Chapter 1
I WANT SOMETHING JUST LIKE THAT
Chapter 1 — The Day We Met
By Joel Young
There are some days that look completely ordinary when they begin.
No warning.
No special feeling.
Nothing to suggest that before the day ends, life will be a little different.
That was how the morning started.
The sky was pale, the streets were already busy, and people hurried past one another as if they were all chasing something important. Cars moved through the road, students gathered around the school entrance, and the sound of conversations filled the air.
Nobody knew that two strangers were about to meet.
And neither of them expected it.
He walked through the gate with his backpack hanging from one shoulder, thinking about everything except love.
Love was something he had stopped believing in.
Not because he hated it.
He simply didn’t understand how people could promise forever when they couldn’t even predict tomorrow.
He had watched friendships disappear. He had seen people who once seemed inseparable become strangers.
So he had made a quiet decision.
Don’t expect too much from people.
It was easier that way.
He was halfway across the school compound when someone suddenly bumped into him.
His books fell to the ground.
“Sorry!”
The voice came quickly.
He looked up.
She was standing there, looking embarrassed.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
She bent down immediately to help pick up the books.
“I really didn’t mean to,” she said.
“It’s okay.”
She handed him one of the books.
Then she noticed the name written on the front.
“That’s your name?”
He nodded.
She smiled slightly.
“Nice name.”
He almost laughed.
“Thanks.”
She stood up and adjusted her bag.
There was something strange about the moment.
Not something dramatic.
Not the kind of thing that happens in movies where everything suddenly becomes perfect.
It was smaller than that.
A feeling.
A moment that lasted only a few seconds but somehow stayed in his mind longer than it should have.
She looked at him one more time.
“See you around?”
“Yeah.”
She walked away.
He watched her disappear into the crowd.
Then he looked down at the book still in his hand.
For some reason, he was smiling.
He didn’t know her name.
He didn’t know where she lived.
He didn’t know what kind of person she was.
He didn’t know that she was carrying a secret that would eventually change everything.
All he knew was that, for the first time in a long while, an ordinary morning didn’t feel so ordinary anymore.
And sometimes...
the smallest moments become the beginning of the biggest stories.
