A Love Meant To Be

Chapter 19

The late morning sun filtered gently through the dorm room window, casting warm golden streaks across the floor.

The room smelled faintly of jasmine shampoo, a hint stronger than usual because Raya had just stepped out of the shower, a towel draped around her shoulders.

She stood by her bed, buttoning up a pale blue shirt and brushing the collar down with her fingers, determined to make it to class.

“You are absolutely impossible,” Tessa groaned from her bed, arms flopped dramatically over her face like a scolded Victorian heroine.

“You faint one time, scare the soul out of me, and now you’re playing warrior princess because what? You’re bored of bed rest?”

“I’m not playing anything,” Raya replied, reaching for her tote bag with practiced ease. “I feel better.”

“You look better,” Tess admitted, peeking with one eye, “but that doesn't mean your insides won’t betray you again. You need to ease back into things.”

“I have eased,” Raya muttered. “Yesterday I didn’t even leave the room. I sat on this bed and read notes. Quietly. Like a model patient.”

Tessa narrowed her eyes. “You also barely ate.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“You’re never hungry when you’re stressed, and you're always stressed.”

Raya rolled her eyes. “Well, that sounds like a character flaw.”

“No, that sounds like my problem now, because if you collapse again, I’m the one who’ll have to call the university clinic, and I swear to God, I’m not emotionally equipped for that twice in a week.”

Raya cracked a smile. “You love me.”

“Debatable,” Tess replied, flinging a pillow toward her. “Now sit. I’m calling for food.”

“I already said I’m going to class—”

She was interrupted by a knock.

Another knock, softer this time.

Raya glanced at Tessa. “Did you order something?”

“No. I was about to..”

Tessa padded barefoot to the door and opened it cautiously.

Hana stood in the hallway holding a small brown bag and a takeaway coffee cup tray balanced expertly in one hand. She had her usual expression: calm, unreadable, maybe slightly amused. She stepped inside without waiting for permission.

“Delivery,” she said simply.

Tessa blinked. “Wait, you brought food?”

“I did,” Hana replied, then added, almost too casually, “Or rather, I’m the delivery girl. It’s from Ryan.”

Tessa let out a loud gasp, spinning dramatically toward Raya. “My ship is sailing,” she declared, clutching her chest. “The romantic hero delivers food to the sick girl through the mysterious beauty. Oh, the angst. The poetry.”

“Hush,” Raya muttered, taking the bag, her hands colder than she wanted them to be.

“I’m serious,” Tessa continued, undeterred. “He fed you. Do you know what that means in romance terms? You’re his. Spiritually. You’ve crossed into domestic territory.”

Hana chuckled softly, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“He said you’d argue about going to class. He also said you’d probably skip breakfast.”

Tessa turned to her with wide eyes.

“He knows her habits?! This is deeper than I thought.”

Raya forced a smile, unwrapping the food carefully. A warm rice bowl. Simple, but comforting. The kind of thing someone would choose if they knew your stomach might not be ready for anything heavy.

“I swear to God,” Tess continued, “you better eat every grain. This is strength food. This is so you can argue with him again later without falling over mid-retort.”

“Stop,” Raya said quietly, her eyes still on the food.

But her mind wasn’t.

Ryan didn’t come himself.

He sent Hana.

Why?

She peeked at Hana, who was now sipping one of the coffees from the tray with nonchalant grace. Raya couldn’t tell if she was enjoying this or just delivering a favor.

Tessa, of course, kept going. “You know, usually when someone feeds you while you’re sick, it means they care. Deeply. Romantically. Possibly tragically.”

Hana smiled a little.

But still, that tightness tugged at Raya’s chest.

What if there was something between them?

They were always around each other. Always teasing. Hana knew his schedules. His moods. And now she was the one delivering his food?

Why didn’t he just bring it himself?

Why did it sting a little?

