Lena didn't turn on the overhead light.
The desk lamp was enough—warm, yellow, pooling on the bed like spilled honey. She sat cross-legged on the thin mattress, back against the wall, the textbook open on her lap. The dorm room was quiet except for the low hum of the heater and the occasional laugh from down the hall. Mia wouldn't be back until late. Maybe morning.
She should have been studying. The syllabus said the next module by Monday. Instead her fingers traced the edge of the first handwritten entry again, like touching it might make the words less real.
September 8, 2016.
The date was written small, almost apologetic, in the top margin of page 1.
"First week. Everyone seems to know where they're going. I don't. Sat in the back of lecture. She was three rows ahead. Didn't turn around. Probably never will."
Lena exhaled slowly through her nose.
She knew that feeling too well—being in a room full of people who already belonged somewhere, while you sat in the back pretending the seat was enough. She'd felt it every single day since move-in. The other freshmen laughed too loud, grouped up too fast, posted stories of coffee runs and late-night talks like they'd known each other forever. Lena had smiled when they waved, nodded when they asked if she wanted to join, then quietly slipped away to the library or her room.
She turned the page.
The next entry was dated a week later. The handwriting had loosened, like the writer had stopped trying to look normal.
"September 15. Windy today. She walked past the fountain. Black coat, red scarf loose. Didn't look over. Not once."
Then, without warning, the words spilled over the margin and into the white space like they couldn't be contained anymore:
"Man each time the wind blows I feel the rave of my heart and my pulse becomes slow in that time frame the pulse of my heart is felt like a heavy bass beat and the flow of blood through my vein is felt just as sensitive as a light touch on my skin the flow of wind on her hair is similar to the blossom of a flower and the glow on her skin when the sun touches it similar to a diamond just throughly I met gods own creation"
Lena's breath caught in her throat.
She read it again. Slower. Letting each phrase sink in like water into dry soil.
The rave of my heart.
Heavy bass beat.
Light touch on my skin.
It was ridiculous. Over-the-top. The kind of thing people would screenshot and mock in group chats, captioning it "when simps write poetry."
But she didn't laugh.
She felt it—low in her stomach, a slow uncoiling heat that spread upward until her cheeks burned. Not because she believed in god's own creation walking across a college quad. But because the words were so naked. So hungry. So unafraid of being ridiculous, of being seen and judged and laughed at.
She pressed her thighs together under the blanket. Embarrassed. Curious. A little ashamed of how quickly her body responded to someone else's longing.
Another line, squeezed into the margin in smaller handwriting, dated three days later:
"Saw her again today. Same coat. Same scarf. Walked right by. Didn't even slow down. Whatever."
The shift was brutal. One moment he was worshipping her like something holy; the next he was nothing again. Invisible.
Lena traced the word "Whatever" with her fingertip. The ink had been pressed so hard it felt raised under her skin, like a scar on the page.
She flipped forward a few pages. The entries came faster now, crowding each other, ink bleeding where the pen had lingered too long.
October 3.
"She sat two tables away in the library. Headphones on. Didn't look up. I watched her turn pages for twenty minutes. Imagined what her fingers would feel like on my skin. Slow. Deliberate. I got hard just thinking about it. Had to leave before anyone noticed."
Lena's face burned hotter.
She closed the book for a second. Stared at the ceiling. Heart thumping too loud in the quiet room.
This was private. Invasive. Wrong.
She should close it. Put it on the shelf. Forget the boy who wrote like his insides were on fire and no one was listening.
But her hands wouldn't move.
She opened it again.
October 17.
"Rain starting. She walked past without an umbrella. Hair sticking to her neck. I imagined following the drops with my tongue. Slow. No rush. Tasting salt and cold and whatever shampoo she uses that probably smells like vanilla and sin. I'd pin her against the brick wall behind the library. Hands under her coat. Finding skin too soft for this weather. She'd gasp—sharp, surprised—and I'd swallow it. Make her arch into me until she's clawing at my back, whispering my name like a prayer she doesn't understand yet."
Lena's mouth went dry.
The words landed heavy. Visceral. She could almost feel the cold rain, the rough brick, the heat of skin under wet fabric. Her own breathing had turned shallow. She shifted on the bed, suddenly aware of the thin cotton of her sleep shirt against her chest, the way her nipples had tightened without permission.
She read the rest of the page. Then the next. Then the next.
Each entry was a spiral: a tiny real moment ("She walked past.") exploding into fantasy so vivid it felt like memory. Delusion thick enough to drown in. Lust raw enough to bruise. And always—always—the cold slap of reality at the end. A margin note. A single line. A quiet defeat.
"October 22. Aura brushed mine today. Heaven flash. Gone too fast."
"November 5. Wish for that reality where I'm hers. Pain stops when I think of it."
"December 12. Wind again. No rave. No bass. Just empty."
She lost track of time.
The lamp flickered once. The clock on her phone read 1:47 a.m.
Her eyes ached from straining in the low light. Her cheeks were still hot. Her body felt restless, wired, like she'd been running even though she hadn't moved an inch.
She closed the book carefully. Set it on the nightstand. Turned off the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the room.
She lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to her own breathing.
Somewhere in the city, ten years earlier, a boy had sat in the same quad, writing the same ache.
And now she was carrying it.
She didn't know his name yet.
She didn't know what he looked like.
She didn't know if he was still alive, or if he'd burned out the way people sometimes do when they love too hard and get nothing back.
But she knew one thing.
She would read more tomorrow.