His Secret Obsession

I flipped open a discarded blue journal and frozemy name was slashed across the cover in sharp, heavy strokes, but it sure as hell wasn't my handwriting.

[ September 2nd. She stole my blanket today. ]

During the freshman orientation camp three years ago, I really did grab an impossibly expensive, handcrafted cashmere throw by mistake, leaving that childish blanket plastered with an obnoxious Spider-Man print for some poor, unfortunate bastard.

A tremor hijacked my fingertips, the crisp paper crinkling under my white-knuckled grip as I ripped through the rest of the pages.

Three entire years.

Hundreds of entries.

Page after page after page, devoured by my name.

It was the diary of a guy who had been secretly, obsessively watching me for three solid years.

In the midst of my loud, reckless seventeen-year-old daysin a high school existence I had always convinced myself was just a pathetic, invisible blursomeone out there had actually been fiercely, irrevocably captivated by me.

Chapter 1

The day of the final AP exams was blindingly sunny.

4:55 PM. I sat stuck in the suffocating silence of the testing hall, my eyes drifting to the oak tree branches scraping against the window glass.

Moving barely a muscle, I flicked my gaze to the wall clock, let out a slow breath, and snapped the cap back onto my pen.

The harsh buzzer shattered the silence.

"Time's up. Pencils down."

I swept my gaze over the sterile classroom one last time before dragging myself out into the hallway. I expected a massive rush of adrenaline, that legendary high school liberation, but instead, a hollow, empty weight just sank into the pit of my stomach.

Pushing through the double doors, I immediately spotted my dad. He was pacing like a caged animal, practically crushing the pink pastry box hed brought for me in his anxious grip.

Yellow caution tape corralled the sweaty mass of students toward the exit. A hundred pairs of desperate parents' eyes locked onto me for a split second, then instantly darted away the moment they realized I wasn't their kid.

The roar of the crowd buzzed in my ears like TV static. It felt surreal. Just like that, the chaotic, messy chapter of my teenage years flatlined into nothingness.

The next morning, I dragged myself back to the academy to clear out my locker and grab whatever junk Id left behind.

Cutting through the courtyard, I passed a gaggle of underclassmen. Their high ponytails bounced with way too much energy, eyes wide and oblivious to the meat grinder of senior year.

The cramped storage room was a graveyard of abandoned high school memories. Towering, unstable stacks of textbooks and crumpled AP prep sheets completely suffocated the space.

I navigated my way to my designated cornera spot Id fiercely claimed for three years. I bent down, ready to hoist the cardboard box of my stuff, when my hands stalled.

Sitting dead center on top of my chemistry notes was a thick, navy-blue leather journal. My nameMorganwas slashed across the cover. But it sure as hell wasn't my handwriting.

A frown tugged at my lips. I picked it up, the leather cold against my palms, and scanned the room. Just a bunch of random kids blindly packing their boxes.

My thumbs flipped the heavy cover open, hunting for an owner's tag.

Blank. Just a stark, creamy white page. But down in the bottom right corner, inked in sharp black, was a tiny letter K, right next to a crude sketch of a paper airplane.

My pulse gave a weird, involuntary twitch.

I turned to the first entry.

[ September 2, 2018 Sunny Sunday ]

Freshman orientation camp. The brutal summer heat baked the asphalt, turning my hair into a sweaty mess. I hauled my massive duffel bag across the quad, feeling like complete, dehydrated garbage.

The counselor told us to start a journal to "process our feelings." I have zero idea what to write. So Ill just log the absolute joke that happened today. Some idiot took my blanket.

I locked my jaw, my eyes dead-set on that girl. She haphazardly bundled up my handmade cashmere throw and shoved it against her chest, her movements as aggressive and unrefined as a squirrel hoarding acorns.

Yet, the cheap vanilla body wash she used forced its way into my airway, clinging to the air around me.

"What the"

I stared at the cramped handwriting, my brain short-circuiting.

The day of orientation camp was suffocatingly hot. I remember my skull pounding like a bass drum, my only mission being to find a patch of shade and completely check out.

My dad had practically ordered me to drag my bedding up to the dorms immediately.

Cranky and dripping with sweat, I just blind-grabbed the nearest folded blanket from the pile and bolted.

