Chapter 17 – Pretending It’s Nothing
1175 Words
(Real Life – Campus, Daytime)
Days passed, and I was already an expert at pretending.
Pretending to focus in lectures. Pretending not to check the gym entrance every time I passed by. Pretending not to replay that moment — his smile, that familiar tilt of his head — like a movie scene I couldn’t stop rewatching.
Ava, of course, wasn’t buying it.
“You’ve been zoning out for the past ten minutes,” she said, twirling her pen during psychology class. “Either you’re secretly telepathic or you’re thinking about Mr. Gym Smile again.”
I kept my eyes on my notes. “I’m thinking about neuroplasticity.”
She snorted. “Yeah, sure. Plastic brain, plastic heart.”
I elbowed her lightly. “You’re impossible.”
She grinned, leaning closer. “Admit it. You want to see him again.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“That’s never stopped anyone in history,” she whispered as the professor droned on about cognitive response systems. “It’s called curiosity. You’ve got it bad.”
I tried to hide my smile. “You sound like a bad dating app ad.”
“Maybe I should write one,” she said. “‘Looking for mysterious gym strangers who smile like they’ve met you before.’”
I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing out loud. “You’re the worst.”
“And yet,” she said smugly, “I’m right.”
She was.
And that annoyed me more than I cared to admit.
After class, I cut across the courtyard, books pressed to my chest. The sunlight was sharp, bouncing off every glass surface, turning the world too bright, too normal.
People laughed around me — small talk, plans for lunch, group projects. It all sounded… distant. Like I was moving through static.
That’s the thing about reality after dreams — it always feels a little flat.
No matter how alive I tried to feel, something about the world seemed dulled at the edges, like I’d stepped out of color into grayscale.
I found an empty bench under a jacaranda tree and sat down, letting petals fall onto my notebook. A soft wind brushed past, carrying faint traces of lavender and sunscreen.
It should’ve been peaceful.
Instead, I found myself tracing invisible patterns on the page — the shape of a smile, the curve of a jawline I wasn’t supposed to remember this vividly.
“This is getting ridiculous,” I muttered.
A couple walking past looked at me curiously. I offered a sheepish smile. Great. Talking to myself in public. Next stop: full spiral.
My phone buzzed. Ava, of course.
Ava: Gym again later?
Me: Maybe. I’ve got readings.
Ava: Uh-huh. Sure. Reading the shape of his smile, maybe.
Me: You’re insufferable.
Ava: And yet you love me. 6 p.m. Don’t ditch.
I sighed, pocketing the phone. She wasn’t wrong.
By evening, I gave up pretending.
The gym was busier than before — Monday energy, people working off the weekend. The music thumped low and steady through the floor. I scanned the room once, trying to be casual. He wasn’t there.
Disappointment flickered through me, quick and sharp.
I exhaled, shaking it off, and started a slow jog on the treadmill. Focus on the run. Focus on the beat. Inhale. Exhale.
Step. Step. Step.
“Zoe?”
I turned.
And there he was.
He wasn’t in workout gear this time — just dark jeans, a navy hoodie, hair damp from what looked like rain. He was holding a water bottle, and his voice sounded exactly like I imagined it would — smooth, low, grounded.
“Oh,” I managed, way too eloquently. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, smiling again — and that was it. The moment cracked open, flooding me with recognition I couldn’t explain. My chest tightened, heartbeat quickening.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, nodding at the treadmill. “You almost fell the other day.”
I groaned. “You saw that?”
He chuckled softly. “You played it off well, though. Not everyone recovers with that kind of confidence.”
I laughed despite myself. “Yeah, it’s a hidden talent.”
Ava’s voice echoed in my head: Step one — ask his name.
Before I could, he glanced at his phone, then back at me. “I should go, but… it was nice seeing you again.”
Again.
That word lingered too long in the air.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling faintly. “You too.”
He hesitated — just a beat — then gave a polite nod and walked off toward the exit, slipping into the noise and movement like he’d never been there.
But I stood frozen, treadmill still running beneath me, breath uneven.
“Again.”
He’d said it like it meant something.
Like he remembered too.
Later that night, Ava was sprawled across her bed, chewing gum and scrolling through her phone when I got in.
“So,” she said, without looking up. “Did you see him?”
I kicked off my sneakers. “Define ‘see.’”
She arched a brow. “You did. Spill.”
I sighed. “We talked. Briefly. He said hi.”
“That’s it?”
“And he remembered me. Kind of.”
Ava grinned. “See? Fate. Gym edition.”
“More like coincidence.”
“Or,” she said, eyes gleaming, “reincarnated cosmic connection.”
I laughed. “You’ve been watching too many romance dramas.”
“Maybe,” she said, shrugging, “but I’m just saying — he smiled, you smiled, the universe hummed. That’s not nothing.”
I threw a pillow at her. “It is nothing.”
But it wasn’t.
And that was the problem.
When Ava finally went to shower, I sat at my desk, flipping open my notebook again. The pages were half-filled with notes and scribbles that barely made sense anymore — fragments of thoughts, half-remembered feelings.
I wrote without thinking:
He said “again.”
It’s such a small word, but it felt like more.
Like he knows something I don’t — or maybe he feels it too, that flicker of recognition that shouldn’t exist.
When he smiled, it was like memory and déjà vu collided.
And even though I told Ava it was nothing…
It felt like everything.
I stared at the page, then closed the notebook softly.
Outside, the rain had started again — steady, rhythmic, almost like the world’s version of a heartbeat.
I crawled into bed, pulling the blanket up to my chin.
Sleep came slow, like wading through mist. But when it did, I saw him again — not in the gym this time, but somewhere softer, hazier.
A balcony. Moonlight. The scent of rain and smoke.
He turned toward me, eyes warm, voice a whisper.
“Zoe,” he said. “You found me again.”
And I didn’t answer, because deep down, I wasn’t sure which of us had really found the other.
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