The Dorm Girl

That late February day, Sara woke up at 5:59 a.m., exactly one minute before her morning alarm went off.

She rolled around in bed a few times before finally deciding to get up. Lazily, she rose at last.

She went through her morning routine, grabbed the book she had started reading the night before from the nightstand in a hurry, and headed out to work, leaving her two roommates, Ola and Ella, asleep in their dorm room.

Unlike them, she had to work. She didn't want to be a burden on her mother, Sofia, when she could cover her own expenses. On the contrary, she had been her mother's support for a long time.

Sara was a 21-year-old who, like many others in our beloved metropolis, juggled both school and work.

She was in her third year of a Bachelor's degree in the Department of Foreign Languages, majoring in Italian.

Her true passion had actually been English, but since her high school exam results hadn't turned out as well as she'd hoped, Italian was all she could manage.

It didn't matter too much to her, though, because her biggest desire was simply to leave the village and study in Tirana — that noisy, sleepless Tirana she had always seen on TV.

She trudged down the stairs of the fifth floor of the dorm, which she hated more than anything about living in the Student City: that this year they had moved her up to the fifth floor.

Her workplace was about an hour away from the Student City building where she lived. Most of the time, she preferred to walk.

She loved morning walks, putting on her headphones, selecting the music that would accompany her along the way (mostly limited to Alban Skënderaj, Alban, and Alban😂), and letting everything else around her disappear.

She did the same that morning. The only difference was that, unlike other days, she decided to take a shortcut through a narrow alley that passed through a private hospital building.

She had never taken that path before but, momentarily distracted, she followed the crowd of people rushing to their own jobs. While walking, she suddenly found herself sprawled on the ground, her phone and book falling at the feet of someone who, judging by the shoes, was a boy.

A/N: Quite a handsome boy, I'd say. 🤣

Sara didn't know much about fashion and wasn't really into it; her entire wardrobe consisted of seven pairs of jeans and seven tops. But she would have bet that those shoes, which nearly kissed her, were expensive.

The melodious voice of Alban, her favorite singer, continued to play through the headphone that had fallen with the phone, undisturbed by the situation.

Fortunately, she wasn't badly hurt. Only her phone, which she had just bought with great difficulty, collecting coin by coin, had suffered. The boy she bumped into, who had apparently been talking on the phone, hadn't seen her crossing and caused this little incident.

"Sorry, are you okay? Did you get hurt badly?" he asked quickly, crouching down to her level with an outstretched hand. He managed to pick up her book, from where he noticed the title: Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella.

"A girl who reads, nowadays! — he thought."

And it would be precisely that moment, that eye-contact, that would decide everything. His eyes, an unusual blue, lingered on her with a focus that was not just guilt.

At first, he had seen her only as a blonde girl with a book at his feet. Now, he couldn't look away from the way she looked at him.

She had green eyes — strange, pure, something about them that pulled you in like a magnet. That something made Kian's heart skip a beat.

For the first time in months, when everything around him had been colorless, purely functional, something stirred inside him.

Without knowing her name. Without knowing that she would snap back at him a few seconds later. Without knowing that she wouldn't forgive him easily for the collision, let alone his first joke. Without knowing that she would tease him for weeks. An odd, almost childlike thought passed silently through his mind:

"This girl... I'm going to make her mine."

But her eyes had already spoken before the words. And he decided to trust instinct.

At that moment, when his eyes met hers, something froze inside him.

It wasn't fear. Not anger. It was like a soft wave crashing unexpectedly onto a calm shore. And for a second, he found himself looking at her, unable to move.

It felt as if he was seeing someone he had known for years but couldn't remember from where. A strange feeling climbed from his stomach to his throat, leaving him a little speechless.

He quickly collected himself, determined not to let the confusion show on his face.

"No, I'm fine. Nothing's wrong," Sara replied softly. She had lost herself in his sky-blue eyes. For a split second, because she felt something burning in her chest...

"Awch!" she exclaimed, pulling a cigarette from inside her top — only God knew how it ended up there.

"Oh, no!" the boy with sky-blue eyes said, covering his face with his hand — "my cigarette!" — and instinctively reached toward her chest to remove the lit cigarette. But it was impossible for Sara to believe his action wasn't intentional or for advantage.

"Seriously, what do you think you're doing? Not only did you knock me down and break my phone — which I bought just two days ago — but now you're trying to stick your hands in intimate places!" she burst out in one breath.

"Where did that angel from two seconds ago go?" Kian thought. "No doubt the first impression deceived me. Now my mind is completely full."

"Wo, wo, easy lioness! I didn't mean anything like that. Although... I guess you'd like it, apparently," he teased, winking as if to seal the joke he thought he just made.

"Pervert!" she snapped back, grabbing her book from his hand and shoving it away, rising in full indignation.

She walked away without looking back.

"What a woman, oh my God," Kian chuckled, continuing the phone call he had interrupted because of this mini-incident...

"Hey, man... you listening or talking to yourself?" came Den's voice, strained from impatience.

Kian straightened, rubbed his eyes, and replied in a low tone:

"Hey Den... I just bumped into a star."

"A What?!" Deni burst out, as he always did when teasing.

"A girl, I mean! She just... appeared, and bam! Then... she looked at me. And... you know what that look was like, Den?"

"Hmm. How?" his friend responded, laughing.

"It was... fierce and gentle at the same time. Strong green eyes, like a forest after rain. They stopped my breath. And me... I stayed there. Barely muttering a lame excuse."

"So, in the middle of all this chaos, your heart got struck by lightning. Don't turn it into a soap opera, Kian..."

"No, seriously... I don't know how to explain. She... had something. And she left. I don't even know her name. She just looked at me, threw words like punches, and left. Seems like it's my fate, man."

"Got it. What about mama Bora?"

Kian raised his eyes to the window of his mother's room and sighed.

"She's getting her chemotherapy. I stepped out for a bit because... I felt like I couldn't breathe. And when that girl appeared in front of me, it was like she returned the missing breath. Even if just for a second."

"Listen, seems like the universe is teasing you a bit, but if you feel that way, maybe it's not a coincidence. You know what they call this? The start of a beautiful trouble."

Kian chuckled softly and brushed his lips with his fingers.

"Den, I'll tell you — I'll find her. I've never seen her before, but... I want to know her. I have the feeling she's more dangerous than she seems. And that... I like."

A/N:

If you've made it this far... welcome to the beginning of a story that isn't as simple as it looks. There's a bit of chaos, emotions that refuse to stay quiet, and characters who might stay on your mind longer than expected.

Take your time with it, step into every moment, and don't forget: your reaction matters. If you like it, leave a vote. If something hits you or makes you think, drop a comment. I genuinely want to know how you experience this story.

Because this isn't just mine anymore — now it's a little bit yours too.