The girl I forgot

THE LIBRARY DATE

When I got home, I barely made it to my room before collapsing onto my bed face-first. The moment in the art room was still playing on repeat in my head like a cursed highlight reel: Kai staring at my painting, the way his eyes softened, his voice when he said, "This is beautiful."

He was talking about the painting. Obviously. Hopefully. Maybe.

My cheeks burned just remembering it.

I peeled myself off the bed, grabbed my paintbrush and palette, and set up in front of the canvas again, determined to be normal. But every time I tried to paint something abstract, I saw… his jawline. Then his eyes. Then—ugh! His hair.

I groaned and flung the brush back into the cup of water.

“Okay. Enough of that,” I muttered, dragging my laptop over and opening our shared biology project doc. Science, at least, didn’t come with emotional whiplash.

I slammed the laptop shut.

“No. No. Nia. Get it together.”

I opened it again and erased the emotional poetry. Refocused. Started building out our diagrams, copying relevant info into neat bullet points. Kai had done a solid job with his part already—his notes were so clean it made me want to cry.

Then, as if summoned by the mere thought of him, my phone buzzed.

Kai:

Hey, just wanted to say again—your painting really stuck with me. You’re crazy talented. Also, I added a diagram to the doc. Lemme know what you think.

I stared at the message.

Then stared at my ceiling.

Then screamed into my pillow.

“You’re embarrassing,” I told myself. “You’re a functioning human girl. You are not going to squeal like a gremlin.”

I squealed like a gremlin.

That was exactly when Elijah and Jeremiah burst into my room like the walking sound effects they were.

“Niaaa! Why are you making goat noises?” Elijah asked, flopping onto my bed and grabbing my pillow.

Jeremiah snatched my phone. “Ooh, who’s texting you with full stops and compliments? That’s suspicious behavior.”

“Give it back!” I dove for him, but he was already reading dramatically: “Your painting really stuck with me...”

“Elijah, she’s blushing,” Jeremiah said in a stage whisper.

“I’m not!” I absolutely was.

“Is this the long-time crush boy? The one who has main character hair?”

“I’m ignoring both of you,” I said, retrieving my phone and tossing a throw pillow at their heads. “Out. I have biology to do and no time for drama.”

“Mmhm,” Elijah said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Biology and chemistry, it seems.”

They cackled all the way out the door.

Alone again, I curled up at my desk, cheeks still hot. I reread Kai’s text like five more times before forcing myself to actually check the diagram he added. It was perfect, of course.

I added a comment to the doc:

"Looks great! Super helpful, thanks :)"

I deleted the smiley. Re-added it. Deleted it again. Then just sent it without any punctuation, like a chill person.

To recover from the emotional rollercoaster, I opened my brain dump notebook and scribbled:

Dear brain,

I hate that you store feelings like a junk drawer. Please reorganize yourself. Preferably in alphabetical order. Love, Nia.

I sighed, shut the notebook, and turned off the lights. As I lay in bed, phone on my chest, I stared at the ceiling and wondered:

Was it just a nice moment? Or was something actually beginning?

I didn’t know. But for the first time in a long time, it felt like something was finally changing.

The next morning, I tried to dress like someone who hadn’t reread a text twenty-two times before bed. I failed.

I wore my favorite hoodie (safe), my neatest braids (comfort meets cute), and lip gloss (in case of… reasons). I looked in the mirror and gave myself a stern pep talk.

“You are calm. You are cool. You are not going to fall apart if Kai breathes in your direction.”

Spoiler alert: I fell apart approximately six minutes later.

The moment I stepped into school, Rivy was on me like a bloodhound sniffing chaos.

“Good morning, emotionally unstable best friend,” she said, linking arms with me. “You were suspiciously quiet last night. Spill.”

I gave her my most innocent look. “I was working on the biology project.”

She squinted at me. “Was that before or after art boy texted you?”

I tripped on air.

Rivy gasped. “He did text you! Girl, give me your phone right now.”

“No!” I laughed, clutching it to my chest like a diary. “You’re too dangerous.”

We walked into the hallway, dodging clusters of sleepy students and the janitor who always looked like he hated us all. I spotted Kai near our classroom, talking to someone from his friend group—Asher, I think.

And then… he looked up. Saw me. And smiled.

Not the polite classmate smile. No. It was the hey-I-remember-you-and-your-art smile.

I immediately forgot how legs worked.

“Wow,” Rivy said in my ear. “You’re literally glitching.”

“He just smiled at me,” I whispered, trying to act normal. “Like, with intention.”

