invisible string

two.

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friday at 2:30pm. in the library.

you lazily traced circles with a pencil around the jotted down note in your planner, eyes flickering between your own writing and the email shown on your laptop screen.

your professor had unwillingly agreed to lead a study group after several students in the class had nearly begged for it, but ultimately cancelled with short notice. the email urged students to still meet together on their own, as the study room in the library had already been reserved.

holding your breath, you opened the email details to scroll through all of the people it had been sent to, scanning the names until your eyes landed on one in particular.

ellie williams

quickly closing your laptop, you shook out your hands and closed your eyes, nearly forcing every lingering thought about her to leave your mind. but they hadn't left, and you felt completely stupid obsessing over one small question that had been asked during the previous class. she probably wasn't even going, especially not now.

still.

the thoughts lingered.

enough to make you consider attending a study group, something that anxious thoughts never quite allowed you to do before. enough to make you change your outfit more than once while you were getting ready, overthinking and then overthinking again.

maybe it was a momentary lapse of judgement, or maybe a stupid class crush was the courage you needed to finally participate in something outside of your own little bubble.

but was it even a crush?

maybe something about her was just special. maybe you just wanted to be her friend, and that's why you couldn't stop thinking about her. you just had a friend crush on her.

shoving your textbook, notes, and a book for reading into your bag, you went over your plan one last time, a weak attempt at settling the knots twisting in your stomach.

you planned to get to the library a little early, but not too early. if you were just early enough, you would be able to see if ellie was even going to be there without having to feel nervous about joining late. plus, if she wasn't there, you could just breeze past and do your own studying alone, somewhere quiet.

suddenly you frowned, chewing at your bottom lip as a new thought occured to you. what if ellie was late?

you hesitate for only a moment before closing your bag and throwing it over your shoulder... there was definitely no time for any adjustments in the plan, and you were about ready to drive yourself crazy.

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the brisk air nipping away at your face felt almost refreshing as you forced your nerves down.

motivated by the chilling air to walk quickly and with a slight overestimation of how long it would've taken you to walk to the library, you ended up making it earlier than you intended.

the library was more quiet than usual, which was to be expected. showing up with a bag full of study materials went against your strict code of never doing something school related on a friday, as long as you could help it.

a code that you had easily broken at the mere thought that someone you didn't even really know might potentially be there too.

even though you were early, you decided to try to find the dedicated study room. only a few of them were occupied, and your nerves finally began to subside as you realized it might've been a waste of a trip... until your eyes landed on a study room with numbers that matched those from the email, and the room was certainly not empty.