That night, when I finally crashed and went to tuck myself in, I didn't find my embarrassing Spider-Man blanket. Instead, my fingers brushed against this ridiculously soft, sleek, solid-colored throw.

Panic spiked in my chest.

I tore my dorm room apart, yanking open drawers and checking under the mattress, but my blanket was gone.

There was only one logical explanation. Id snatched the wrong one.

I racked my brain trying to replay that manic afternoon, but it was all just a hazy blur of heat and exhaustion. All I knew was that I had basically stolen a stranger's bedding.

And then what? I just kept it. Used it every single night for the next three years.

Honestly, that cashmere throw was soft enough to sink into. It was dangerously soft and always smelled subtly expensive.

Id spent all of high school blindly assuming I had accidentally swiped it from some rich preppy girl.

Chapter 2

So it was this guy, the diary writer, who ended up with my blanket.

I had no idea how he reacted to my Spider-Man blanket. I blindly guessed he secretly loved it. I mean, what guy could resist Spider-Man?

A laugh bubbled up in my throat at his silent complaining. I clamped a hand over my mouth and kept reading.

[ September 3, 2018 Sunny Monday ]

First official day of classes. I spent entirely too long last night staring at that cashmere throw, not daring to actually use it.

I couldn't get used to it. Didn't sleep at all. Barely kept my eyes open during the morning assembly.

Then I saw the back of the girl who snatched my blanket yesterday. That tiny little girl.

The auditorium was packed, but I fought through the suffocating crowd just to get to her. The second I finally pushed my way over, she bolted.

You have got to be kidding me. I seriously refuse to sleep under a Spider-Man blanket. Damn it.

A loud snort escaped my lips.

I genuinely thought everyone shared my elite taste in superheroes. The fact that he refused to use it was a massive red flag for his aesthetic judgment. Zero stars.

That blanket was aggressively comfortable, too. My mom had specifically picked it out and stuffed it for me.

Besides, for all three years of high school, Monday morning assemblies dragged on forever, right before the cafeteria opened for breakfast. Hundreds of starving teenagers always flooded the dining hall at the exact same second, turning it into a complete warzone.

So the minute the principal stopped talking, I always sprinted for the cafeteria doors like my life depended on it. No wonder he couldn't catch me.

He clearly had zero survival instincts when it came to grabbing food. Definitely one of those overachieving prep-school nerds. Us bottom-tier students had to run fast just to survive. He couldn't blame me for that.

The massive storage room was completely empty now. A rusted ceiling fan wobbled lazily overhead. The windows were propped open, and even though it was pushing seven, the sky still burned bright.

The setting sun bled through the glass, spilling a golden, almost suffocating heat across the dusty piles of books.

I flipped to the next page. The heavy friction of paper scraping against my fingertips echoed loud in the dead silence.

[ September 4, 2018 Sunny Tuesday ]

I give up. I am officially done trying to hunt down the girl who hijacked my blanket.

I didn't see her at the fraternity icebreaker tryouts yesterday afternoon. Last night, I irritably yanked that childish blanket covered in Spider-Man prints over me.

The sickly sweet scent of vanilla and peach clinging to the fabric aggressively wrapped around my senses. It made my heart race out of control, leaving me completely unable to sleep the entire night.

And honestly, bringing it back now feels totally weird. I can't exactly hand over a blanket that I, a guy, have already slept under.

While I was obsessing over that, I realized the school food here is actual garbage. But I finally saw her this morning.

She's in Squad 22. Twenty-two? That means she's in homeroom 22.

This bizarre situation made me stare at her like an absolute psychopath. She had haphazardly thrown on that tight cheerleading uniform, the collar hanging half-open, exposing her delicate collarbones.

It looked ridiculous, but it was so damn sexy. How does someone not even know how to put on clothes properly? Damn it.

Ridiculous but sexy? What kind of messed-up prep-school logic was that?

I stared at the page in dead silence.

My brain dragged me back to that freshman orientation week. Our prep school had a strict lockdown policy; no one was allowed off-campus.

The cheer skirts they handed out were way too big for me, and I didn't even have a belt, so I literally had to tie it tight with a shoelace just to keep it from falling off.

