Sharon James was known by everyone as James. The boy who sat at the last window seat, headphones in, pencil moving quietly over sketchbook pages while the world moved around him. He didn't talk much, not because he was cold, but because he never knew how to put the worlds in his head into words people could understand.
Fashionable in a quiet way, he wore layered shirts and silver rings on his fingers, sleeves rolled up just enough to reveal ink smudges. His art was his voice, the only way he could say what he truly felt—sketching moments no one else noticed: the way light pooled on the classroom floor, the way laughter curved around someone's lips, the way clouds looked before a storm.
Love at first sight? James didn't know what that meant. He never thought about it, not seriously, not in the way that made your chest feel like it couldn't hold everything you felt. But that morning, when a girl nearly bumped into him at the library door, looking up with eyes brighter than the morning sun, something paused inside him.
"Sorry!" she said, laughter spilling out, her ponytail bouncing as she steadied her books.
And for a moment, he forgot how to move, forgot how to breathe, his eyes meeting hers—electric, sharp, a quiet spark in the air.
He hugged his sketchbook closer to his chest, mumbling, "It's… okay," as he stepped aside.
She smiled at him before running in, leaving behind the faint scent of cherry blossom shampoo, leaving James standing there, wondering why he suddenly felt like sketching the moment again and again, afraid he might forget the way she looked at him—like she saw him.
For the first time in a long time, James found himself slipping his pencil out, flipping to a blank page, and drawing a girl with laughter in her eyes.