THE STRENGER

My Way of Describing Love

“This is my way of describing love”—my imagination of the world when I fall in love with someone I can never truly call mine.

I am an international student. When I first moved to a new country to explore new things, new ideas, and a new life, it felt like stepping into another world. Everything was beautiful—the people, the culture, even the trees. I didn’t know if I had never seen such beauty before, or if I had simply come from a very different place.

When I went to college, I stayed in the dorms they provided. It was nice, but it felt strange to me. I had never lived with strangers before. That first night, I couldn’t sleep—I kept thinking about how my first day had gone.

The night passed, and a new day began. By nature, I am a nervous person. I get nervous easily—even asking for something that belongs to me makes me anxious. If I lend money to someone, I can’t even ask them to return it. I’ve always been like this—nervous on the first day of school, then college, and now in this new international college.

On the first day, I went to meet my professors. When it was time to go to class, I took a deep breath and stepped inside. All the students looked at me—it felt awkward. The professor introduced me to the class, and I introduced myself too. Then I quietly took a seat.

It was a long day. No one spoke to me, and I didn’t speak to anyone either. But when the professor left the classroom, one girl came up to me. She was an international student too. Eventually, we became friends.

My first year wasn’t very interesting. I went to college, did my homework, came back to the dorm, and slept.

In the second year, we had to find a new place to live because the dorms were only for first-year students. My friend Rosy and I decided to become roommates. We contacted a broker to help us find a house—our new home in this new country.

We saw many houses, but we had our own preferences. The only thing I really wanted was sunlight—I love it when sunlight fills the house.

Finally, we found a house. The area was quite expensive, and according to the owner, a celebrity from the film industry lived nearby. He was a superstar loved by everyone—even I liked him. At first, I didn’t plan to rent that house, but it was so close to our college and fully furnished that we didn’t need to buy anything. So we took it.

Everything went well. During the break, I went back to my home country.

In my family, I have three siblings. My parents passed away a long time ago. My youngest brother has a job now and is doing really well. I’m quietly proud of him. When my parents died, I was only 15 and my brother was 11. We lived with our aunt for a while, but it didn’t go well. When I turned 18, I decided to move to another city. Everything was new to me then, and now I had moved to another country altogether.

I spent my summer break with my brother and then returned to the university. My roommate, Rosy, decided to move in with her boyfriend. That was a hard time for me—I had never lived alone before, and I was scared.

My second year went well, and now it was time to find an internship to stay in the country. I still had one year left of college, but it was a rule that everyone had to do an internship in their third year.

I was terrified of the interviews. I get so nervous that I feel like I could die—I even cried for an hour. The interview was scheduled for 12:30 p.m., but I woke up at 5 a.m. because it was a 30-minute drive to the venue. I wanted to prepare early because I knew I would forget something otherwise.

And of course, I did—I forgot to iron my blazer.

I told myself, “Oh no, how could I forget this?”

I had an iron, so after a shower, I quickly ironed it myself. I’m terrible at ironing, but I was too nervous to go out and get it done.

Finally, I got ready and went for my interview—it was for a Project Management position. I can’t explain how nervous I was, but to my surprise, it went really well.

I landed my first internship as a Project Manager.

I was thrilled.

I came back home and made dinner for myself. When you live alone, you don’t cook three times a day—I cook once and eat three times.

Life went on. College, internship, and work filled my days, but loneliness slowly crept in. I wasn’t a very social person, and I didn’t have many friends.

To fill the silence, I decided to adopt a dog—something I had always dreamed of.

At the shelter, I found her.

A golden retriever.

Graceful, mature, and gentle.

I named her Lola, a name I had always saved for my future dog.

She became my family. She waited for me by the door every day, and I would watch her through the camera when I was away. She was loyal, protective, and spoiled by my love.

One day, I had to travel to another city for work, so I left her at a dog care center. When I returned, she had made a new friend—a Doberman named Rocky.

From then on, Lola wouldn’t stop throwing tantrums until she saw him again.

Then one night, while walking Lola, she suddenly ran into an unfamiliar neighborhood.

My heart started racing when I saw a man in a black hoodie. Fear froze me—but then Lola leapt into his arms, licking his face happily.

It turned out he was Rocky’s owner.

His long hair fell into his face, and though I couldn’t see him clearly under the hood, his voice was calm. We spoke awkwardly while our dogs played, then parted ways.

The next day, Rocky wandered into my neighborhood. I called the number on his collar, and his owner—who introduced himself as James—asked me to keep Rocky overnight since he was away.

I hesitated but agreed.

That night was chaos. Lola and Rocky ran wild around the house until they collapsed into sleep.

The following morning, James arrived to collect his dog.

This time, I saw his face.

Sharp jawline. Glowing skin. Striking beauty.

For a moment, I couldn’t believe anyone could look that perfect in the morning light.

He thanked me for taking care of Rocky and left, but the memory of his face stayed in my mind.

Soon after, we met again—at a café. He wore a hoodie and a mask, so at first I didn’t recognize him. He laughed at my confusion and told me his name again.

“My name is James. James Mordrate.”

“Yes, I know you,” I said. “I watch your movies.”

“Do you like my movies?” he asked.

“Yes, I like them.”

“So what do you do for work?”

“I’m a project manager,” I replied.

“Oh, nice. Do you work from home?”

“No, I usually work from the office, but right now I choose to work from home.”

“Are you eating lunch?” he asked.

“Yes, I just started.”

“Oh, then it’s a bad time. I think I disturbed you.”

“No, it’s nothing. It’s okay. I can eat later.”

Then he left.

“Enjoy your lunch,” he said.

I closed the door, my heart racing so fast.

It hadn’t happened in almost two years.

I had never found someone this attractive before.

But of course—he was a star.

I ate my lunch and went to sleep.

The next morning, I went to the office. It was a hectic day. We closed our biggest client, and everyone was happy. Our manager even gave us one week off.

I decided to go on a road trip. I really love road trips.

I asked my friends, but everyone had their own plans, so I decided to go alone—with Lola.

That day, I packed my bag and everything I needed for camping, Lola’s bag, her favorite toy, and we were ready to go.

I planned everything—where we would stay.

A forest.

For camping.