I remember the brutal, ninety-degree heat baking the asphalt every single day. I felt like I was physically dying, so I just carelessly buttoned my top halfway to get some air.

My dad even visited the gates to drop off my stuff and laughed his head off, telling me I looked like a total trainwreck.

So that's how I looked to everyone else, a hot mess.

I leaned heavily against the dusty wooden desk, my grip tightening on the diary as I turned the page. The ceiling fan kept groaning overhead.

[ September 7, 2018 Cloudy Friday ]

It's strangely messed up, but ever since then, I keep running into the girl who stole my blanket. I still don't even know her name.

For now, I'll just call her Blanket Girl. Blanket Girl seems annoyingly energetic.

Chapter 3

I saw her get yanked out of line by the drill sergeant again this morning during marching practice. I guess she got caught slacking off and slouching.

It's the last day of orientation camp. Tonight is the freshman talent show. A bunch of people volunteered to go up.

The sergeant told me I had the face for it and ordered me up there. I played it off and didn't go.

But to my shock, Blanket Girl actually performed. She sang that Taylor Swift song, "You Belong With Me." I think that was the one.

It was actually pretty damn good. I'm going to look it up when I go home this weekend.

"You Belong With Me?"

I narrowed my eyes, the familiar melody instantly looping in my head.

I dug deep into my memories of that summer in 2018.

That summer, that song was playing literally everywhere. The lyrics had somehow perfectly captured that desperate, teenage longing, and I had memorized every single word, just waiting for the chance to show off at camp.

But honestly, I couldn't even remember actually getting up there and singing it.

And I definitely never expected someone to actually write about my performance in their private diary. A strange, totally unfamiliar heat crept up my necksomething suspiciously close to a blush.

Seriously, it was embarrassing, yet weirdly thrilling.

I shook it off, forcing my eyes back down to the page.

[ September 8, 2018 Light Rain Saturday ]

Blanket Girl's homeroom is all the way up on the fourth floor. I'm on the first. It's way too far.

I want to actually meet her. But how the hell am I supposed to start that conversation?

"Hey, we swapped blankets, and I'm currently sleeping under your Spider-Man throw"

Yeah, that's completely insane. Better just drop it. Damn it. I don't really talk to girls. I don't know how this works.

Maybe I should ask the guys? Yeah, that's the move. Ask around first. First impressions are everything.

[ ]

The guy writing this was on the first floor. In this brutal prep-school hierarchy, the first floor was reserved strictly for the top-tier, AP-loaded elite students. My curiosity spiked hard.

Who the hell was this guy?

My finger flicked the edge of the page, turning to the next entry.

[ September 13, 2018 Sunny Thursday ]

I got forced into being the AP Math rep. Why does this keep happening? Do I just genetically look like I enjoy calculus?

I went to the faculty office to drop off the homework pile and saw the sign-up sheets for the Fall Mixer on the desk.

[ ]

Homeroom 22: Morgan "You Belong With Me"

Morgan? That name sounded way too familiar. Then the memory of registration day hit me.

I think that's what her dad called Blanket Girl when he yelled at her to drag her bedding upstairs. She's performing again?

Damn it. I should have signed up too.

[ ]

Reading that, it felt like a master key had just violently unlocked a vault in my brain, the memories rushing back like a tidal wave.

I was always the type to jump at any chance. High school barely had any decent events, so if there was an opportunity to get on stage, I was absolutely taking it.

That dark, indie rock anthem was my absolute favorite song.

Especially that one line that just got into my bones:

"Even if the world is swallowed by fire, I'd still willingly kneel at your feet."

I found myself humming the melody under my breath in the empty room.

[ September 17, 2018 Sunny Monday ]

The Fall Mixer is this Friday. Then we get a long weekend for the holiday.

I bombed the weekly pop quiz last week, so I burned through a whole stack of practice exams. Haven't seen Blanket Girl lately.

But this morning, I looked over at the opposite building, at her homeroom's balcony. She was leaning over the railing, scarfing down her breakfast.

Reading his journal, fragments of the past kept flashing before my eyes. It felt like my entire three years of high school were being forcibly rebooted.

The worn concrete steps, the toxic cafeteria food, the wisteria-covered walkwayevery single detail was sharpening into brutal focus.