“Anyway,” Hana said, pushing off the wall, “I should head back. I’ve got class at ten. Eat. Rest. And if you insist on going to class later, don’t pass out again. It’s not a good look.”

She left with a swish of her skirt, the door closing softly behind her.

Silence hung in the room for a moment before Tessa whispered, “Hey..you okay?”

Raya nodded.

She wasn’t.

Not entirely.

She didn’t understand what she wanted from him.

But somewhere between the jasmine-scented air and the weight of that still-warm rice bowl, her heart twisted.

Maybe she wanted him to knock on the door.

The downpour began sometime after they left the library — not the gentle, poetic kind of drizzle that made you want to dance, but a full-on monsoon attack, the kind that turned pathways into puddles and umbrellas into battlegrounds.

The group stood huddled just outside the glass doors of the library, watching the curtain of rain fall with growing dismay.

“Oh, fantastic,” Eli muttered, peering out like the rain had personally offended him. “We survive five straight hours of study torture, and now this.”

“I told you we should’ve left earlier,” Hana said calmly, pulling her phone out of her coat pocket. “The forecast warned about this.”

“You say that like I check the forecast,” Eli replied, tone flat.

“Exactly my point.”

Tessa groaned and reached into her bag, pulling out a compact umbrella with a satisfied flourish. “Lucky for me, I don’t trust any of you with timing. Behold: the savior of good hair.”

Hana pulled hers out as well — sleek, black, probably designer.

Raya, quiet until now, tightened her grip on the strap of her bag. Her cheeks were a bit flushed, and the late-night study session hadn’t helped her already weak condition. The last thing she needed was another brush with fever.

“I didn’t bring one,” she said quietly, frowning at the rain.

Ryan, already watching her out of the corner of his eye, adjusted his bag strap and sighed. “Neither do I.”

Eli checked his bag and let out a dramatic gasp. “Betrayed by myself!”

“Then we have a problem,” Tessa said, clicking her umbrella open. “Two umbrellas. Five people. And one of us still has healing lungs and a stubborn immune system that gives up faster than a toddler during nap time.”

Raya shot her a look. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you for fainting earlier this week and giving me a trauma I did not sign up for,” Tess replied sweetly.

Hana’s umbrella was already up. “Alright, we share.”

“I vote I'm with Tess,” Eli declared, stepping forward.

Tessa glared. “Absolutely not. You hog the entire umbrella space like it’s your birthright.”

“You shove me into the gutters!”

“I’m trying to keep you dry, you oaf!”

Hana interjected dryly, “how about Eli, I and you sharing one, and they can have the other one? ”

Eli pouted dramatically but didn’t protest. “Fine. But if I get drenched, I’m blaming you both.”

Raya stood there, awkward and still slightly shivering despite her thick hoodie.

And then Tessa’s voice perked up, louder and more purposeful than necessary.

“Ryan,” she said, holding up the last umbrella — a plain blue one she tugged from her bag. “Take this. And take her back safely. Don’t let her get even a drop on her. Okay?”

Ryan blinked, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. “Sure.”

Tessa turned to Raya with a wink that was anything but subtle. “You trust him, don’t you?”

Raya opened her mouth, unsure whether to deny or deflect. But her legs were tired, her head a little floaty still, and Ryan’s silence had a way of grounding her more than words ever could.

She nodded once.

Ryan unfolded the umbrella, stepping beside her without a word, holding it high enough to keep them both shielded. His arm brushed hers.

“You good?” he asked softly, not meeting her eyes.

She nodded again. “Yeah.”

The others had already started walking, Hana and Tessa locked in conversation, Eli trailing behind, trying not to step in puddles.

Ryan and Raya walked a little slower.

The rain was loud, the kind of white noise that made everything else feel muted. Cars splashed by on the far road. Street lamps blinked one by one, golden halos against the stormy gray.

For a while, neither spoke.

And just like that — under the soft hum of the rain, side by side beneath a cheap blue umbrella — the space between them felt too small for all the things neither of them could say.