“Would you like a medal? Or just a fainting couch?”

Kai walked over a second later, backpack slung over one shoulder, as effortlessly charming as always.

“Morning,” he said, mostly to me. “I saw your comment on the doc. Glad it helped.”

My mouth decided to take the day off, so I just nodded.

Thankfully, Rivy filled the silence. “She loved it. She almost married it last night.”

Kai blinked. I gasped. “Rivy!”

“Anyway!” Rivy grinned, completely unbothered. “I’ll leave you nerds to your science love affair.”

She sauntered off before I could strangle her with my shoe.

Kai scratched the back of his neck. “Uh… so, do you maybe wanna go over the rest of the project during lunch? We could meet in the library or something.”

My heart started beatboxing.

“Yeah,” I said. “Library sounds great.”

“Cool.” He smiled again. “See you then.”

As he walked into the classroom, I turned to the nearest locker and lightly slammed my forehead against it.

“Stop being a weirdo,” I muttered to myself. “You’re a student. This is school. You’re here to learn, not to lose all brain function because of a boy with good hair.”

Still, the smile he gave me was stamped on my mind like a sticker I couldn’t peel off.

And lunch? Lunch was only a few hours away.

But suddenly, that felt like both too far and way too close.

The bell rang for lunch, and the hallway exploded with energy. Students poured out of classrooms like bees freed from a jar, everyone buzzing toward the cafeteria, staircases, and secret hangout corners.

I hadn’t even packed up my books before Rivy grabbed my wrist.

“Lunch,” she said firmly. “I need you to come with me for five seconds.”

I blinked. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere very important.” She tugged me out the door, whispering like we were planning a prison break. “You’re about to witness the evolution of us.”

“Us?” I said, following her down the corridor toward the school garden.

“Me and Michael,” she stage-whispered. “He’s meeting me here. We’re going on our first unofficial non-date where we pretend we’re just friends and then flirt like liars.”

I choked. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love it.”

We turned the corner, and there he was—Michael, the boy who had asked her out . He was leaning against a tree, holding two canned sodas, dressed in a navy shirt that somehow made him look like a Pinterest board.

He grinned when he saw her. “Hey, Rivy. Nia.”

“Hi,” we chorused, but Rivy’s voice was weirdly high-pitched.

He handed her a soda like it was a rose.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I picked guava. Bold move.”

Rivy giggled. Rivy. Giggle.

I stared at her, stunned. The apocalypse was near.

“I’ll leave you two,” I said, trying not to smirk. “Good luck with your guava.”

Rivy threw a chip at me as I left.

As I walked back toward the hallway, I peeked behind me once and saw Michael saying something that made her laugh and slap his arm. And just like that, my best friend looked light. Like someone had opened a window inside her chest.

Back inside, I ducked into our classroom to grab my notes before heading to the library for my study session with Kai.

There was a new boy sitting in one of the desks near the window. He had short, curly hair, light brown skin, and wore black-frame glasses. He looked like someone who read poetry voluntarily. His uniform was perfect. Even his tie was symmetrical.

He glanced up as I passed and gave me a quiet smile.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” I replied, offering a polite smile back.

“I’m new,” he added. “Transferring from East high"Name’s Nathan"

“Nia,” I said, nodding.

“Cool. Beautiful name.”

I paused, blinking. “Thanks.”

It wasn’t weird. But it wasn’t not weird either.

He seemed sweet—friendly, not overly confident, but something in the way he looked at me made my instincts buzz. Still, my brain was too occupied with Kai and biology and the way my stomach kept doing flips to pay much attention.

I excused myself gently, and as I left, I felt his eyes on me. Not creepy. Just... observant.

Something told me Nathan was going to be important. I just didn’t know how yet.

-

The library smelled like old books and pencil shavings and peace.

Kai was already there, sitting at a corner table with his laptop open and a bottle of water by his side. He wore a gray hoodie, and his curls were a little messy, like he’d run his hands through them one too many times.

He looked up when I entered—and smiled.

“Hey,” he said. “Perfect timing.”

I sat down across from him, pulling out my notes and trying not to act like I’d just rehearsed thirty different versions of this moment in my head.

“Ready to be nerds?” I asked.

He grinned. “Always.”

The library was quieter than usual. Maybe because lunch hour meant the noisy ones were gone, but it felt like the space had rearranged itself for calm. The type of quiet that didn’t just silence your voice—it made you want to whisper, even to yourself.

