Winter Fire

Prologue

Winter Fire
Prologue

I had no idea.

I was stupid. I was a fool.

I was kind.

I thought I knew who he was.

I saw his sleeves, the way he tugged at the hems, the tremor in his voice, the way his eyes flicked left, right, left again. I saw how he shook in his chair, didn't eat lunch, didn't have friends.

During lunch break, he always sat in various locations throughout the campus with his journal, but that day, he sat in the corner of the cafeteria, only two tables away from mine, twirling his pen. He twirled it once, then he tapped the paper with the butt of it, then he twirled it again, and pressed the shaft to his lips, twirled it once more, flinching when it leapt from his fingers and skid across the cafeteria floor to where it finally bumped into the toe of my flat.

I never should've picked it up. I never should have even looked him in the eye.

But I did.

And that was where it all went wrong.