Keith's POV
I sat under the old shade tree near the campus quad, legs stretched out, my MacBook open but untouched. The iced caramel macchiato in my hand was sweating more than I was, and the pencil between my fingers hovered above the sketchbook on my lap, waiting for something… someone… to inspire me.
Campus buzzed around me — people laughing, backpacks swinging, bikes zipping past. But I wasn't really seeing any of it. My eyes moved, but my mind wandered. Looking for the right art to draw was like chasing smoke. Some days, I found it in movement. Others, in stillness. Today, it was nowhere. Just noise.
Then her voice cut through everything.
"Sophie," I muttered under my breath before I even turned.
That loud, tiny voice — the kind that didn't ask for attention but always got it — belonged to my roommate's cousin. I'd seen her around once or twice. Free-spirited, loud, funny, always in motion. You couldn't miss her if you tried.
She was dragging two bags and calling out to someone behind her. My eyes followed instinctively.
That's when I saw her.
I didn't even get her full face. Just the side of it. Just a moment.
But it held me still.
The girl stepping out of the cab wasn't like the ones I was used to watching walk through campus, too self-aware or too loud. She was soft in the way shadows fall on skin. There was a quiet in her posture, but her presence spoke louder than the traffic behind her.
Her top — floral, light, something summery — fit her like it belonged there. Her jeans hugged her hips like a frame to a painting. And her hair… a 4C afro, pulled back in a loose puff, the ends a dusty brown like sunlight had kissed them too long, darker at the roots.
It wasn't even about beauty, not entirely. It was… composition.
She looked like the kind of story you could only tell in charcoal and still not get it right.
Then my phone buzzed.
Legal Advisor: "We'll need to schedule a meeting about your father's proposal. Please confirm availability."
I locked the screen without answering.
Same script, different day.
My mother was still trying to drag me into my father's legacy — a family empire I had no interest in. I'd told them both I didn't want it. Not the money. Not the name. Not the seat at the table where everyone fakes their smiles. But somehow, they kept thinking I'd change my mind.
I sighed, looked up…
She was gone.
The girl. The art.
I sat back against the tree and opened my planner on the MacBook. Checked off what I'd done today.
— Arrived at the dorm. Thank God it was quiet.
— Binge-watched The Matrix trilogy.
— Crashed for hours.
— Woke up and did my usual routine: quick shower, beard oil, retwist my hair, face mask, and green tea rinse.
— Picked out a clean fit.
— Headed out for air.
It was on my walk that I'd bumped into some guys from class. Cool ones, the type who talked about the bigger things. We got into it — life, choices, peace. I'm not the loud one in the group, but when I speak, I speak from somewhere deeper. I dropped a few thoughts that had been sitting with me for a while.
"Life stops becoming difficult when you stop lying to yourself. Own the bad when you do bad, the good when you do good. That's where peace starts — not from others, but from the moment you stop trying to justify the things that don't sit right with you."
They listened.
Not the distracted, half-scrolling kind of listening. Real listening.
And for a second, I felt like what I said actually landed.
But then I noticed something else.
Across the wall, partially hidden by shadows… there she was again. The girl from earlier. Leaning like she didn't even know she was being seen.
She wasn't looking at us, but she was hearing me. I felt it. The stillness in her body was different. Like something inside her heard something it needed.
I didn't even know her name, but I knew what she looked like when she was trying not to be moved by words.
I turned back to the guys, gave them a quick nod.
"Night."
Then I turned back toward the wall.
Gone.
Again.