Chapter 1: A seat away
Mickey Lorenzo.
That was my name, and this was my first time in a new school.
I hated it.
And somehow, I liked it at the same time.
I hated the way everyone looked at me, like I was something new they wanted to study. I hated the whispers, the curious eyes, the fake smiles from people who didn’t know me but already had opinions about me. But I also liked how invisible I wasn’t. How people noticed me without me trying.
I wasn’t the friendly type. I didn’t know how to be. I didn’t walk up to people and introduce myself, didn’t laugh loudly or try to fit into conversations. I just looked at them. Let them look at me. That was enough.
At first, I tried to find a friend. I really did. I watched the groups forming in the cafeteria, the girls sitting on each other’s laps, the boys yelling like they owned the place. But no one felt like my kind of people. No one felt like my vibe. So I learned to sit alone. To eat alone. To walk alone.
It wasn’t that I wanted to be lonely.
It was just easier than pretending.
Then came the second week.
That’s when I saw her.
She sat two rows away from me, near the window. She didn’t talk much, didn’t raise her hand, didn’t laugh too loud like the others. She just existed quietly, like she was comfortable inside her own world. Her hair always fell over her face when she wrote, and she had this habit of biting her pen when she was thinking.
Aliya.
I didn’t know her name at first. I just noticed the way she smiled. Not a fake smile a soft one. The kind that looked like it was meant for herself, not for anyone else. Sometimes our eyes met, and she’d smile at me too. Not in a flirty way. Not even in a friendly way. Just… gentle.
She was silent on the outside, but I could tell there was so much going on inside her. The way she tapped her fingers, the way she stared at the board like she was imagining something else. She felt like someone who talked a lot in her head.
I started looking for her without realizing it. Every morning, I scanned the classroom for that seat by the window. Every break, I wondered where she was sitting. Every time I heard someone laugh softly, I hoped it was her.
We became friends by accident.
It started with borrowed pens, shared notes, small questions about homework. Then conversations that lasted a little longer than necessary. We found out we had the same subjects. Same classes. Different desks, but always in the same room, breathing the same air.
It felt like fate, even though I didn’t believe in things like that.
Our classroom became our safe place. Our little world. Inside those walls, we were something. But outside… we were nothing special. Just two girls walking different paths.
The school was a boarding school, but we both chose day school. So every afternoon, when the bell rang, everyone left together laughing, pushing each other, planning sleepovers.
Aliya always had someone.
She walked home with different people every day. Different friends. Different stories. Different laughter. I watched her from a distance, pretending not to care.
It hurt.
Not because I was jealous.
I wasn’t.
I just wished it was me.
I wished it was my shoulder she leaned on. My jokes she laughed at. My road she walked every evening. I didn’t want to own her. I just wanted to be part of her ordinary life.
High school sucked.
But when there’s a reason waiting for you inside a classroom, you never want to miss a day.
That was Aliya for me.
I didn’t know what I was feeling yet. I didn’t have a name for it. I just knew that suddenly, school wasn’t just a place anymore.
It was where she was.
