Chapter 2: The First Glance
Author : Quratulain
The next few days passed slowly. Eliza wasn't used to silence. Everything around her felt unfamiliar — the roads, the sounds, the people. But every evening, she found herself sitting by the window, eyes wandering to the one across the street.
The boy was almost always there. Sometimes writing, sometimes staring blankly out the window, as if lost in thoughts too heavy to speak of.
They hadn't spoken. Not even once. But there was something in the way he sat — calm, unreadable, like a poem she hadn't figured out yet.
One day, just as the sky turned orange and the sun dipped behind the roofs, their eyes met. For a moment, time slowed.
Eliza felt her breath catch in her throat. She looked away quickly, heart thudding like a drum in her chest. She didn't know why it made her feel that way — like something had changed, even if it was only for a second.
The next evening, she sat by her window again, pretending to read a book — but her eyes kept stealing glances toward his window.
And then it happened.
He looked directly at her... and smiled.
Eliza froze.
She didn't smile back. She didn't wave. She just lowered her eyes and closed her book — heart racing, cheeks warm.
But when she opened her window the next morning, she found a small paper taped to the inside of the opposite window.
In bold, neat handwriting, it read:
"Hi."
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