Chapter 4

This damn prep academy had a morning check-in policy that was bordering on sadistic. I usually had to snag a stale bagel from the dining hall and inhale it hiding by the lockers, stealing glances at the glass-walled student lounge across the courtyard.

Our class building was split into two wings, connected by a massive glass skybridge equipped with digital announcement boards.

If I huddled by the lockers in our wing, I had a direct line of sight into the opposite building's hallway.

I used to spend half my mornings watching my childhood friend in homeroom 17 getting ripped apart by his AP Chem teacher.

My legs were starting to cramp, so I dragged a wooden chair out from under a desk, wiped the layer of dust off the seat, and collapsed into it. I flipped the page.

[ September 20, 2018 Sunny Thursday ]

This afternoon was the dress rehearsal for the Fall Mixer. My roommate volunteered us to be stagehands just so he could stare at the cheerleaders, and tried to drag me along.

I totally blew him off. My AP advisor was hounding me to prep for the regional math decathlon

But then my idiot roommate calculated that there was a 100% statistical probability I'd run into Blanket Girl backstage.

So. I had to go. Good thing she can actually sing, otherwise it would've been a colossal waste of time.

[ September 21, 2018 Sunny Friday ]

The Fall Mixer finally hit. Us grunts were stuck backstage, waiting to haul equipment.

Blanket Girl was huddled by the curtain, fiercely glaring at her lyric sheet. Through the glass panel of the control booth, I caught the slight flutter of her eyelashes.

She wore a dark red dress, her hair braided into two distinct plaits. I had to force my eyes away, terrified shed catch me staring.

Yeah. Blanket Girl looked ridiculously cute like that.

The set went smoothly. Afterward, some guys were asking me if I knew her. If I had her Snapchat.

I don't have either. Pissed off. Going to sleep.

[ ]

I stared at the page, my brain sinking back into the past.

He must have been the stagehand who adjusted the mic stand for me.

God, I was a nervous wreck that night. I was completely blind to whatever nerve it took him to step onto that stage, blind to the fact that every step he took was calculated just to get closer to me.

I was definitely wearing a red dress that night, though I couldn't remember my hair to save my life.

But I knew Taylor had recorded my entire set on her phone.

The file had to still be backed up.

My hands shook, my thumbs clumsily misfiring as I swiped through my cloud storage. Finally, I located the grainy video file.

The resolution was terrible, degraded by years of data compression.

I scrubbed the timeline forward, right to the moment I walked onto the stage.

My heart stalled. My lungs locked up in anticipation.

On the screen, a tall, lean guy in our school uniform had his back to the camera, hastily adjusting the mic stand.

The second he finished, he practically bolted off the stage.

The camera never even caught a fraction of his face.

But I could clearly see itwhen he adjusted the mic, the muscles in his forearms contracted, veins straining against his skin. His knuckles deliberately brushed against the cold metal I had just been gripping.

I watched his Adam's apple bob sharply, like he was barely keeping a leash on something feral.

I couldn't tell if I was disappointed or completely wired. The stifling heat of the evening wind began to seep in, and the chaotic noise of the campus faded out, leaving only the sporadic thud of underclassmen hauling boxes.

My thumb flicked the corner of the page. I forced oxygen back into my lungs, steadying my racing pulse, and quietly dived back into his head.

[ September 24, 2018 Cloudy Monday ]

It's the midterm break. My mom forced me out of the house to buy groceries.

I went to that massive new Whole Foods on Crescent Avenue. It was a complete madhouse.

I saw Blanket Girl. Does she live around here?

She must have an obsession with potato chips. Her cart was overflowing with them.

Yeah. Happy midterm break.

The new Whole Foods on Crescent? That had to be the massive one by the highway.

It was slightly cheaper than the local organic market, so my dad always dragged me there to stock up.

And every single time, the second he turned his back, I'd chuck bags of chips into the cart.

[ September 25, 2018 Cloudy Tuesday ]

Back to the grind early this morning. I took the city bus to school.

My stop is Crescent Park West. Four stops away from campus. It was early as hell.

The bus was packed with commuters. No seats left. I had to stand, gripping the overhead rail.

One stop later, Blanket Girl got on.

Chapter 5

She stood right next to me, unguarded, swaying with the lurching bus.

