The One I Almost Forgot

EMILY

I was halfway through cleaning my closet when I found it — the navy skirt, tucked beneath a pile of sweaters I hadn’t worn in years.

I froze, fingers still on the fabric.

It wasn’t just any skirt.

It was that skirt.

The one I used to wear in high school, back when I thought hiding in plain sight was enough.

Funny how some things stick with you.

A shape.

A feeling.

A moment you didn’t know you were going to carry for the rest of your life.

And just like that, I was back there.

In that library.

With him.

I knew it was foolish — but ever since Peter and I had started meeting in the library two weeks ago, I found myself reaching for skirts.

It wasn’t something I used to do. Not because I disliked them, necessarily, but because they never felt like me. With my slight frame and long legs, skirts always made me feel too exposed, too visible — like I was stepping into a version of myself that didn’t belong to me. I preferred jeans, oversized sweaters, clothes that softened my shape and made it easier to move through the world unnoticed. Hidden.

But Peter had this quiet, disarming way of making me want to be just a little braver.

A little more seen.

For him.

He never commented on it — not once. But I knew he noticed. There was something about the way his gaze lingered, not inappropriately, just... attentively. Like he was always observing, always cataloguing, filing away small things that no one else thought to see.

We sat side by side, our backs pressed against the cool wall tucked in a quiet corner between the far shelves. The library had become our shared hiding place — the only one where we could find a sliver of privacy. His house was loud, always brimming with the chaos that came with having two younger sisters and never enough space. Mine was the opposite — still and too careful, wrapped in the quiet vigilance of a mother who could read the mood of a room without ever opening the door.

Here, between the scent of paper and the hush of turning pages, we found something else. A stillness. A space to breathe. And a tension that hung in the air like a live wire, quietly buzzing between us.

Our shoulders brushed with every small shift; sometimes, our knees touched. Sometimes, his fingers would linger just a second too long against my wrist, as if neither of us quite wanted to pull away. But we never crossed the line.

Not until now.

Peter sat beside me, his sketchbook balanced across his knees, eyes focused on whatever world he was creating this time. I turned my head, watching him out of the corner of my eye.

“We’re supposed to be analysing the chapter on Daisy and Gatsby,” I reminded him, my voice light, teasing.

“They piss me off,” he muttered without looking up. “Gatsby acts like some kind of martyr, and Daisy’s just—”

He paused, that familiar spark of mischief lighting his eyes as he glanced at me.

“Too pretty to have an opinion.”

He arched an eyebrow, clearly baiting me, inviting the challenge.

I narrowed my eyes, feigning composure even as my heart stuttered. “That might be the laziest thing I’ve heard today.”

He smiled — that slow, self-aware smile that stopped girls in the hallway and belonged to someone who understood exactly the effect he had. It didn’t make it any less devastating.

“You’re pretty too,” he said, almost offhandedly. “But you don’t seem afraid to say what you think.”

The flush hit my cheeks before I could stop it, rising fast and hot.

Without answering, I reached over and snatched the sketchbook from his hands, grateful for something to do, something to hold.

“Let’s see what’s so much more interesting than Fitzgerald.”

I thought he’d try to stop me — make a joke, wrestle the sketchbook back, pretend he didn’t care as much as he did. But instead, he leaned in. Closer. And in that small, unspoken movement, I understood something: he wanted me to see it. Not just the lines on the page, but the world inside them. The world he was building, quietly, carefully, for no one but himself.

“Look,” he said, his voice softening into a whisper, as if we were sharing something sacred. “These are doors. For a building I’m going to design one day.”

The sketchbook trembled slightly in my hands — from his breath? From mine? I didn’t know. I only knew I was holding something that felt like more than paper and pencil. It felt like a secret.

The doors he’d drawn were simple, understated — all clean lines and quiet symmetry. But there was a beauty to them, the kind that didn’t need to announce itself. Set into the curve of a stone façade, they didn’t demand attention. They welcomed it. They had a presence that felt deliberate, but not showy. Thoughtful, not timid.

They looked like something that had always existed and yet hadn’t been made real — not yet.

Timeless.

I stared at them longer than I meant to. The curve of the arch. The careful placement of detail. The way the structure seemed to breathe, to rest into its imagined space as if it belonged there.

I hadn’t known Peter could create something like this. I hadn’t even guessed.

To most people, he was the golden boy — the confident athlete with the easy charm and the kind of face that made girls drop their pens in the hallway. The boy who teachers treated like a polite obligation — admired for his discipline, not his thoughts. No one expected brilliance from him. They just expected him to keep winning.

But this... this wasn’t bravado. It wasn’t performance.

This was something else entirely.

