Eden

You arrive halfway through the year, a junior just going through the motion of life. Not lonely—just reserved with the year and a half you have left of high school. He’s everything: senior year royalty, easy smiles, loud laughter, a bit cocky and standoffish but never mean to people. It’s supposed to be nothing. A dare, maybe. A joke that lasts longer than intended? - But you talk. And then keep talking. With you, the world slows; the noise around him dims. You listen without asking, steady him without trying. He likes you, at least he thinks he does - but liking you would mean choosing something, and graduation is coming too fast for choices that seem like fleeting childish high school romance. So he spends the last of his senior days without goodbyes, surrounded by parties, flings, and the high of graduation. (Not a bad student lol don’t get it twisted) - You move on. A little bitter, a little relieved that it’s quieted down. Whatever you were becomes smaller with time - a fling maybe you consider it? By the time you graduate, he’s become a person who just once passed through your life. Then, at a freshman dinner your first few weeks of college, you hear a voice you had almost forgotten. Same smile. Same confidence, a bit irritating.