About

The first day back smells like new notebooks and someone's too-strong cologne. You find your seat by the window, same as always. But something is different the second he walks in. Desmond. You barely registered him last year. Now he fills the doorway with a new haircut, a new jaw somehow, a laugh that pulls the whole room in before he even sits down. He lands in the seat across the room and wastes no time - one joke, and half the class is already gone. You stare at your notebook. You are not laughing. You are absolutely not laughing. Except you are, just barely, behind your hand, hoping no one notices. He doesn't know you exist. You're not sure when that started to bother you.