A sudden, screeching halt threw her off balance, sending her crashing backward.

I shot out my arm, my hand gripping her narrow waist like a vise, and slammed her hard against my chest.

Her warm, startled breath spilled violently against the skin of my collarbone. Damn it, tonight is going to be another sleepless night.

In the dead silence of the storage room, my vision blurred as I stared at the page.

His stop was four miles out. Mine was three. My stop was Crescent Park East. We had to have been riding the exact same Route 15 transit bus. Route 15 dead-ended right at the prep academy gates.

The thought that our timelines had violently collided so many times without me even realizing it made my lungs tight. I suddenly felt this desperate, clawing need to see his face. The sky had already bled into black.

On my way back, I stood shivering slightly under the familiar, flickering glow of the transit sign. Bathed in the sickly yellow street-light, my fingers betrayed me and flipped the journal open again.

[ November 24, 2018 Cloudy Saturday ]

So why the hell did I open this journal today only to realize every single entry, every damn thought, revolves entirely around Blanket Girl?

Have I completely lost my mind? Blindly following her off the transit bus like a stalker.

Forcing myself to eat those garbage dill pickle chips she buys. Physically unable to stop myself from picking out a holiday gift for her.

Ian, you are so incredibly screwed.

[ November 26, 2018 Cloudy Monday ]

What exactly qualifies as obsession? Is this what it is? It's tearing my head apart.

[ November 27, 2018 Cloudy Tuesday ]

The AP midterm percentiles dropped. On the main monitor in the counselor's office.

The entire class ranking was totally exposed. The office was suffocatingly packed with bodies.

I dragged my finger down the harsh blue spreadsheet. Ian, rank 13 Lower than I calculated.

I aggressively scrolled down the list. Morgan, rank 1,103. AP Physics: 18. AP Chem: 32. AP Bio: 55.

Is Blanket Girl seriously bombing her STEM tracks?

Every nerve in my body was screaming at me to storm down to the fourth floor and forcefully explain these formulas to her, but she'd probably look at me like I was a psychopath.

Damn it, how do I break past her defenses?

Under the buzzing street-light, the sharp, heavy strokes of his handwriting sent a jolt straight down my spine. A shadowy silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered guy standing just out of reach materialized in my head. I desperately needed to know his name. The curiosity was clawing at my throat.

His diary entry brutally dragged me back to the most humiliating phase of my high school existence, right before AP track placements. We all had to take a ruthless, comprehensive baseline exam. My physics score was a catastrophic 18.

Ill never forget the suffocating, physical blow to my chest when I saw that number.

I didn't even have the guts to look at the percentile rankings; out of 1,260 juniors, I was scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel.

Even when my friends tried to pity-comfort me, I just plastered on a fake, careless smirk and loud-mouthed that I deserved the 18 for constantly zoning out during STEM lectures. Besides, anything involving hard logic had been my Achilles' heel since middle school.

I put on a careless front, but how could I not care? My parents' disappointment felt like an actual weight crushing my lungs.

During that hellish period, my brain was a battlefield. One minute I was spiraling into total self-loathing, digging my nails into my palms until they turned white, the next I was desperately trying to breathe through the panic. It was suffocating. And so incredibly isolating.

It never once crossed my mind that while I was buried under all that pathetic, muddy failure, some guy had effortlessly sliced through my defensive armor. And that he was actually racking his brain, plotting ways to pull me out of it.

[ November 28, 2018 Sunny Wednesday ]

The massive pile of Scantrons for the entire junior class was dumped in a chaotic mess.

The TAs from all twenty-four homerooms had to rotate sorting them. This was the first major baseline of the year.

My homeroom got drafted first. I was fully prepared to blow off the Scantron sorting duty. But then I went.

I specifically grabbed the stack for Homeroom 22.

That damn AP Physics essay question could literally be solved by plugging into a base formula. But I held my temper in check, gripping a red pen, and violently etched the detailed, step-by-step derivation onto the blank margins of her test sheet. I genuinely wanted to pin her down against her desk and physically force her to understand every single digit.

I hope you see it. Morgan.

The loud, grating rumble of a heavy diesel engine shook the empty pavement as the transit bus lumbered toward the stop sign. My vision still hazy from the emotional whiplash, I blindly stepped onto Route 15.

