Circle Park Drive

The campus moved with a confidence that bordered on indifference. Students streamed past her in intersecting currents, backpacks thudding softly, voices rising and falling in overlapping conversations that never paused to make room. A crosswalk voice began its countdown, cheerful and unyielding, urging patience no one seemed inclined to grant. Flyers clung to lampposts and bulletin boards, curling at the corners, advertising meetings and protests and auditions she would never attend. Somewhere nearby, a lecture hall door stood open, and a professor’s voice drifted out, measured and calm, as if the world were entirely orderly.

She adjusted her bag on her shoulder and kept walking, letting the motion carry her, letting the ordinary press of campus life do what it always did: remind her that she was one small figure in a much larger pattern. Reaching absently for the miraculous medal resting against her sternum, she pressed it flat through the fabric of her shirt, a gesture so familiar she barely noticed she’d done it. It was something she’d learned long ago, something between habit and comfort, like crossing herself without thinking when an ambulance passed.

She had scarcely departed the communications building when a high-pitch whine arrested her attention, which was now affixed on the approaching noise as it shifted into a rhythmic thrumming. The white 2018 Suzuki GSX-R1000 was unmistakable as it curved along the street, its extended swingarm coming into view as the rider searched for a place among the row of parked cars. The brick walkway through the green grass and shady trees towards the distant Torchbearer faded from notice as her gaze locked onto the biker boy. Clad in his distinctive red, white, and blue streaked helmet and racing suit, sat Ciaran Miller, as though he had materialized from some memory long past. Gripping the base of his helmet, he slowly lifted it from his head; and just like that, every memory of him came rushing back - lunches in the courtyard, projector movies on a living room couch, words said through hysterical laughter, and wiped away tears from late night talks about parents and getting away.

He was no longer the lanky youth she had known; time had added a certain fullness to his form, and the hair that now brushed the collar of his jacket caught the light in a way that stirred a quiet, yet familiar ache in her chest.

He ran a hand through his dark hair, brushing it from his face, and removed his gloves with meticulous care. Her breathing quickened. There was a peculiar hesitancy in her limbs, a pull both nervous and magnetic. She could not help but step a little closer, as though the space between them had a life of its own. When at last he looked up, their eyes met, and for a moment it felt as though the years between them had evaporated.

“Ciaran?” Her voice was almost tentative.

A slow, bright smile curved his lips, “Greer!” and his eyes lit with unequivocal delight.

“I never would have imagined seeing you on this side of the state,” she said, light laughter escaping her before she could stop it, “I assumed you went to a school back home after your gap year.”

“Clearly, we should have kept in touch. I completed my freshman year as a distance education student.” he replied, still smiling. “I’m surprised your parents let you move this far away from them.”

“Oh, they didn’t really,” she explained, a frown tugging at her lips. “They moved too, about half an hour south of here, so they can still keep an eye on me.”

“Half an hour?” he said, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Perhaps one day you’ll even have an entire hour of freedom.”

She laughed softly, shaking her head. “I have to say…I rather like the long hair. You look more grown-up, and yet…you’re still as short as I remember.” She was suddenly, acutely aware of how close he was, and just as aware of herself straightening without meaning to.

He chuckled, and the lighthearted sound made her pulse hasten. “Short, am I?” He tilted his head, eyes glinting with amusement.

She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, her fingers shaking slightly. “Perhaps we should…catch up sometime.”

He had that same shit-eating grin from when they were teenagers, eyes brimming with mischief. “Oh, I think that can be arranged.” He pulled out his phone, tapped a few keys with casual precision, and handed it to her, displaying an empty contact page.

As she took it, for a brief, unavoidable instant, their fingers met. It was nothing. Barely a touch at all. Yet the contact sent a sharp awareness through her, as though every nerve had been abruptly called to attention. She drew in a breath she had not realized she was holding, her grip tightening reflexively around the phone. Her fingers fumbled slightly as she typed in her number, cheeks warming under his amused gaze.

When she handed it back, he typed out a quick text, and her screen lit up with the buzz of a new message. “There,” he said, leaning back just slightly, his grin widening. “Now you have my number, too. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“I’d like that,” she sighed, her voice light and breathless.

“I’ve got to get going, but…” he smiled, tucking his phone away, “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

When he reached out again, his hand came to rest at her shoulder blade, light and careful, the sort of touch that could be dismissed as polite, if one were determined to dismiss it. But it lingered a fraction longer than necessary, and she felt it with an intensity that surprised her. Not warmth exactly, but presence. The knowledge of him there, close enough that she could sense the steadiness of him without looking.

She nodded, words catching slightly in her throat. “Yeah.”

She did not move. Neither did he. The moment held, balanced on its own restraint, before he withdrew his hand as though it had never been there at all.

He gave her a quick wink, slinging his backpack over one shoulder, and walked off in the direction of the student union, lifting his hand in a familiar gesture, thumb and pinky extended in a casual Shaka. Something in her chest softened and it struck her then that this was the same boy who used to sprawl across her couch in a ridiculous teddy bear onesie, wrapped in the pink-and-ice-cream patterned no-sew blanket she had made with her own hands, utterly unbothered by embarrassment.

She stood there a moment longer than necessary, watching until he disappeared into the flow of students, until leather and wavy hair were swallowed by backpacks and hoodies and motion. She remained where she was, the space he had occupied still faintly charged, as though the air itself remembered him, and she wondered, not for the first time, how some people could leave her life so quietly and return with such force.

When at last she looked down at her phone, the message waiting there felt improbably small for the weight it carried.

I guess God thought we were overdue for a hello :)

She smiled despite herself and slipped the phone away, as though preserving his text for later.