On her way to the exam hall, a familiar silhouette near the stadium made her heart lift;Kian. But the feeling was short-lived. He wasn't alone.
A girl stood before him, her back to Ariana. She had a sharp, stylish bob of red hair, a tight purple dress, and heels that seemed out of place on the campus path. They were talking, their bodies angled comfortably, and a shared laugh—Kian's laugh;drifted across the distance, striking Ariana with the force of a physical blow. 😁
Her feet itched to carry her to them, to insert herself into the picture. But a glance at her watch"1:45 PM"yanked her back to reality. With a sinking heart, she turned and hurried to her exam, the image of them together burning behind her eyes.
In the exam hall, the questions on Management Accounting blurred. The numbers swam, displaced by the intrusive memory: the red hair, the purple dress, the ease of their conversation. Where her mind should have been calculating ratios, it was instead weaving a tapestry of doubt. The pen felt heavy in her hand, her answers hesitant and unsure. 😵
Afterwards, as other students buzzed with relief, calling the paper easy, Ariana felt only a hollow dread. The incident had poisoned the well of her concentration.
So distracted was she on her walk back that she caught her foot on an uneven paving stone. She stumbled forward, barely catching herself against the rough bark of an old oak, her heart hammering from the near-fall.
Exhausted, she decided on an early night. But first, she took out her phone, her fingers moving with a resolve to claw back the truth. She typed a message to Kian, her question disguised as a plan:
"We'll meet near the Secret Garden after your exam is over tomorrow."
She needed to look him in the eye when she asked. She would not let the poison of assumption fester in the dark. Tomorrow, she would demand the light. 💡