When light bends: Echoes Of you

Chapter 16 – The Smile I Knew

(Real Life – Gym)

The next morning, I told myself I wasn’t going.

I even meant it for a full five minutes.

Then Ava started blasting her “Get Your Life Together” playlist at 8:00 a.m., dancing around the room in leggings that looked way too optimistic for the hour.

“Up, Sleeping Beauty! We’ve got endorphins to chase!”

“I’m chasing sleep,” I mumbled into my pillow.

She yanked my blanket off anyway. “Nope. Your future husband might be there.”

My head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

Ava smirked. “You know. Mister Catch-You-Before-You-Fall.”

I groaned. “You named him already?”

“Someone has to. You clearly won’t.” She tossed me my sneakers. “Come on. Worst case, you sweat. Best case, fate swoons.”

She was impossible to argue with, and somehow, against all common sense, a small part of me wanted to see him again — even if it was just to prove to myself that I wasn’t losing it.

By the time we got to the gym, the usual soundtrack of grunts, bass-heavy music, and clinking weights greeted us like white noise. Everything looked the same — the same treadmills, the same mirrors, the same light bouncing off steel and glass.

Except I wasn’t the same.

Every step inside felt like testing reality.

Ava went straight to the squat rack. I wandered toward the cardio section, pretending to check my phone, pretending not to scan the crowd.

He wasn’t there.

For a few seconds, the relief hit hard — quick and sharp, followed by disappointment that stung more than I’d admit.

“Get over yourself,” I muttered, stepping onto the treadmill.

The screen blinked awake, glowing blue. I hit start, focusing on the rhythm of my feet, the hum of the machine. Step, step, step. Mechanical, predictable.

Five minutes in, I almost convinced myself that yesterday had just been nerves and coincidence.

Then I caught a reflection in the mirror ahead — tall frame, dark hair, gray T-shirt.

My breath stuttered.

He was back.

Same corner of the gym, stretching his arms, earbuds dangling around his neck. He hadn’t seen me yet, and part of me wanted to look away before he did. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Something about watching him felt like standing too close to a storm — calm air, but charged with something electric underneath.

He reached for a dumbbell, turned slightly, and that’s when it happened.

He smiled.

Just a polite, passing smile — the kind strangers give each other in public. But my whole body froze like the world had skipped a frame.

It was that same smile. The one from the dreams. The one that had once been followed by a touch, a laugh, a whisper against my skin.

Not perfect, not identical — but close enough to make my stomach flip.

“Zoe,” Ava called from across the room, breaking the spell. “You alive over there?”

I blinked, forcing a grin. “Barely!”

I focused back on the treadmill, but every cell in my body was aware of him now — his movements, the rhythm of his breathing, the quiet focus in the way he lifted. I tried to act normal, but it felt like pretending not to stare at sunlight.

After a while, he glanced my way again. Just a flick of his eyes. And when he did, he smiled once more — soft, easy, like a silent acknowledgment.

My pulse jumped.

I smiled back.

Immediately regretted it.

Ava’s voice popped up in my head, “Well, mystery gym hero is definitely into you.”

Great. Now I was blushing and grinning like an i***t on a treadmill.

To make it worse, I almost tripped again — not dramatically, thank God, just a tiny stumble that made the belt hiccup under my feet.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

This time, his smile turned into something that looked dangerously close to amusement.

I mouthed I’m fine, half-laughing, and he just nodded before turning back to his set.

The air felt too warm after that. I lasted another ten minutes before giving up entirely.

When I met Ava by the water cooler, she handed me a towel and smirked like a cat who already knew the punchline.

“So?” she said.

“So what?”

“Don’t even. I saw that look exchange.”

“There was no look exchange,” I said, attempting nonchalance.

Ava raised an eyebrow. “There was definitely a look exchange. Twice.”

I rolled my eyes, sipping water to hide the heat in my cheeks. “You’re imagining things.”

She leaned in, lowering her voice. “Girl, the way he was looking at you? If that wasn’t a look, I’ll quit caffeine.”

“That’s a lie,” I said automatically.

“Exactly.”

We left the gym still bickering, but my mind wasn’t really in it. I kept replaying that tiny moment — the smile, the glance, the weight of recognition that didn’t make sense.

How do you explain to your best friend that a stranger’s smile feels like a memory you’ve already lived?

When we got back to the dorm, Ava hopped into the shower, humming off-key. I sat on my bed, staring at my gym bag, my reflection faint in the dark window.

The logical part of me whispered, You’re projecting. He just looks similar. That’s all.

The other part — the part that remembered dreams too vividly, that woke up to phantom touches and whispers of a name — didn’t buy it.

Finally, I reached for my diary.

---

I saw him again.

He smiled at me.

Not a dream this time. Not a trick of light or imagination. Just a person in a gym, existing, breathing, lifting weights like the world wasn’t about to fall apart.

And yet… when he smiled, something inside me remembered.

Like a song I hadn’t heard in years, but could still hum the tune of.

He didn’t come over or speak. Didn’t even linger. But my heart reacted like it had been waiting for that exact moment.

Ava says I’m acting “weirdly giddy.” Maybe I am.

But if you’d seen the way his eyes softened — like he recognized me too — you’d understand.

I keep wondering if maybe dreams are just previews of things we haven’t lived yet.

If that’s true, then I’ve already met him a thousand times.

---

Ava’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “You writing your love novel again?”

I closed the notebook quickly. “It’s a diary, not a novel.”

“Sure,” she said, towel-drying her hair. “And I’m the Pope.”

I threw a pillow at her. She dodged it with a laugh and flopped onto her bed.

“Okay, but seriously,” she said, propping her chin on her hand. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Why would I?”

“Because it’s step one of every rom-com ever?”

I smiled despite myself. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m observant,” she said. “And I’m telling you, this guy—he looked at you like he knew something.”

Her words lingered longer than they should have.

That night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, the hum of campus quiet outside my window. My mind replayed every second in that gym, every glance, every smile.

And as my eyelids grew heavy, I whispered the name I’d once only heard in dreams.

“Adrian.”

It tasted real now.

By the time sleep pulled me under, I wasn’t sure if I was drifting into dreams or memories.