Sophie had spent the better part of her morning trying to convince herself that she was a master of stoicism. She had looked at herself in the chipped bathroom mirror at 7:00 AM and declared, with a pointed finger, that today would be a day of "Normal Human Behavior." No staring. No stammering. No mental soundtracks.
But as she stood in the main hallway between second and third period, Sophie realized that the universe had a very different plan for her Tuesday.
The hallway was a sensory nightmare. The scent of cheap floor wax battled with the lingering aroma of burnt popcorn from the teacher's lounge. Hundreds of students were caught in a sluggish, humid current, moving toward their next destinations like a herd of tired cattle.
"Okay, look at the floor. The floor is safe," Sophie muttered, clutching her binders to her chest. Her backpack felt like a boulder, pulling her shoulders back as she navigated the chaos.
She was doing well. She had made it past the lockers without making eye contact with anyone. She was three minutes away from being safely tucked into her seat in English class.
And then, she saw the denim.
Ethan was leaning against a trophy case about twenty feet ahead, talking to a guy from the soccer team. The fluorescent lights overhead caught the sharp angle of his jawline, and even through the noise of the hallway, Sophie felt like she could hear the calm cadence of his voice.
Her heart, which had been behaving reasonably well for the last hour, suddenly decided to play a heavy-metal drum solo.
"Don't trip. Do not trip," she whispered, a mantra of survival.
She tried to adjust her path to give him a wide berth, but the hallway was a bottleneck. Just as she drew level with him, the strap of her backpack which had always been a traitor snagged on a protruding locker handle.
The jerk was sudden and violent. Sophie's momentum was cancelled out, sending her staggering sideways like a bowling pin that had been clipped by a gutter ball. Her binders began to slip, her balance vanished, and for a terrifying half-second, she was airborne.
She didn't hit the floor.
She hit something much warmer, much firmer, and much more denim-clad than the linoleum.
"Whoa!"
The sound came from right above her head. Sophie's face was currently buried in the chest of a charcoal-grey hoodie. She felt the solid impact of his ribs against her cheek, and the scent of that rain-and-laundry detergent soap hit her like a physical wave.
A pair of hands clamped onto her shoulders, steadying her. They were large, warm, and the grip was firm, firm enough that Sophie felt the heat of his palms through her thin cotton shirt.
"You okay?"
Sophie looked up. Her eyes were inches away from Ethan's. He was looking down at her, his brows pulled together in a look of genuine concern.
Sophie's brain didn't just short-circuit; it underwent a total power grid failure.
"I—uh—gravity," she managed to say. It wasn't a word. It was a wheeze.
"Gravity?" Ethan repeated. A slow, lopsided smile began to spread across his face, the kind of smile that made Sophie's knees feel like they were made of warm marshmallows. "Yeah, it's a tricky thing. Gets me sometimes, too."
He let go of her shoulders slowly, as if checking to make sure she wasn't going to tip over again. Sophie stood there, her face a shade of red that probably glowed in the dark. She felt like a neon sign of embarrassment.
"I-I'm so sorry," she stammered, frantically adjusting her backpack. "I wasn't looking where I was going. I mean, I was looking, but the locker... the locker attacked me."
Ethan chuckled. It was a soft, low sound, a genuine laugh that vibrated in the air between them. "Locker assault. That's a new one. Should I go report it to the principal for you?"
"No!" Sophie said, a bit too loudly. "I mean... no, it's fine. I'll survive. Probably."
Just then, a sharp thwack of a hand hitting Sophie's back made her jump.
"Wow, Soph. That was practically cinematic," Lila's voice boomed. She had appeared out of the crowd, a wicked glint in her eyes. She looked at Ethan, then back at Sophie, her smirk widening by the millisecond. "Is this the part where you two exchange numbers, or should I go get the school nurse to check for a concussion?"
Sophie shot Lila a look of pure, unadulterated murder. "Lila, shut up!"
Ethan, however, didn't seem bothered. He reached down and picked up one of Sophie's binders that had slid across the floor. He handed it to her, his fingers brushing against hers for a split second. The contact felt like a literal electric shock.
"I'm Ethan, by the way," he said, ignoring Lila's teasing and focusing entirely on Sophie.
"I know," Sophie blurted out.
She immediately wanted to die. To dissolve into a puddle of ink and be mopped up by the janitor.
"I mean! I mean, I've seen you in class. The new guy. It's... hard to miss a new person in this school. We're very small. Geographically."
Geographically? Who says that? she screamed internally.
Ethan's grin widened. "Good to know I'm being noticed. And you're...?"
"Sophie," she said, her voice finally stabilizing. "I'm Sophie."
"Nice to meet you, Sophie," he said. He looked like he was about to say something else, maybe ask about the history assignment or comment on her weird vocabulary but the warning bell rang, a harsh, buzzing sound that signaled they had sixty seconds to get to class.
"See you in class, Sophie," Ethan said, giving her a final, polite nod before turning and disappearing into the stream of students.
Sophie stood frozen, clutching her rescued binder to her chest like it was a holy relic.
"Oh. My. God." Lila was practically vibrating beside her. "He touched your arm. He laughed at your joke. He asked your name. Sophie, do you realize what this means?"
"It means I have forty-five seconds to get to English or I'm getting a detention," Sophie muttered, though she couldn't stop the giddy, hysterical laugh that was bubbling up in her throat.
The English lesson was a write-off. Sophie sat in her seat, but her physical body was the only thing present. Her mind was stuck in a loop of the last five minutes.
He called me Sophie.
She looked at her hand, the one that had brushed against his. It still felt warm. She imagined the way his denim jacket had felt under her palms, the solidness of him. He wasn't just a boy she stared at from afar anymore; he was a person who had laughed at her "locker assault" joke.
"Hey," Lila whispered, sliding a note across the desk.
Sophie opened it. In Lila's messy scrawl, it read: HE LIKES YOU. NO ONE LAUGHS AT GRAVITY JOKES UNLESS THEY LIKE THE PERSON.
Sophie shook her head, but she tucked the note into her pocket. She spent the rest of the period doodling "Locker Assault" in the margins of her notebook, her heart doing a weird little jig every time she thought of his voice saying her name.
By the time the final bell rang, the "Normal Human" Sophie had been officially replaced. She walked out of the classroom with a new spring in her step, her eyes scanning the hallway not to avoid the crowd, but to find a specific charcoal-grey hoodie.
High school was still a sensory nightmare. The floor was still sticky. The air was still humid.
But for the first time, Sophie didn't care. She was looking for him. And deep down, she had a terrifying, wonderful feeling that he might be looking for her, too.