Prologue
A cigarette glows in the dark, its ember flaring like a brief, dying star before fading into the night. Zane Wilde exhales slowly, his eyes narrowing as the smoke spirals and dissolves into the cold air. His fingers stained with grease, worn from too many hours spent beneath engines, hold the cigarette with the kind of care that comes only when a man’s mind is far away.
The garage around him is still, quiet. The hum of machinery has faded, leaving only the distant echo of a world that never quite stops. But Zane’s attention is elsewhere.
Across campus.
Through the thin veil of trees and down a few quiet paths, the art studio glows in the distance, its lights warm against the cool night. And through the window, he sees her, Ellie Lancaster.
She’s hunched over a canvas, her head tilted in concentration. Charcoal stains her fingers, the delicate lines of her profile illuminated by the soft glow of the desk lamp. Her hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, strands falling out to frame her face. She doesn’t even notice.
Zane watches. The way her fingers drag across the page, smoothing out lines, making them perfect. The way her lips move slightly, like she’s speaking to herself-quiet words that Zane can’t hear, but he imagines them anyway.
She’s small, delicate-too soft, in a world that’s too loud. But there’s a strange, magnetic pull in the way she disappears into her work. The way she drowns in it, like nothing else exists.
Her tongue slips out from between her lips as she works, the tip just barely visible, lost in concentration. It’s an unconscious habit-cute, Zane thinks, even if he’s never said a word to her.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? She doesn’t know him. She never will.
Zane drags his cigarette to his lips again, watching her without blinking. He doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound. The smoke curls and twists, much like the thoughts he’s never voiced, much like the things he doesn’t let himself feel.
She shifts in her chair, stretching her arms above her head, and the sweater she wears slides down her shoulder. Her face scrunches slightly, as if irritated by the fabric, but she doesn’t seem to care. Her hands are bare now, smudged with dark lines of charcoal, but she doesn’t wipe them off. She just keeps drawing.Zane leans back against his bike, pressing the heel of his hand into the cold metal, his gaze unwavering. He watches her, the light from her desk casting shadows across her face, making her look almost ethereal-like she belongs to a world that doesn’t exist in the same space as his.
But that’s what makes it worse.
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know how he’s watched her before, seen her wandering the halls with her earbuds in, lost in whatever soundtrack plays in her world. She doesn’t know how Zane has seen her at the café-alone, sketchbook in hand, always in the corner, always slightly apart.
She doesn’t know how he’s wondered what it would be like to speak to her, even if just once.
Maybe he would say something clever.
Maybe he would say nothing at all.
But Zane knows one thing for certain-he would never let her see the way he watches her now.
The way his fingers twitch when she touches the canvas. The way his chest tightens when she frowns at her mistakes. The way she doesn’t look up, even when she feels his gaze burning through the night.
Zane exhales again, the smoke fading between them, the distance growing too vast to cross. He stubs the cigarette into the ground with a soft crunch.Ellie doesn’t look up.
But Zane stays a little longer, just to make sure she doesn’t.
She doesn’t see me now. But she will. And when she does-she won’t know whether to run, or stay.
