Chapter 2 I HAVE LOVED HIM FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS

I'm never drinking again." That was the first thing Bella said the following morning. I looked up from the book I was reading. "You said that last month." She pulled a pillow over her face. "This time, I mean it."

From the opposite bed came Kiara's muffled voice. "Someone wake me when Romeo King gets married." Bella lifted her head. "Why would you want to wake up for that?" "To attend the wedding." "You don't even know him!" "Bella, please. Let me suffer in peace."

I laughed, closing my book. The morning sunlight filtered through our curtains, illuminating the familiar disorder of our shared room. Clothes hung over chair backs, beauty products occupied half of Kiara's dressing table, and Bella's nursing textbooks lay scattered beside an unfinished packet of biscuits. Seraphina sat by the window, already dressed, reading through a casebook. She glanced at Bella. "Water is on your desk." Bella turned towards her with the gratitude of someone who had just been rescued from certain death. "Seraphina Ellis, I take back every bad thing I've ever thought about you." "You've said that before too." "And I meant it every time." Seraphina returned to her book.

That was Seraphina. Quiet, observant, and so direct that sometimes I wondered whether she had ever learned the art of softening an uncomfortable truth. She wasn't unfriendly exactly. She simply didn't see the point in speaking when silence would do. Unlike Bella, who could become friends with a stranger before learning their surname, or Kiara, who considered silence an opportunity to fill the room with her opinions, Seraphina seemed perfectly content in her own company. We were four very different girls sharing one room. And I wouldn't have traded them for anything.

"Come on," I said, standing. "We have lectures." Bella groaned. She looked at Kiara. "Can fashion wait till tomorrow" "Fashion never waits," Kiara replied, already examining two outfits. I shook my head. Some things would never change.

We got ready, collected our books, and stepped into the bright morning air. Students hurried towards their departments, their conversations blending with the sounds of traffic and distant music. The university looked entirely different from the previous night's concert grounds. In daylight, it was all deadlines, lecture halls, and the unrelenting pressure to become somebody. I liked it that way.

As we crossed the courtyard, Bella nudged me. "So," she said casually, "are you going to tell us what that photograph was about?" My steps faltered. Kiara immediately turned. "What photograph?" "Bella!" "What? I saw it last night." I tightened my grip on my bag. "It was nothing." Bella stopped walking. "Eliana Rose, I have known you long enough to recognize when you're hiding something." Kiara's eyes widened. "Oh, this is interesting." Seraphina continued walking for another two steps before stopping too. I stared at the three of them. There was absolutely no escaping this.

I drew a breath. "I like someone." Bella's expression softened. Kiara clasped her hands together. "Finally! A romantic development in this room!" I rolled my eyes, but my cheeks had already begun to warm. "His name is Darian Blake." Bella's smile disappeared. Not because she disapproved. Because she recognized the name. "Darian Blake?" she repeated. "The fifth-year medical student?" I nodded.

Kiara stared at me. "Wait. The Darian Blake who always helps the juniors after lectures?" "Yes." "The one who won that academic award last year?" "Yes, Kiara." "The one who-" "Kiara." She closed her mouth. "How long have you liked him?" I looked away. The answer had lived inside me for so long that saying it aloud felt almost like confessing to something shameful. "Three years." Nobody spoke.Then she whispered, "Eliana..."

I swallowed. I had never told them the whole truth because I didn't know where to begin. How could I explain that I remembered the first time I noticed Darian as clearly as I remembered the first time I held a medical textbook? How could I tell them that what started as admiration had slowly become something I carried into every ordinary day? It wasn't just his face. Although, heaven knew, his face had certainly not made the situation easier. It was the way he treated people. I had watched him stay behind after a lecture to explain a difficult concept to a student who was struggling. I'd seen him give up his seat to someone who needed it more.

Once, when a junior student had been embarrassed over a wrong answer, Darian had calmly explained the question again, turning the moment into a lesson instead of a humiliation. He was intelligent without making other people feel stupid and confident without demanding attention. And somewhere along the way, I had fallen. Quietly. Completely. Without ever meaning to.

"Does he know?" Bella asked. I shook my head. "Three years of loving a man who doesn't even know he's loved? Girl, that is the most romantic and most stressful thing I've ever heard." "It's not romantic when you're the one living it." My voice came out softer than I intended.

Bella's expression changed. I looked down at our joined hands. "What if he doesn't feel the same way?"I asked. There it was. The question I had been avoiding for three years. What if all my little hopes, all the moments I'd treasured, all the times I'd imagined what it might be like if he ever looked at me differently, meant nothing to him? What if I walked up to him and discovered that the beautiful future I had quietly built in my head existed only there? Bella squeezed my hand. "Then we will be here for you," she said honestly. . But at least you won't have to keep wondering." I blinked rapidly.

Kiara moved closer. "Listen to me. I'm not saying he'll definitely say yes. Nobody can promise you that. But you deserve the chance to tell him how you feel." Seraphina finally closed her book. "Uncertainty is not the same as rejection," she said. I turned towards her. She shrugged slightly. "You're treating an answer you haven't received as though it's already a disappointment." I stared at her. That was the problem with Seraphina. She could remain silent for an entire conversation, then say one sentence that made it impossible to keep lying to yourself.

I let out a shaky breath. "What if I embarrass myself?" "Then you'll survive," Seraphina replied. Kiara gasped. "Could you at least pretend to be comforting?" "I am being comforting. Embarrassment isn't fatal." Bella started laughing. I laughed too, even though my stomach was twisting into knots. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps three years was long enough to live inside my own imagination. Perhaps it was time to find out whether Darian Blake could ever see me as more than a junior student.

I looked at Bella. "Will you come with me?" "Of course." Kiara grabbed my other hand. "We're all coming." "No!" I protested immediately. "Absolutely not. I am not confessing my feelings to a man while three women stand behind me like an audience." "Fine," Kiara said. "We'll stand far away." "That is not better!" For the first time that morning, I laughed without feeling the weight in my chest. And as we continued towards the medical building, I began to feel something I hadn't felt in a long time. Hope.

We were almost at the steps of the medical building when Kiara let out that sigh. That long, dramatic, theatrical sigh that always meant trouble. Bella closed her eyes. "No." "I haven't said anything," Kiara said, innocent. "You're about to say something about a man."

Kiara put a hand to her chest, deeply offended. "I was just thinking out loud. About how the universe is unfair." "Here we go," I muttered. "Lucien Cross," she announced, like she was announcing a weather disaster. "That man was standing five meters away from us yesterday and didn't even have the decency to be ugly. How is that fair?" Bella snorted.

I kept walking. "He returned my phone, Kiara. That's all that happened." "But did you see how he returned it? Like he was doing you a favor by being efficient? Like did he say 'here is your phone, I have businesses to run'? Ugh. I can't." "You need help," I told her. "I need him to stop being handsome in my line of vision!"

Bella was laughing so hard she had to grab the railing. Even Seraphina's mouth twitched. I shook my head, but I was smiling too. The image of Lucien from last night did come back, that calm, almost detached composure in the middle of all that screaming. The brief nod. The way he had left before I could even say more than thank you. It hadn't made my heart flutter. It hadn't meant anything. If anything, it had been a little irritating, how easily he could be so unaffected. He was just a guy who had handed me my phone.