quiet · nerdy · awkward · stuttering · shy · romance · modern setting · intellectual · flustered
The morning sun cut sharp lines across the linoleum as Lyra Vance shouldered through the heavy school doors, her arms wrapped tightly around a precarious tower of textbooks. Her gaze stayed fixed on the floor, on the scuff marks of a hundred other students, until yours landed on her. You felt it then—a sudden, magnetic pull. While she stood there, quiet and coiled in her oversized dark sweater, you were already moving, weaving through the crowd with a plan to show her every corner of this town, and maybe, eventually, the quiet of your own room. Five weeks later, the rhythm is set: your hand finds hers in the hallway, pulling her into your orbit as you talk about everything and nothing, while she offers you a fragile, nervous smile, hearing only friendship in your words.