The walk home from school had always been Sophie's time to reset, a twenty-minute buffer between the social performance of high school and the quiet safety of her bedroom. But today, the sidewalk felt different. The cracks in the pavement, the rustling of the drying autumn leaves, even the distant hum of traffic; everything seemed to vibrate with a new, Ethan-centric energy.
By the time she reached her front door, her brain felt like a browser with fifty tabs open, and every single one of them was playing a different video of Ethan Carter's face.
She bypassed the kitchen, giving her mom a vague "Homework!" wave before scurrying up the stairs. She needed her room. She needed the door locked. She needed to process the fact that her life had officially been hijacked by a boy who liked historical architecture.
Sophie sat cross-legged on her bed, her back pressed against the familiar comfort of her floral headboard. The evening sun was dipping low, casting long, amber stripes across her duvet, stripes that reminded her, painfully, of the way the light had hit Ethan's eyes in the library.
"Stop it," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. "He is just a human. He breathes oxygen. He probably has annoying habits. He probably... leaves the cap off the toothpaste."
She reached for her secret weapon: a thick, leather-bound notebook hidden beneath her pillow. This wasn't her "History" notebook or her "Physics" notebook. This was the Archive of Sophie's Soul.
She opened to a fresh page, the paper crisp and white, waiting to be ruined by her panic. Her pen hovered. The ink was ready to flow, but her hand was trembling. Admitting something in your head was one thing; seeing it in black and white was a commitment. It made it real.
I like him, she thought.
The words felt like a physical weight in her chest. She pressed the pen to the paper and finally let the dam break.
I like Ethan Carter. I like him so much it's actually becoming a health hazard. My resting heart rate is probably a hundred and twenty whenever he's within a ten-foot radius.
She stopped, biting the end of her pen. It felt good to see it there. It felt like exhaling after holding her breath for three days. She leaned back, letting her mind wander back to the library.
She could still feel the phantom heat on her hand where they had brushed. It hadn't been a romantic movie moment, there were no slow-motion sparks or soaring violins. It was a messy, accidental collision over a stapler. But to Sophie, it had felt like touching a live wire.
He's calm when I panic, she continued writing, her handwriting becoming loopy and fast. He has this way of looking at me, not like I'm the 'clumsy girl' or the 'staring girl' but like I'm just... me. He listens. He actually listens. When I talked about the textile mills, he didn't roll his eyes. He leaned in.
She groaned, flopping onto her back and staring at the ceiling fan.
"Why is he so perfect?" she asked the spinning blades. "It's statistically impossible for a teenage boy to be that well-adjusted. He must have a secret. Maybe he's a spy? Or an alien? That would explain the hair."
But deep down, she knew he wasn't an alien. He was just... Ethan. And that was the problem.
She sat back up, fueled by a sudden burst of self-deprecating honesty. Lila says I'm hopeless. She's right. I spent ten minutes today wondering what his favorite color is. I bet it's navy. Or maybe dark green. He seems like a forest person.
Sophie paused, her face heating up as she realized she was now "color-coding" a person she had spoken to for a total of maybe fifteen minutes.
"I'm a stalker," she whispered into the quiet room. "I'm a literal creep."
She turned the page, her thoughts spiraling into the "What-If" Abyss—the place where all teen crushes go to suffer.
What if he thinks I'm annoying? I talk too much when I'm nervous. I told him I 'love thinking.' Who says that? I sounded like a philosophy major with a head injury.
She began to sketch a small, tiny Ethan in the corner of the page; just a stick figure with messy hair, and then immediately scribbled over it in a panic, worried that someone might find the journal and decode her terrible art.
The problem is, she wrote, her pen pressing so hard it left an indent on the next three pages, I don't just want him to be my project partner. I want him to be... the person I talk to when I'm not being graded. I want to know if he likes rain or if he prefers the sun. I want to know why he moved here.
A soft knock on her bedroom door made Sophie jump a foot into the air. She slammed the journal shut and shoved it under her thigh, grabbing a nearby math textbook and holding it upside down.
"Yeah?" she squeaked.
Her mom poked her head in. "Dinner's in ten, Soph. You okay? You've been quiet since you got home."
"Fine! Just... calculus! It's very... derivative!"
Her mom blinked, looking at the upside-down book, then at Sophie's flushed face. "Right. Well, don't work too hard. It's just Tuesday."
"Just Tuesday," Sophie repeated as the door closed.
She pulled the journal back out. To her mom, it was just Tuesday. To the rest of the world, the sun was setting and people were eating dinner and life was moving on. But to Sophie, the world had shifted on its axis.
I want him to notice me, she wrote, her hand finally steady. Not just because I bumped into him or because we have to talk about urban evolution. I want him to look at me and see someone he wants to stay around.
She closed the notebook and leaned her forehead against the cool leather cover. Admitting it didn't make the nervousness go away, but it made the "flutter" feel less like a panic attack and more like a promise.
She thought about the dream she'd had or rather, the daydream she kept on a loop. The two of them, walking home. No backpacks, no Lila teasing them from the sidelines, just a quiet street and a conversation that didn't feel like a hurdle.
"Maybe one day," she murmured.
She tucked the journal back into its hiding place, smoothing out her duvet. She had to go downstairs and pretend to be a normal daughter. She had to eat dinner and talk about her day without mentioning the name Ethan every three words. It was going to be the hardest acting job of her life.
But as she reached for the door handle, she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes looked brighter. There was a faint, lingering smile on her face that she couldn't quite shake.
She was hopelessly in love with the idea of him. And for the first time, she wasn't just afraid of the feeling. She was curious about where it would take her.
Chapter 1: He noticed me. Chapter 2: I'm a mess. Chapter 3: We're partners.
"Chapter 4," she whispered to herself. "Don't mess it up."
With a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped out of her sanctuary, carrying her secret like a hidden treasure. The "confession" was done. The truth was out—at least, the truth that lived in her heart.
Now, she just had to survive Thursday's library session without her heart actually leaping out of her chest and landing on his notebook.