Life As It Is

March 4

I never thought I’d still remember him this vividly.

His name pops up in my mind like a song you used to play on repeat, the kind you can’t quite forget no matter how many years pass. I’m talking about the boy I liked back in 100L yes, the one in 300L, my senior, the one who seemed untouchable, always a little too far ahead in everything. Fresher Elle was completely smitten, completely hopeless.

I remember my first few lectures like they were yesterday. I would walk into the faculty building, carrying too many books and wearing shoes that pinched my feet, and there he was tall, confident, sitting somewhere with his own circle of seniors, already known and already admired by everyone in the faculty. I would catch glimpses of him across the hall, pretending to be focused on his case notes while my stomach did somersaults. The thrill of just seeing him was enough to make me giddy.

Every time I heard his name even in a joke from Kunle, Rachael, or Dami my face would heat up immediately. They loved to tease me about it.

“Elle, are you going to faint when you see him again?” Kunle would whisper during lectures, grinning like it was the funniest thing in the world.

“Stop pretending you don’t like him!” Rachael would laugh, smacking my arm whenever my blush betrayed me.

Dami would just shake her head, smirking, “Some crushes are forever, apparently.”

I thought it was silly back then. I thought it would fade. But somehow, I liked him until he graduated. That quiet longing, the little daydreams in lecture halls, the imaginary conversations I would rehearse endlessly in my head it was all very Fresher Elle.

I didn’t even know if he noticed me. I didn’t care. Part of the thrill was liking him from afar. The distant, impossible kind of like. The one that feels safe in its impossibility. The way he carried himself, the way he laughed with his friends, the way he always looked just a little unbothered all of it seemed too perfect to be real.

I remembered the library, of course. That corner table by the window where sunlight hit the pages just so, and he always sat across from other seniors, quietly working, flipping through his case notes with that calm, precise air. I would sit quietly, pretending to study, but my eyes would inevitably wander to him. Kunle, Rachael, and Dami would tease me mercilessly if they noticed.

“Elle, do you even know what he’s studying?” Kunle had asked once, nudging my shoulder.

“I know what he’s studying,” I replied defensively, hiding my notebook like a shield.

Rachael had laughed so hard she almost knocked over her water bottle.

Dami had just grinned, shaking her head, “Hopeless, Elle.”

I remember those times in our class and departments group chat his name popping up occasionally in senior announcements or faculty news. My stomach fluttered every time, like a little secret that belonged only to me.

And today of all days I ran right into him.

I was heading to the Administrative building to collect some forms, thinking about lectures and deadlines, when suddenly… there he was. Standing near the entrance, looking exactly as I remembered taller, composed, effortless. My chest froze. My cheeks betrayed me immediately. Of course they did.

He glanced up, and for a moment, my mind went blank. Then he smiled politely. That smile the one I spent years imagining caught me completely off guard. My heart started racing, just like it had when I was a nervous fresher, five years ago.

“Uh… hi,” I managed, my voice embarrassingly high-pitched.

“Hi, Elle,” he said. And there it was again calm, confident, like he had stepped right out of my memories.

I felt my heart do that old flip-flop I hadn’t felt in years. Kunle, Rachael, and Dami if they had been here would have roasted me mercilessly. I couldn’t stop giggling quietly at the absurdity: Elle John, 500-level law student, reduced to Fresher-level blushes in a fraction of a second.

We exchanged a few casual words about the building, forms, and campus life, all polite, all calm compared to the storm inside me. And while I spoke, memories kept flooding back. The library moments I “coincidentally” sat near him. Lecture notes I pretended to read while stealing glances. The little heart-racing conversations I imagined in my head.

I remembered one particular lecture. Kunle had nudged me under the table. “Go on. Say hi. Or at least glance at him.” I shook my head violently; my glasses slipped down my nose. Rachael had snorted, whispering, “You’re impossible!” Dami just laughed quietly, shaking her head at me. And I had sat there, trying to focus on the case notes, my heart racing, wishing I could just speak without embarrassment.

Another memory surfaced: a faculty event in 200L, when we had been assigned a group project, and he had casually walked past our table to ask a senior question. My friends had erupted in whispers and teasing: “Look alive, Elle! Don’t faint!” I had blushed so hard my ears burned. They had loved it. I had hated it. And yet, it was the thrill of liking someone just out of reach.

And today, after all those years, seeing him again so suddenly, so casually was surreal. Part of me wanted to run away, part of me wanted to freeze in place forever, and part of me just wanted to laugh at how ridiculous life can be.

Walking back afterward, I couldn’t stop replaying those small, ridiculous moments: the notes Kunle would leave in my bag, Rachael’s teasing whispers, Dami’s sly grins, and the blushes, the stolen glances, the excitement I carried secretly for years. Those girls, those moments, that crush… they made me feel alive in ways I hadn’t remembered until today.

Love, crushes, and all those little embarrassments of youth they linger not because they matter in the grand scheme, but because they make us feel. Feeling intensely, clumsily, and secretly is what made Fresher Elle feel human, and it’s what makes me smile now, five years later, even as I pass him casually and try not to look too starstruck.

Today reminded me of that.

Even if nothing ever came of it.

Even if we didn’t exchange numbers, dates, or grand confessions.

It didn’t matter.

It was mine. The blushes, the secrecy, the silly excitement my friends loved to tease me about it’s still mine.

And maybe, just maybe, running into him today wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe it was a quiet, nostalgic reminder that who you were few years ago is never really gone.