PROLOGUE
644 Words
When Time Learned Our Names.
They said high school was supposed to be the best years of your life. Niah Czenight Gonzalez used to believe that. She stood at the edge of the school gate, her fingers gripping the strap of her bag a little tighter than usual.
The late afternoon sun painted everything in gold—the buildings, the faces of students laughing too loudly, the empty classrooms that once echoed with stress and dreams.
Graduation day had already passed, yet the feeling still lingered, heavy and bittersweet.
Some people left with excitement.Others left with pieces of themselves behind.Niah belonged to the second kind. She turned her head slightly, eyes instinctively searching for a familiar figure in the crowd.
She didn’t need to look long. Azer Javier. He was leaning against a tree near the campus entrance, laughing with the same group of friends they had shared since Grade 11.
His smile—carefree, warm, and painfully familiar—was the same smile that once made her heartbeat forget its rhythm. They had survived senior high together. ICT strand. Computer programming. Endless codes, sleepless nights, group projects, and half-finished cups of coffee.
They struggled, failed, laughed, and somehow still managed to enjoy it all. And in between deadlines and debugging programs, something unexpected had happened.
She fell in love.
And not in the quiet, waiting kind.Niah Czenight Gonzalez fell boldly.
She was the one who confessed.
The one who broke the unspoken rule that boys should make the first move.
The one who didn’t care that she was older—by two months, yes, but still older.
The one who chose courage over fear, honesty over pride.“Do you want to try?” she had asked him back then, her voice shaking but her eyes sure. And Azer said yes.
That single word changed everything.
They became a couple at seventeen—too young for forever, too old to pretend it meant nothing.
Their love grew between codes and coffee breaks, shared earphones and stolen glances, late-night chats and quiet support.
Their friends teased them endlessly, but they were also the loudest cheerleaders of the relationship.They were a circle—seven souls tied together by laughter, chaos, and dreams.
Graduation day came with cheers, flying caps, and tears that no one tried to hide.It was supposed to feel like an ending. But for Niah Czenight Gonzalez, it felt more like a pause. She stood beside Azer as their names were called, their hands brushing, fingers instinctively intertwining like they had done a hundred times before.
Around them, their circle of friends laughed, cried, and promised to stay the same—though deep inside, they all knew change was already knocking.
After graduation, life didn’t slow down.It rushed forward. Seven friends took seven different paths. Some stayed in the same city, some moved farther away, and some chased dreams they had carried since childhood.
Niah chose Bachelor of Science in Information Systems in a public university. Not because it was her dream. But because it was the one she could afford.Her real dream—the one she barely said out loud—was to become a doctor. To wear a white coat, to save lives, to make her family proud in ways words couldn’t explain. But dreams didn’t always come with opportunities, and medical school was a door she couldn’t open yet. So she chose practicality over passion.And it hurt.
Azer, on the other hand, enrolled in a private university, taking Bachelor of Science in Nursing—a step closer to the medical world she once dreamed of. Their campuses were different.
Their schedules barely matched. Their lives slowly became busier.
- Writer
