CHAPTER 2-- GROWING FRIENDSHIP

The campus was alive with its usual morning hum — chatter spilling from hallways, footsteps echoing across the stone courtyard, the smell of damp earth still lingering after last night’s rain. Aariz walked through it all quietly, head slightly lowered, notebook pressed against his side.

To him, college wasn’t about noise or crowds. It was routine. Classes, notes, the familiar rhythm of days strung together. He didn’t expect anything different — certainly not anyone different.

But life, without warning, has a way of folding familiar pages back into a story.

The classroom door opened mid-lecture. A hush fell, the professor pausing mid-sentence. Aariz’s eyes lifted almost absently — and then stopped.

She stepped in. The girl from the bus stop. Her hair a little tousled, her gaze steady yet cautious, as though walking into a place she didn’t quite belong to yet.

Professor: “Everyone, this is Ayla. She’ll be joining this class from today.”

For a second, Aariz wondered if he had imagined her entirely that day in the rain — a fleeting character in the background of his life. But here she was, as real as the chalk dust in the air.

She glanced across the room, searching for a place to sit. The only empty chair was beside him. With a polite smile, she walked over and sat down.

Ayla (leaning slightly, voice light and warm): “Well… we meet again. And without the rain this time.”

Aariz blinked, then allowed the faintest curve of a smile.
Aariz (quietly): “Looks like we do.”

She unpacked her notebook, the conversation slipping away as easily as it had begun. But for Aariz, the air felt different — as though some unseen thread had pulled her back into his orbit.

The next day, her chair was empty.

Aariz noticed, though he pretended not to. He sat through the lecture, restless in ways he didn’t understand, and afterward, instead of closing his book and leaving, he turned to a fresh page.

Line by line, he rewrote the lecture notes — neat, organized, the kind of handwriting that looked more careful than necessary. And in the margins, almost absentmindedly, he sketched little doodles: clouds, raindrops, an open book.

When Ayla returned the following morning, she sighed as she sat down.
Ayla (half-dramatic): “Miss one class, and I’m already lost. Just my luck.”

Before she could even open her notebook, Aariz slid a page toward her.

Aariz (casually, almost dismissive): “You missed some notes. I had them anyway.”

She unfolded it, her lips parting into a smile at the neat handwriting — and the doodles.

Ayla (teasing): “So… you’re the kind who makes study notes look like art?”

Aariz (shrugging, eyes on his pen): “Helps me stay awake.”

Ayla (grinning): “Or maybe you’re secretly competing with the professor’s blackboard.”

This time, when their eyes met, neither of them looked away.

It wasn’t dramatic. No grand revelation. Just a small, unexplainable ease — like a sentence beginning to write itself without effort.

That night, Aariz closed his notebook after scribbling a single line at the corner of the page:
“Some coincidences don’t feel like accidents. They feel… like openings.”