Chapter 6

The mystery was finally solved.

The elusive prep-school genius who had spent my entire sophomore year violently bleeding red ink all over my physics Scantrons, detailing every single formula and derivation step, was him.

His relentless patience, locked inside those sharp, meticulous handwritten notes, was the only thing that had dragged me through every suffocating night I spent hyperventilating over failing grades.

I forcefully pushed the air out of my lungs. The transit bus was mostly empty now. I pressed myself against the cold glass of my usual window seat.

Relying on the dim overhead cabin light and the erratic, sickly yellow flashes of passing streetlamps, I kept turning the pages. A raw, chemical burn was slowly crawling up my throat.

[ November 29, 2018 Light Snow Thursday ]

They say the first snow is the ultimate confession trigger. I've been staring at this journal all day.

Blanket Girl. It's snowing. I think I need to admit that I am completely obsessed with you.

My fingers locked up on the edge of the page. The oxygen in my lungs just stopped. A sharp, stinging heat flooded the backs of my eyes.

I had spent my entire miserable high school existence convinced I was entirely invisible. A pathetic, messy ponytail. A face so painfully average it blurred into the background. The occasional stress breakout. That massive, shapeless uniform swallowing any trace of identity. I was certain a girl like me was unlovable. A suffocating inferiority complex hijacked my adolescence.

But someone had actually been completely captivated by my pathetic, invisible existence.

[ December 7, 2018 Heavy Snow Friday ]

Parent-Teacher Conferences today. I saw you hiding against the balcony railing, sobbing.

Stop crying. I'll write the formula derivations out more aggressively next time. You'll definitely nail the next one.

[ December 24, 2018 Light Snow Monday ]

Christmas Eve. I got to campus early as hell.

Left a candy cane on your desk. Stay safe, Blanket Girl.

[ December 25, 2018 Light Snow Tuesday ]

Merry Christmas. Forgive me for being too much of a coward to say it to your face.

[ December 29, 2018 Cloudy Saturday ]

I physically cannot stop myself from walking past your homeroom's balcony. When you're eating your breakfast.

If you literally just looked down, you'd see me. Every single time.

[ January 1, 2019 Sunny Tuesday ]

Blanket Girl. Happy New Year.

Stop hiding and crying by yourself in 2019.

My chest violently caved in. The oxygen thinned out, leaving me desperately gasping for air against the vibrating window of the transit bus. My hands trembled uncontrollably as I forcefully tore through the next pages.

[ January 3, 2019 Sunny Thursday ]

You got braces. Don't be afraid to smile, it doesn't look ugly at all.

Whatever, it's not like you're ever going to read this anyway.

[ January 15, 2019 Sunny Tuesday ]

We crossed paths at the stairwell corner today. I completely panicked the second I saw you.

I ducked my head and practically shoved past you. You didn't even notice me.

But if you had just turned around. You would have caught me staring dead at you.

Heavy, scalding drops violently splattered against the thick paper. I frantically scrubbed at the pages, smearing the ink. I clawed at my own cheeks, desperately trying to wipe away the wetness, but the tears just kept aggressively pouring out, completely blinding my vision.

[ January 18, 2019 Cloudy Friday ]

It's our homeroom's turn for hall duty next week. I explicitly requested the evening study hall shifts.

Yeah, that means I get to see you every single night next week. Goodnight, my Blanket Girl.

Walked past your room. Saw you trapped in the very back row. Head down, furiously grinding through AP Math problems.

You looked so focused. Keep pushing.

Hall duty ends tomorrow. I lose my excuse to secretly watch you from the back door.

Now I have to go back to pretending I don't care while casually walking past your window.

What about you? Can you feel this absolute, suffocating obsession I have for you?

[ January 26, 2019 Sunny Saturday ]

Midterm week is over. Blanket Girl pushed herself to the absolute limit.

You're going to pull a high score. Stop stressing so hard.

Winter break is coming. A long, agonizing stretch of time.

I don't have your number. I'm too much of a coward to intrude on your life.

You shouldn't have to deal with my completely unhinged obsession.

[ January 28, 2019 Sunny Monday ]

My Blanket Girl. Happy Holidays. Have a good winter break.

