The sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting broken shadows on the tiled path that led to the lecture halls. The day had begun like any other—but it wasn't.
Not for him.
He had barely slept. The kiss had replayed in his mind over and over, not as a fantasy, but like a film scene he was trying to understand frame by frame. It had been real. Her lips. The startled softness in her breath. The way she hadn't pulled away.
Now, walking into campus with his bag slung over one shoulder, he was unsure—of how to look at her, of what he should say. But also, a little excited. The kind of nervous excitement that made his stomach turn in loops.
He saw her first near the stairwell—she was standing next to Aditi, laughing at something, her head thrown back the way it only did when she wasn't try
