The next day, I couldn't stop thinking about him. That brief touch, that single question—it had unsettled something inside me. I kept imagining his face, the way his eyes seemed to search for answers even when none existed, and the faint curve of his smile that stayed with me long after the hallway had emptied.
I didn't expect to see him again so soon. Yet there he was, sitting alone under the old oak tree in the schoolyard, a sketchbook balanced on his knees. The rain had stopped, but the clouds lingered, soft gray and heavy, and a few stray drops clung stubbornly to the leaves.
I hesitated at the edge of the courtyard. My heart hammered, not from fear, but from anticipation—the anticipation of proximity, of shared silence. I wanted to sit with him, to ask questions, to speak the words my lips had already learned to whisper—but I didn't.
Instead, I watched him sketch. He moved with a quiet focus, pencil gliding across paper. There was something mesmerizing in the way he captured the world—each line precise, each shadow deliberate. For a moment, I wondered if he noticed me at all.
Finally, a leaf, heavy with rain, fell onto his sketchbook. He looked up, startled, and our eyes met.
"Hey," I said, my voice barely more than a whisper, but enough to make him tilt his head in my direction.
"Hey," he replied, a faint smile forming. "Careful… that's my masterpiece."
I laughed softly, stepping closer. "Looks like the rain has its own ideas."
He shrugged, his eyes holding a question. "Maybe it's better than mine."
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We just sat, two strangers sharing the quiet aftermath of a storm. And in that silence, I realized that knowing his name—or even speaking it aloud—wasn't as important as this: being here, in this fragile, wordless connection, where my heart recognized him before my mind ever could.
When the bell finally rang, pulling students back to classrooms and obligations, I found myself reluctant to move. He packed his sketchbook with careful hands, and I felt an unexpected pang—an almost unbearable wish that time could pause, just for a little longer.
As he walked away, I whispered the words my lips had learned, just for myself:
"I want to know you."
And I knew, somehow, that he would understand—even without hearing them.