WIN

I saw him before he saw me.

That was the problem with Sea.

He had a way of entering a room that made people look up. Not because he was loud, or because he tried particularly hard to be noticed. He simply existed as if the world had already made room for him.

People smiled when he walked past. Someone called his name from the staircase. A girl near the vending machine waved, and he waved back with the kind of smile that made her friend nudge her immediately afterward.

I watched all of this from behind a library book I hadn't turned a page of in twenty minutes.

Pathetic.

I lowered my eyes to the book.

Structural Analysis: Principles and Applications.

A fascinating read, if your idea of entertainment involved wanting to throw yourself out of a window.

"You're holding that upside down."

I looked up.

Sea stood on the other side of my table, his backpack hanging from one shoulder. Up close, he looked even more annoyingly familiar. Not because we'd met before—not properly, anyway—but because I'd spent years learning things about him that he had never told me.

His favorite drink was iced cocoa, even during winter. He tapped his fingers against his phone whenever he was impatient. He laughed with his entire face when something genuinely amused him.

And when he was nervous, he talked too much.

I knew that last part because I'd once heard him give a presentation in school. He'd stumbled over his opening sentence, laughed at himself, and somehow convinced the entire room to laugh with him.

I'd remembered it for years.

He glanced at my book.

I turned it the right way up.

"Congratulations," I said. "You've saved my academic career."

His mouth twitched.

"Oh, you talk."

"Unfortunately."

"I was beginning to think you were one of those library ghosts."

"Then you should stop talking to me. I hear they hate interruptions."

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

It was brief, surprised, and entirely too satisfying.

I hated that I noticed.

Sea pulled out the chair opposite me without asking. "Is this seat taken?"

"Yes."

He looked at the empty chair. Then at me.

"By who?"

"My peace."

"Well, your peace can move. I have a deadline."

He sat down.

I stared at him.

He smiled as if he'd won something.

I looked back at my book and decided, with considerable maturity, that I would rather fail my degree than encourage him.

"So," he said, unzipping his bag, "what are you studying?"

I pointed at the enormous textbook.

"That looks like engineering."

"Your powers of deduction are terrifying."

"Do you ever answer a question normally?"

"When people ask normal questions."

He rested his chin on his hand. "What's your name, then, Mr. Difficult?"

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

Not visibly. I hoped not, anyway.

"Win."

"Win," he repeated, testing the sound of it. "Just Win?"

"Would you like my family tree as well?"

"Only if it's interesting."

I should have asked him to leave.

Instead, I found myself watching the way he wrote my name on the corner of his notebook.

Win.

His handwriting was slightly slanted. The final letter curved upward, as if even his handwriting was incapable of sitting still.

"And yours?" I asked, though I already knew.

He looked up.

"Sea."

"I didn't ask for your life story."

"You asked for my name."

"I was being polite."

"That must have been difficult for you."

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

Then we both smiled, and for one ridiculous moment, I felt as though something had shifted in the room.

It was probably just the air-conditioning.

I decided to blame the air-conditioning for most things from now on.

Sea leaned over to look at my notes. His shoulder nearly brushed mine.

"Your handwriting is so neat."

"Your handwriting is so not."

He glanced at his notebook. "It's expressive."

"It's a medical emergency."

He laughed again, and I wondered what it would be like to hear that sound when there was no one else around.

The thought arrived uninvited.

I shut the door on it.

"So, Win," he said, tapping his pen against the table, "do you come here often?"

I stared at him.

"Did you seriously just ask me that?"

His eyes widened before he broke into laughter. "Oh my God. I didn't even realize."

"That makes it worse."

"I'm leaving."

"Wonderful."

He gathered absolutely nothing and remained seated.

I raised an eyebrow.

"You're not leaving."

"I've changed my mind."

"Clearly."

He propped his chin on his hand again. "You know, you're kind of mean."

"You've known me for seven minutes."

"Eight."

"Then you should have figured it out by now."

He smiled down at his notebook.

And I did something I hadn't done in a long time.

I wondered what would happen if I let someone stay.