This was precision. Imagination. A kind of dreaming so intimate, so private, that even showing it felt like vulnerability. He wasn’t just drawing a door. He was opening one.

My fingertips hovered at the corner of the page, brushing it lightly, afraid to disturb whatever spell it held.

„It’s missing something,” I said, my voice barely louder than the rustle of pages between us. I didn’t want to break the quiet, only offer something to it — an observation, not a criticism.

Peter turned his head slightly, meeting my gaze with a look that hovered between curiosity and caution, like he wasn’t sure if I was teasing or if I actually saw something he hadn’t.

“Missing what?”

I hesitated, not because I didn’t know, but because I wasn’t sure how to explain it.

“Light,” I said after a pause. “Something that gives it breath. That makes it feel alive. Maybe...” — I traced an invisible curve in the air above the page — “a stained-glass window?”

He let out a soft chuckle, the sound low and sceptical. “Stained-glass?”

“Not the old kind,” I added quickly, before he could dismiss it. “Nothing ornate or churchy. Just... something quiet. Some kind of panel, maybe. Clean lines, like everything else. Divided into sections.”

He leaned back slightly, the movement thoughtful rather than dismissive, and regarded the space on the page where I’d imagined the glass would sit.

“What color, Miss Architect?” he asked, a flicker of amusement in his eyes, though I could feel that he was listening — really listening.

I smiled despite of myself, warmed by the nickname, by the way he said it like it meant something.

“You know, this library...” I gestured around us, to the high windows half-hidden by rows of books, “has stained glass too. You probably haven’t noticed — you’re always buried in your sketchbook.”

He shook his head, sheepish. “Not really.”

I laughed, soft and low. “They’re tucked up high, but they’re there. Amber. Sapphire. This deep, muted indigo. And when the sun comes in just right...” I paused, eyes lifting toward the memory. “The whole room glows. It feels warm. Still. Like being held inside a dream.”

I looked back down at his sketch, running a finger lightly above the space where the stained glass could go.

“I think the doors should feel like that,” I said, more quietly now. “Like something is opening. Like something’s about to happen.”

He didn’t respond right away. Just looked at me — really looked — with the kind of stillness that made it feel like time had folded in on itself. As if he was tucking away my words somewhere deep, somewhere he didn’t let many people into.

Then, silently, he turned back to the drawing and brushed his fingers across the part I had touched — a small gesture, but one that meant everything.

He didn’t need to say anything.

I knew he understood.

The silence between us deepened, but it wasn’t hollow. It was full — of possibility, of awareness, of something unnamed taking shape between us. It stretched and settled, not heavy, not awkward. Just present.

The kind of quiet that only exists when something is beginning.

Then, slowly, he pulled away — the moment folding itself back into something safer, less exposed. But we both knew: something had shifted.

And it wasn’t going back.

Peter shook his head slightly, like he was trying to shake something off — a thought, a feeling, a pull he didn’t want to name. That familiar, crooked smile returned to his lips, but this time, it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Enough art appreciation for today.” he said, quieter than before, reaching toward the notebook still resting in my lap.

Without thinking, I pulled it out of reach, a small act of rebellion, of playfulness — or maybe of something else I didn’t dare define.

He didn’t hesitate. He leaned in.

He was faster than me.

Stronger.

His arm brushed gently against my stomach, the pressure light but undeniably intimate, and I caught a whiff of his scent — warm, grounded, tinged with something faintly earthy. It was a smell that lingered in the air between us and settled into my chest like a memory I hadn’t realized I was holding.

His brown hair fell messily over his forehead, softening the edges of his usually confident expression. His hands — firm, but unexpectedly careful — closed around the notebook. But his eyes weren’t on it.

He wasn’t looking at my face, either.

He was looking at my legs.

At the hem of my skirt, where the fabric had crept up slightly when I’d shifted. His gaze didn’t dart away. It didn’t apologize. It stayed — heavy, focused, and unmistakably intentional.

“Why did you start wearing skirts?” he asked, his voice low, nearly hushed, as if speaking too loudly would undo whatever was settling between us.

“Because it’s hot today,” I whispered, trying for nonchalance but failing the moment the words left my lips.

He smiled at that — slow, deliberate — the kind of smile that came from knowing he was being let in, even if just a little.

“It is,” he agreed softly.

And then, without breaking eye contact, he reached for the hem of my skirt. His fingers brushed the fabric lightly, toying with it in a way that felt almost reverent, like he was reading it with his hands.

Then, skin.

The warmth of his touch on my thigh made my breath catch — a spark that shot through me, sharp and bright and impossible to ignore. My whole body stilled, like I didn’t dare move, like movement would make the moment vanish.

And then — almost instinctively — I shifted.

Parted my legs.

Not dramatically.

Just slightly.

But it was enough.

He saw it.