Souls don't meet by accident - Will Smith

BRIAR

I didn't expect to see James again so soon.

But there he was, three days later, standing outside my lecture hall, holding two coffees and wearing that infuriatingly charming smirk.

"Got you a latte," he said, holding it out like a peace offering. "Figured it was the least I could do after you emotionally scarred me with that movie."

I laughed, taking the cup. "You watched Dead Poets Society?"

He winced. "Twice. I have regrets."

We started walking. And talking. And not in the surface-level, let's-keep-it-light kind of way. It was real. Easy. The kind of conversation that moved effortlessly from poetry to hockey, to why we both still slept with a fan on even in the dead of winter.

It was the beginning of something.

I felt it.

But beginnings have a way of making you forget what endings feel like. And just when I thought I was stepping into something new, the past found its way back in.

It was late Friday when it happened. Sydney and I were walking back from dinner when her phone buzzed.

She stopped. "Okay... don't freak out."

My stomach tightened. "What?"

She turned the screen toward me. A photo. Low-quality, clearly taken from across the street. But unmistakable.

Will. Outside my dorm room.

Just standing there. Hoodie pulled low. Hands in his pockets like he didn't know whether he was coming or going.

"He didn't knock or anything," Syd said gently. "Maybe he was just... I don't know. Passing through?"

But I knew better.

Will never just passed through.

___________________________________________

MARCH
BRIAR

It had been three weeks since that night at the bar. Three weeks since the universe decided to test me by putting Will—him—in the same room as me again.

I hadn't seen him since. No texts. No "you looked good" message. No late-night apologies.

And weirdly, that silence made it easier to breathe.

James, on the other hand, had been loud. Not in a literal way—he wasn't obnoxious or clingy—but he showed up. Coffee between classes. Texts that made me laugh harder than I should. Late-night walks across campus where we argued about everything from music to whether cereal counted as soup. (It doesn't.)

He didn't ask about Will.

I didn't bring him up.

It felt like a silent agreement—we weren't pretending the past didn't exist, we were just... choosing not to live in it.

"So," James said one night, leaning back on his elbows as we sat on the steps outside my dorm, "tell me something no one else knows about you."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's bold."

He grinned. "Come on. I told you about the time I cried during Marley & Me. You owe me."

I laughed, leaning my head against the cold brick wall behind me. "Alright. I write letters I never send."

That got his attention. "To who?"

"Depends," I shrugged. "Sometimes to my mom. Sometimes to people who hurt me. Sometimes to the version of me I used to be."