The library was quieter than usual.Not silent — just soft enough that every sound felt louder inside me.
Pages turning. A chair scraping lightly against the floor. My own breath, steady but uneasy.
I tried to focus on the book in front of me, but my eyes kept moving over the same lines without understanding them. My thoughts were somewhere else. They usually were.
That was when I felt it.
Not a sound.Not a shadow.
A presence.
It wasn't sudden. It didn't scare me. It felt… familiar, like something that had always been there and I was only now noticing it.
The air beside me shifted slightly, warm against my arm. I froze, fingers tightening around the edge of the table. Slowly, my hand moved — not reaching, not intentional — just drifting.
For a moment, I thought someone's fingers brushed mine.
My heart skipped.
I turned.
No one was there.
The chair beside me was empty. The aisle between the shelves stretched on, quiet and ordinary. Nothing out of place. Nothing that explained the way my chest felt tight, like I had almost missed something important.
I looked back down at the page, forcing myself to read.
But the feeling didn't leave.
It stayed close, gentle and patient, as if it wasn't trying to be seen — only felt. And for reasons I couldn't explain, it made the noise in my head soften. The constant heaviness I carried everywhere loosened its grip, just a little.
I didn't question it.
Some things feel too real to doubt.
When the bell rang and students began to pack up around me, the warmth faded. I stood slowly, half-expecting to bump into someone.
I didn't.
Still, as I walked out of the library, a strange thought followed me all the way down the corridor:
I had never felt this understood by anyone I could actually see.