The next morning, Lizzie woke up with her phone in her hand snd ehen she opened it the first thing eas the notes app, the words she wrote at 2:45 a.m. stared back at her — fragile, honest, maybe a little foolish. She reread them twice, her chest tightening each time.
How could feelings this loud make so little noise in the real world?
At 10 a.m., her phone buzzed.
Gabriel: Hey, are you coming to class today?
That was all. No heart emojis, no late-night texts, no hidden meaning. Just a message — simple, casual, friendly.
The kind that means everything to her and nothing to him.
She smiled anyway. "Yeah, I'll be there," she typed back, erasing and re-typing the sentence four times before hitting send.
In class, Gabriel waved when she entered, pulling out the chair next to him. She sat down, pretending her heart wasn't pounding. He was explaining a project to her, talking about deadlines, professors, and nothing remotely romantic — and yet Lizzie couldn't stop memorizing the way his eyes lit up when he spoke.
When she zoned out for a second, he chuckled.
"Hey, are you even listening?"
She laughed it off. "Yeah, just... lost in thought."
If only he knew where her thoughts really were.
~
At lunch, Stella and Emma exchanged glances across the table.
"Lizzie, you've got that look again," Stella said, raising a brow.
"What look?"
"The Gabriel just smiled and I forgot how to breathe look."
Lizzie rolled her eyes but couldn't deny it.
"He's just... nice. That's all."
"Nice?" Emma leaned forward. "Girl, you're writing about him at 2 a.m."
Lizzie froze. "How did you—"
"I saw your notes app open yesterday," Emma said, grinning. "Don't worry, I didn't read it. But you don't hide things well, babe."
~
Later that night, she went for a walk alone. The air was heavy but freeing.
For the first time, she whispered to herself,
"Maybe loving him doesn't mean waiting for him to love me back. Maybe it just means... loving quietly."
And as she looked up at the stars, she smiled — not because she'd moved on, but because she was learning to stay soft even when it hurt.