Chapter 7

[ February 1, 2019 Cloudy Friday ]

Feels like I haven't seen you in forever. It's the end of winter break.

I went to the supermarket to press my luck. Didn't see you.

Bought those chips. The exact flavor you're obsessed with.

[ February 4, 2019 Light Snow Monday ]

New Year's Eve. The city lights are blinding. Fireworks are tearing through the sky, counting down the clock.

I wish I could just stand in front of you and say it. Happy New Year, Blanket Girl.

Everyone else is blindly staring at the dirt, but I can only look up at the moon. And you are my moon.

The automated voice overhead violently snapped me back. "Approaching Crescent Park East. Please watch your step. Next stop, Crescent Park West."

I clutched the heavy leather journal, my tears aggressively bleeding into the ink. I frantically scrubbed at the ruined page, my chest heaving as I stumbled blindly off the bus.

I collapsed into a crouch under the flickering streetlamp of my stop, desperately swiping at my soaked cheeks. In my completely wrecked state, a hallucination flasheda shadowy figure standing in this exact spot years ago, desperately waiting for my bus to pull up.

If I had just turned my head back then, would I have seen the absolute wreckage I was causing him?

I stayed huddled beneath the icy metal signpost. Relying on the harsh glow of the intersection and the neon signs bleeding from the corner bodega, my shivering fingers tore to the next page.

[ February 11, 2019 Sunny Monday ]

First day of the spring semester. Walked past your homeroom.

You were frantically copying someone else's winter break packet. Did you pull another all-nighter scrambling to finish it?

A choked laugh ripped from my throat, a pathetic snot bubble forming while tears still coated my face.

I was notoriously garbage at managing my winter breaks. Every single year, I'd completely ignore the assignments until the final twenty-four hours, then chug energy drinks and violently power through the night, driving up our electric bill. Whatever I couldn't solve, I just copied the second I hit campus.

But I was done. I'd never have to pull a suicidal all-nighter for AP packets ever again.

[ February 14, 2019 Sunny Thursday ]

Couples are completely infesting the campus today. It's Valentine's Day.

My friend just confessed to the girl he's obsessed with. I couldn't do it.

I don't even have the guts to ask for your Snapchat.

Day after day, the suffocating weight of this secret is physically crushing me into the dirt. Blanket Girl, will this obsession ever see the light of day? Can I ever just tell you?

My AP advisor dragged me into the office to alphabetize the junior class files. I specifically volunteered to process Homeroom 22.

Oh. Your birthday is March 13th. You're turning sixteen soon, aren't you?

My birthday was exactly March 13th. It was stamped right on my student ID. Did this guy seriously sort through an entire class's worth of paperwork just to violently extract my birth date?

[ February 28, 2019 Sunny Thursday ]

Saw you during morning track laps. You were hiding in the absolute back row.

Everyone around you is so much taller. You were just bouncing around, using them as a human shield to slack off.

Watch your step. Don't trip and break your neck.

Yeah. I absolutely despised fighting for space in the front during PE laps. I thrived on slacking off in the back. Hiding behind the massive varsity athletes meant the coach couldn't see me totally blowing off the pace. It was the ultimate survival strategy.

[ March 13, 2019 Sunny Wednesday ]

Happy sweet sixteen. I swear to god, I hope one day I can actually stand in front of you and say it.

[ March 20, 2019 Cloudy Wednesday ]

The main lobby's Honor Roll board displays the headshots of the top three students in every class.

Our AP track is packed with aggressive overachievers. Breaking into the top three is brutal.

But I desperately need you to see my face. If you just walk past that board, you might finally look at me.

So I practically killed myself studying for this midterm, and I made the cut. Will you finally notice me?

Our prep school had a massive glass display case in the lobby. Every semester, they aggressively flaunted the names and glossy photos of the academic elites. If he was this terrifyingly smart, his face must have been permanently plastered to that board.

A sharp realization violently struck my brain. I frantically flipped back to the earlier pages, hunting for the name he'd casually dropped.

Ian: Rank 13.

My thumb rubbed against the dried ink of his name. It sounded dangerously familiar. Ripping through the foggy wreckage of my high school memories, a specific, buried conversation suddenly detonated in my head.

Chapter 8