Not everyone. Not the people who filled silences because they were afraid of them, or the people who asked questions only to hear themselves speak.

Just him.

The thought frightened me enough that I looked away.

Because the truth was, Sea and I had crossed paths long before this library.

He didn't remember.

Of course he didn't.

We had attended the same school for a while. We had never been friends, never shared a conversation worth remembering. He had lived in the bright, noisy center of things while I occupied the edges, where nobody expected much from me.

But once, years ago, he'd sat beside a boy who was eating lunch alone.

That boy had been me.

Sea hadn't asked why I was alone. He hadn't told me to smile or suggested that I join his friends. He'd simply placed an unopened carton of chocolate milk beside my lunchbox and said, "They gave me two."

Then he'd run off before I could answer.

I had spent the rest of that afternoon staring at the carton.

It was such a small thing.

He had probably forgotten it before the school bell rang.

I hadn't.

And now he was sitting across from me, stealing my peace and laughing at my terrible personality, with no idea that I'd carried the memory of him into a completely different life.

"Hey, Win?"

I looked up.

Sea was holding out a pen.

"You dropped this."

I hadn't.

I took it anyway.

"Thanks."

His smile softened, just a little, as though he had discovered that I was capable of saying something other than an insult.

"See? You can be nice."

"Don't spread rumors."

He grinned and returned to his work.

For the next half hour, we sat together in comfortable, accidental silence. Every so often, he muttered at his laptop. Once, he sighed so dramatically that I looked up just to make sure he hadn't been mortally wounded by his assignment.

He caught me looking.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was checking whether you were dying."

"That's sweet of you."

"It's a library. I don't want the paperwork."

He pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh.

I went back to my notes.

Outside, rain began to gather against the windows, turning the university buildings into blurred shapes of grey and blue. The library grew quieter as students packed their things and left.

Eventually, Sea checked the time and groaned.

"I have to go."

The words were ordinary.

They shouldn't have mattered.

"Then go," I said.

He slid his laptop into his bag. "You're really committed to being unpleasant, aren't you?"

"It's a talent."

"Work on it."

He stood, then hesitated.

"Hey. Will you be here tomorrow?"

My fingers tightened around my pen.

There were a hundred possible answers.

Yes.

Probably.

If you want me to be.

I chose the only one that felt safe.

"Why?"

He shrugged, suddenly looking less certain than he had all afternoon.

"No reason. Just asking."

I hated myself a little for making him hesitate.

"Maybe," I said.

He nodded, his smile returning, though it wasn't quite the same one.

"Okay, Mr. Maybe."

Then he left.

I watched him cross the library, greet someone near the entrance, and disappear into the rain.

Only when the doors closed behind him did I realize that he had left his notebook on the table.

I picked it up.

On the last page, beneath a messy list of assignment deadlines, he'd written a reminder:

Ask Win if he's always this annoying.

Below it, in smaller handwriting:

Find out what makes him smile.

I read those words twice.

Then I closed the notebook carefully, as though it contained something fragile.

I should have taken it to the library desk.

Instead, I held it against my chest for one stupid second before putting it safely inside my bag.

Tomorrow, I told myself, I would return it.

Tomorrow, I would act normal.

Tomorrow, I would remember that a boy like Sea could make friends with anyone, and that a boy like me had no business mistaking a little kindness for something more.

I switched off my desk lamp and gathered my books.

By the time I reached the library doors, the rain had become heavier.

I stood beneath the awning, watching the water run along the pavement.

Across the courtyard, Sea was waiting beneath a tree, laughing at something on his phone. A friend ran up beside him, and the two of them hurried toward the architecture building, sharing an umbrella that was clearly too small for either of them.

Sea didn't look back.

I was glad.

I was relieved.

I was, in every possible way, an idiot.

Because I already knew what I was going to do tomorrow.

I was going to return his notebook.

And if he happened to sit across from me again, I was going to let him.

Just for a little while.

Just until he got bored.

Just until I remembered how to be alone again.

I told myself that as I walked home through the rain.

I told myself a lot of things.