claudio's POV
I never believed in first impressions.
Maybe because the first one I got… was nothing like I expected.
It was a rainy afternoon. I sat on the bench near the campus café, sketchbook balanced on my knee, pencil smudging across the page. My notebook was full of unfinished faces—some inspired by people I'd seen but never really known.
And then she appeared.
Elara—head tilted, hair damp, umbrella slipping from her hand—tried to dodge a puddle and instead collided into me, scattering her bag across my sketchbook. Smudged pencil lines. Rolling pens. Wet pages.
"I—I'm so sorry!" she gasped, kneeling to grab her books.
I froze. Not because I was angry. Not even surprised. But because… she looked at me in a way that felt… different. Like she was seeing something I hadn't meant anyone to see.
Then my eyes caught the book sticking out of her bag. My book.
Nobody knew I wrote novels. Not classmates. Not teachers. Not even Alex. And yet, here was Elara, completely absorbed in it.
"You're… Claudio, right?" she asked. "I've seen you around, but… we've never talked."I nodded, careful to sound casual. "Yeah. You… like it?"
Her eyes lit up. "Like it? It's… amazing. The words… it's like someone finally said what I've been feeling."
Something inside me shifted. She understood. Really understood. She felt the words, not just read them.
I smiled faintly, hiding the truth behind quiet words. "I'm glad someone gets it," I said softly.
Her gaze shifted to my sketchbook. "You draw too?"
"Sometimes," I said, shrugging. I draw what I can't say.
She crouched beside me, peering at the sketches. "These… they're incredible."I realized then why I was drawn to her—not just because she existed, but because she saw things others didn't. She understood emotion without explanation. She would see me too, if I let her.
We spent the next few minutes picking up her things, talking about the rain, art, and books. She mentioned she loved dance, how the studio was her escape, and I noticed the faint ink smudges on her fingers from her own sketches.
By the time the rain stopped, I realized two things:
1.She was reading my book and feeling it in ways no one else had.
2.I couldn't stop watching her.
She walked away, umbrella open, leaving me with wet pages, smudged pencil marks, and a heartbeat that had just learned what it felt like to notice someone.
Elara—dancer, reader, dreamer—had entered my life. And maybe, finally, someone would understand me.