So it Begins
Big busy crowds, cars on the road, and the adrenaline taking over her body. Bel was late.
Isabela Victoria Reyes.
It was the first Monday of her freshman year in nursing, and her iced coffee was supposed to be her lifeline. But as she speed-walked across the campus hallway, tote bag bouncing against her hip, she rounded the corner—
BAM!
A warm, sticky splash hit someone's hoodie. Her iced coffee was gone, spilled all over the floor... and unfortunately someone's clothes.
"Hala oh my gosh! I'm so sorry.."
Her trembling hands fumbled with tissues, dabbing helplessly trying to wipe at a gray hoodie that smelled faintly of fresh laundry and coffee now.
"No worries," a voice said, low and lilting with a British accent that almost made her forget to breathe. "Guess I needed a caffeine shower to wake up."
Bel finally looked up—and her brain short-circuited.
ah tangina. Sya yung nakikita ko sa tv at sa social media. Wow bel makakatapon ka na nga lang sakanya pa talaga. Shucks baka sugurin ako ng fans neto.
He was tall, with warm brown eyes, moreno skin, dark black hair, styled in a way that made her kneesweaken, and a grin that made her feel both mortified and... weirdly flustered. He shook his hoodie slightly, droplets falling.
"I'm Jarren," he said, offering a hand.
"And you are... the girl who bathed me coffee?"
I know who you are. Who doesn't? "Bel," she responded automatedly. "Isabel Reyes."
Before she could embarrass herself further, her phone rang. Fiona, her friend calling, spamming texts of how the lecturer could be in class any minute now. She mumbled another apology and dashed off, leaving Jarren Garcia—THE Jarren Garcia, the pbb famous hearthrob, famous for his stylish handsome looks and deep voice, standing in the hallway with a hoodie stained coffee and a smile that spelled trouble.
The days then went on as they always did. The early mornings, long duty and lecture hours, and the constant exhaustion that came with being a nursing student. She told herself she didn't have time to dwell on something as trivial as a coffee shop accident.
And yet, somehow, she did.
It would come back to her at the most random moments—the warmth of the coffee slipping from her hands, the look on his face, the brief second their eyes met before everything turned into a blur of apologies. She tried to brush it off, telling herself it was just an embarrassing encounter with a stranger... even if that stranger happened to be The Jarren Garcia.
Still, out of all the patients she met and all the faces she saw each day, his was the one her mind kept returning to.
It didn't make sense. It shouldn't have mattered.
But for some reason, it did.
And as the days quietly passed, what should have been just a forgettable accident lingered to her. As if soft and persistent... like it was waiting to become something more.
———
The next week, fate decided to make her life a rom-com cliché.
SCENE OTW SA CLASS W FIONA, THEIR TALKING ABT WORKLOADS AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN CLASS TODAY
Ugghh wow talaga monday nanaman. Ano kayang ganap later? Ishould get ready early so may time pa ako mag coffee hihi
Bel got up to get ready for another day, another lecture, another day of torturing herself socializing with people. While getting ready, she decided to message fiona, Fiona Claire De Vera. Bel's first and only college friend. Not that she's unfriendly, she gets along with her other blockmates, but her connection with fiona? Unmatched.
