I shouldn't have gone to orientation.
Austin said it'd be funny.
I said I was bored.
And when your name's carved into half the campus, no one stops you.
I hadn't expected her.
Hair so long it swayed past her hips. Big, blinking eyes. She looked like she belonged in a Miyazaki film—not here.
She bumped into me.
Dead-on. No hesitation.
Then gasped.
And apologized.
Not like the others.
Not with fear.
Just pure, flustered chaos spilling from her lips.
I'd leaned in because I could. Because she smelled like cherry shampoo and panic. Because girls like her don't usually cross paths with boys like me. They don't look up with that kind of wonder in their eyes, like they've accidentally stepped into a different universe.
I asked her name.
She gave it.
But not mine.
Didn't ask who I was.
Didn't say "Theo." Didn't say "Ashford."
Didn't say "Your Highness," which—honestly—was new.
She just stared at me like I was a fire she couldn't decide to run from or warm her hands near.
And I liked it.
Maybe a little too much.
I lit a cigarette on the stone steps outside once it was over, trying to shake her off.
Meilin.
I'd remember the name.
Even if she forgot mine.
---
I sat on the stone steps just outside the hall, cigarette between my fingers, elbows on my knees, jaw clenched harder than it needed to be.
It was just a girl.
Just a name.
Just… a stupid smile.
"You looked like a Victorian ghost back there," Austin's voice cut through the fog, his sneakers crunching against the gravel as he flopped down beside me. "All dramatic and broody and damaged."
I didn't look at him. "Shut up."
"Oh, he speaks. What happened, mate? She bump into your soul or something?"
I exhaled a breath of smoke. "She apologized."
Austin blinked. "Right. And?"
"And she didn't know who I was."
"Tragic." He put a hand to his chest mockingly. "Royal heir to half of bloody London, and she didn't throw herself at your feet. Must be love."
I flicked ash off my cigarette, jaw ticking. "She looked at me like I was a human."
He whistled low. "Dangerous."
I didn't answer.
Austin grinned, too sharp. "What's her name?"
I hesitated. "Meilin."
"Meilin," he echoed, dragging it out. "Sounds like heartbreak and poetry. You're so screwed."
I didn't disagree.
But I also didn't look away from the spot where she'd disappeared inside.