Rain had a way of making Ayla feel less alone.
It tapped gently against the classroom windows, soft enough to calm her, loud enough to drown out the noise of the world. She sat in the second-last row, her notebook open, pen in hand, pretending to copy the lecture while her mind wandered like it always did.
She loved English.
But she hated people.
Or maybe she didn't hate them — she just never felt like she belonged among them.
Like she was always too soft, too quiet, too breakable.
Her classmates talked around her, laughed around her, lived loudly around her. And Ayla just… existed in the middle of them, unnoticed.
Until he walked in.
Jaden.
The kind of boy who made silence feel louder.
Tall, sharp-eyed, slightly messy hair, the type who looked like he didn't care about anything… yet cared about too much. There was a heaviness in the way he carried his backpack, in the way he avoided people, in the way his jaw tightened when he thought no one was watching.
But Ayla always watched.
She noticed everything.
When he walked in today, slightly wet from the rain, the class grew louder — but Ayla grew still. Her pen paused. Her heart didn't.
He didn't look at her.
He never really did.
But somehow, Ayla always felt like he was aware of her.
Like their silences touched even if they never spoke.
He sat two rows ahead, diagonally. Far enough to pretend they were strangers. Close enough that Ayla could memorize the shape of his shoulders.
The teacher continued talking.
Ayla's mind didn't.
She wrote something in the corner of her notebook, the place where she hid all the words she would never say:
"Some people arrive in your life quietly,
but suddenly everything feels louder."
She didn't write his name.
She didn't have to.
When she lifted her eyes, Jaden shifted slightly, glancing out the window. He looked tired — not physically, but the kind of tired that lived deep under the skin. The kind Ayla recognized too well.
For a moment, she wondered what he was thinking.
For a moment, she wondered if he ever wondered about her.
The bell rang — sharp, jarring.
Students rushed out, but Ayla stayed back, packing her things slowly. Rushing had never been her style. It always felt like if she moved too fast, something inside her would fall apart.
As she stood up, her binder slipped from her hands and hit the floor with a soft thud. Papers scattered everywhere.
"Great," she whispered under her breath.
A few students stepped around her, some almost stepping on the papers. No one stopped.
Except one.
A shadow fell over her.
A hand reached down and picked up the last sheet — the one where she had written the line about someone arriving quietly.
Her heartbeat froze.
She looked up.
Jaden was standing there.
His fingers touched the edge of her paper. His eyes flicked to her handwriting for barely half a second — but Ayla saw it. He read it. He read it.
Their eyes met.
Just for a moment.
But it felt like the room stopped breathing.
He didn't smile.
He didn't say anything.
He simply handed the paper back to her, his voice quiet, almost too soft for someone who usually seemed so untouchable.
"You dropped this."
Ayla took it, trying not to let her trembling show.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Something passed between them — a tiny spark, a silent ache, a question neither dared to ask.
He nodded once and walked away.
Ayla watched him leave, her heartbeat stubborn and loud.
The rain outside grew heavier, like the sky was writing its own story.
Maybe he would forget this moment.
But she wouldn't.
Because sometimes love doesn't begin with fireworks.
Sometimes it begins with a fallen paper, rainy windows,
and a boy who looks like he's carrying a story he never tells
And a girl who feels everything she never says.