There are moments in life when you can feel a truth before you understand it. A cold pressure behind the ribs. A whisper slipping beneath the door of your mind. A shadow that knows your name before you’ve spoken it. I used to think memories were something gentle, a place you could return to whenever the real world became too sharp, too loud, too disappointing. A home stitched from moments you collected on purpose. But the day I met him,nothing dramatic happened. No lightning. No cosmic shift. Just a regular morning wrapped in the kind of quiet that never announces its importance. I was late, which wasn’t unusual, but somehow felt like a personal betrayal. Mornings and I had never negotiated a peace treaty, and today they were especially unforgiving. My hair was doing its own thing, my coffee tasted like burnt hope, and the sky had that washed-out, pale-blue look that made the whole world feel like a half-finished painting. Still… I liked mornings like this. The in-between ones. When the world felt soft around the edges, like it hadn’t fully woken up yet. I walked the same route I always did, past the corner bakery that never opened on time, the bus stop with its eternal gum graveyard, and the stretch of sidewalk where the pavement cracked like an old scar. It all felt familiar in a way that made my brain settle, like everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. I liked order. I liked predictability. Not in a boring way in a survival kind of way. People think knowing yourself is easy. It’s not. Sometimes it’s a daily negotiation between who you were yesterday and who you’re pretending to be today. I’m not perfect. I’m not chaotic, either. I’m the kind of girl who notices too much and says too little. The kind who drifts, quietly, between the loud people and the loud places and somehow always ends up carrying everyone else’s feelings home. But that morning? I felt… oddly steady. Like the universe had paused just long enough for me to catch my breath. Which should’ve been my first warning. By the time school ended, my brain felt like a drawer full of tangled cords nothing particularly wrong, just messy in the normal teenage way. So when my best friend dragged me to the mall, I didn’t fight her. Maybe walking mindlessly through overpriced stores would smooth out the knots. We wandered without a mission, stopping only when something shiny caught her eye a sweater she didn’t need, a lip gloss she absolutely needed, the usual. And then I smelled it. At first, it was faint drifting through the air like a ghost of something warm. Soft. Smoky. Familiar in a way that made my chest tighten, like I’d walked into a memory I didn’t recognize. I followed it without meaning to, turning toward a display of colognes lined up like soldiers. One bottle sat slightly crooked, as if someone had just set it down. I lifted it. Sprayed the air. And the scent hit me. Soft. Warm. A little smoky. A little sweet. It pulled me toward a display. The bottle wasn’t special black glass, silver cap but when I sprayed it, something in me loosened. Unclenched. Like a hand I didn’t know was gripping my lungs finally let go. Ari made a face. “You like that? Babe, that’s what a villain smells like after he’s done burning kingdoms.” “Maybe I like villains,” I shrugged. She opened her mouth, closed it, nodded like she understood something I hadn’t said. I bought it. Without a second thought. As if I was supposed to. The whole time, that calm, strange comfort curled behind my ribs, quiet, patient, waiting for something I didn’t know to name yet. Like a memory I’d never lived but still missed. It pulled me toward a display without asking for permission. The bottle wasn’t special black glass, silver cap. but when I sprayed it, something in me loosened. Unclenched. Like a hand I didn’t know was gripping my lungs finally let go. Ari made a face. “You like that? Babe, that’s what a villain smells like after he’s done burning kingdoms.” “Maybe I like villains,” I shrugged. She opened her mouth, closed it, nodded like she understood something I hadn’t said. I bought it. Without a second thought. As if I was supposed to. The whole time, that calm, strange comfort curled behind my ribs quiet, patient, waiting for something I didn’t know to name yet. We walked around the mall for another hour, drifting in and out of stores without really committing to anything. Ari kept picking up outfits she insisted I “needed,” and I kept pretending I’d magically wake up with a bigger bank account by morning. Students have delusions this was mine. At Starbucks, she talked about her situationship like it was a case study. I half-listened, half-watched the people moving around us. Strangers with their own worlds, their own worries, their own dreams they were probably ignoring. I wondered if anyone else walked around with that strange weight of comfort and unease sitting under their ribs, or if that was just my brand of weird. By the time we stepped outside, the air had cooled enough to make my skin prickle. Late autumn the kind that smells like dying leaves and the edge of winter. My favorite and least favorite all at once. “I’m calling it,” Ari said, linking her arm in mine. “We’re getting older.” “We’re literally twenty,” I said. “Exactly. Practically fossils.” “You’re dramatic.” “And you love it.” I scoffed rolling my eyes We split at the bus stop she lived two blocks from her shift, I lived a fifteen-minute ride away in a neighborhood that tried to pretend it was quiet. I put my headphones on, watched the city blur by, and let my mind drift in that soft, hazy way it does when you’re too tired to think but too awake to rest. When I got home, the apartment was exactly as I’d left it: a jacket on the chair, a mug in the sink I’d “get to later,” a plant I kept forgetting to water but who refused to die anyway. My room smelled faintly like vanilla and old textbooks. Comforting. Messy. Mine. I set the mall bag on my bed and pulled the cologne back out. Sprayed it once on my wrist. Same feeling that slow exhale I didn’t know I needed. Weird, but… whatever. I had enough real problems. This didn’t need to be one of them. I showered, scrubbed off the day, put on my oversized t-shirt that hung off one shoulder like it was flirting with the idea of being cute, and climbed into bed with damp hair and the kind of exhaustion that sits deep in your bones. My phone buzzed, Ari sending a meme. My professor emailing about some “minor adjustment” to the syllabus that definitely wasn’t minor. A notification from the school portal I didn’t open. I turned the phone screen down. For a moment, everything felt still. Quiet. The cologne’s scent lingered on my wrist, warm and soft, something I could almost fall into if I let myself. I closed my eyes. Listened to the hum of the heater. Shifted deeper under the blankets. Sleep found me slowly at first then all at once. And the last thing I remember thinking before I slipped under was that today had been… normal. Uneventful. Just a regular day The kind that shouldn’t leave a mark. The kind that shouldn’t follow you into your dreams. My phones buzzed, Ari sending a meme. My professor emailing about some minor adjustment to the syllabus that definitely wasn’t mine. A notification from the school portal I didn’t open. I turned the phone screen down and for a moment everything felt still. Quiet.