder it became.

Finally, I reached a large field.

Students were playing football, and a crowd had gathered around the sidelines.

I found a place to sit and watched.

The game was surprisingly entertaining.

Players chased the ball across the field while their friends shouted encouragement from the sidelines.

I stayed there for nearly an hour.

When the football game ended, I followed some students inside the sports building.

The place was enormous.

The first court I came across had students playing basketball.

Balls bounced against the floor.

Sneakers squeaked across the polished surface.

A little farther away, another section had students playing badminton.

Beyond that was the volleyball court.

I wandered through the building, taking everything in.

I'd never seen a university sports complex this large before.

Eventually, I noticed signs pointing toward the swimming area.

I followed them.

The swimming section was farther inside the building, away from the basketball courts.

When I entered, I immediately smelled chlorine.

A large pool stretched across the room.

Students were already practicing in different lanes while a coach watched from the side.

I stood there for a while, fascinated.

Everything here seemed to have its own world.

Then I left the pool area and followed another corridor.

It led toward the track.

Outside, students were running laps while others stretched along the field.

A coach shouted instructions from the side.

I stood near the entrance and watched them.

I had already spent most of the day walking around, yet somehow, I still wanted to see more.

Maybe this place wasn't as frightening as I'd imagined.

Maybe, with enough time, it could actually become home.

I looked across the track.

For a brief second, I thought I saw a familiar figure in the distance.

I blinked.

He was gone.

I shook my head.

I'm imagining things.