I would choose you

First love

The lamps were dim in the study room, casting golden halos on the desk and the floorboards. Outside the window, snow still fell, though now it looked more like drifting ash than ice - soft and steady, like it had forgotten how to stop. A kettle murmured on the windowsill, wrapped in a towel to keep warm. The scent of orange peel and old paper filled the air.

Nicole and I sat at a desk, both buried in books and scribbled notes. We weren’t speaking, but it wasn’t silence. The air was filled with the sounds of pens scratching paper, tea cups shifting, pages turning gently, like someone breathing in another room.

We were still working on Professor T.’s ongoing theme "true love". Nicole was editing her essay. I’d already finished mine. Instead of rewriting, I was rereading Jane Eyre, half in admiration and half in longing. I’d cited it in my essay, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Rochester, the attic, the feverish tension that made love feel like a kind of haunting.

Nicole let out a soft sigh and pushed her chair back slightly, the wooden legs creaking against the floor.

“Can I ask you something?” she said, her voice low, but serious.

I looked up. “Sure.”

She didn’t look at me right away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the edge of her notebook, fingers tapping the spine of her pen.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asked.

I blinked, caught off guard.

“No,” I said automatically. Then paused. “I mean... maybe?”

She looked at me now.

“There was someone,” I said slowly, “in high school. We dated for a year.”

I hesitated, then continued.

“We broke up senior spring. It was one of those stupid, slow-motion things - fighting over nothing, feeling too much, losing each other without saying it out loud. I still had to see him every day, sit two rows behind him in English, pass him in the hallway like we’d never held hands under cafeteria tables.”

Nicole’s expression softened.

“It hurt, then. A lot. And I think maybe, maybe that’s why I wanted to come here. Somewhere cold and far and untouched.”

I smiled faintly. “But by the time summer ended, it was like I’d dreamed him. I forgot his voice. I can’t even remember what he said the day we broke up.”

Nicole was quiet for a moment. Then, softly, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t even know if it was love. Maybe I just liked being someone’s favorite person.”

I looked at her. “What about you?”

She looked down at her tea, holding it with both hands.

“I had something. Not quite a relationship.”

I waited.

“Summer before junior year,” she said. “We were in Malta. My family and his were staying in the same hotel. It was hot, and everything smelled like salt and lemon. I met him by the pool.”

There was a distant look in her eyes, like she was remembering through a veil of sun.

“We spent almost every day together for two weeks. Talking, swimming, sneaking away from our families. He was two years older than me, a little awkward, but funny. And kind. He taught me how to hold a sea urchin without getting pricked.”

She smiled faintly.

“My parents didn’t know at first. I wasn’t allowed to date yet. They still saw me as a child. We kept it a secret. We only kissed once; on the rooftop of the hotel, the night before my family freaked out and rushed home.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“They found out,” she said. “My mother saw me slip a note under his door. That was the end of it.”

She set her cup down gently.

“I think that’s why they sent me here,” she said. “They never said it outright. But when I applied, they encouraged me. «P. Is safe, you won't have any distractions.»”

I didn’t say anything. The room felt warmer now, even though the radiator hissed the same.

She looked at me then, slowly.

“He had gray eyes,” she said. “Just like you.”

There was a long pause. Neither of us looked away.

I smiled, quietly. “You have a type, then.”

Nicole laughed softly. “Maybe I do.”

We didn’t say anything else for a while. Just went back to our work, but something had shifted. I could feel it, in the stillness, in the way she sat a little closer now, in the faint flush on her cheeks that wasn’t from the tea.