Kai glanced up from his laptop when I slid into the chair across from him. “Perfect timing,” he said with a small smile.

I pulled out my notebook and pen, trying to act chill. “I try.”

“Hungry?”

I shook my head. “Too nervous to eat.”

He raised a brow. “Because of biology?”

“Sure,” I said, smiling lightly. “Let’s go with that.”

We started with the project—rearranging headings, refining our hypothesis, and cleaning up the shared document. For the first ten minutes, it was pure school-mode: typing, highlighting, deleting.

But then Kai leaned back in his chair, stretching. “Okay, brain break.”

I blinked. “Already?”

“Trust me. We’ll be smarter after. Let’s talk about something not academic for five minutes.”

I tilted my head. “Like what?”

“Like…” He grinned, tapping his pen on the table. “Okay. What’s one hobby you’ve never told anyone about?”

I laughed. “That’s specific.”

“It’s a get-to-know-you question.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Um… I used to write fake love letters and leave them in random library books.”

Kai’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, what?”

“Yup.” I shrugged, embarrassed. “Back in Middle school . I’d write stuff like, ‘Your eyes are galaxies, and I am just a humble astronaut,’ then fold it and slip it into Chapter 5 of some boring science textbook.”

Kai was laughing so hard he had to lean forward. “Please tell me you still do this.”

“Maybe.” I grinned. “Maybe not.”

“I’m going to start checking every book I borrow now.”

“Your turn,” I said. “Weird hobby. Go.”

He grinned. “Okay, this is going to sound super random, but I collect movie ticket stubs.”

“That’s not weird.”

“It is when you don’t go to the cinema that often. So now I have, like, five stubs total. It’s less a collection and more… sentimental hoarding.”

I smiled. “I like that. It’s sweet.”

“See? You get it.”

We fell into a rhythm after that, swapping stories and random preferences like we were trading childhood treasures.

Me: “I hate the sound of balloons being rubbed.”

Kai: “I eat cereal with warm water if there’s no milk. Judge me.”

Me: “I once got stuck in a locker for twenty minutes because I was being dramatic.”

Kai: “One time, I pretended to faint so I could get out of P.E.”

There was laughter and head-shaking and a moment where we both stopped talking, just… smiling.

He tilted his head. “Can I ask you something real?”

I tensed slightly. “Sure.”

“Why don’t you talk much in class? You’re funny and smart. But until, like, last week, I didn’t even know what your voice sounded like.”

I bit my lip. “I guess… I always felt like if I opened up, people would either misunderstand me or just… not care.”

He nodded slowly. “I get that.”

“Do you?” I asked.

Kai shrugged. “People assume I’m confident because I talk. But sometimes it’s just easier to talk than to be quiet. Quiet means I have to sit with stuff. Talking is my cover.”

I watched him, surprised by how raw his voice sounded. Not dramatic. Just honest.

“Maybe we’re opposites,” I said.

“Or maybe we’re the same puzzle, just with pieces flipped differently.”

That silence came again—comfortable, like a blanket instead of a wall.

Eventually, I asked, “What would you be doing right now if school wasn’t a thing?”

He smiled. “I’d be backpacking somewhere with my sketchbook. You?”

I looked down at my notebook. “Painting. Probably on a rooftop, somewhere with big windows and loud music and nobody asking me what I want to do with my art.”

He chuckled. “You hate that question too?”

“So much.”

We went on like that for a long time. The library around us faded into soft background noise—the occasional cough, the sound of a book sliding back onto a shelf, the flutter of a page turning. But we stayed in our little corner of conversation.

He asked me about my favorite memory as a kid. I told him about the time my brothers and I built a fort out of couch cushions and lived in it for three days.

I asked him what his worst fear was. He said, “Wasting time trying to be someone else.”

He asked me what my favorite color was. I said Purple. Then asked him the same.

“Forest green,” he said. “Not too loud, not too sad.”

There was something in the way he said it that made my chest feel weird. Like his voice had briefly reached a string I didn’t know was tied to my heart.

Then he said, “I like talking to you, Nia.”

I blinked. “Really?”

He nodded. “You don’t force things. You don’t pretend. It’s nice.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled.

And he smiled back, like that was enough.

The bell rang not long after. We packed up slowly.

Outside the library, as we parted ways, he touched my arm briefly. “Let’s do this again. Doesn’t have to be for school.”

My heart stuttered. “Okay.”

As I walked back to class, the words echoed in my head like a song stuck on repeat.

I like talking to you, Nia.

And maybe, just maybe… I liked talking to him too.