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(Sometimes we don't search for faces—we run from them. But pain… it always finds its way back.)
On his first day at university, Icarus stood at the campus gate, carrying a worn gray backpack and tired features hiding years of silent suffering.
People moved around him like flocks of birds, laughing, chatting about classes and futures, while he stared at the ground, as if his steps feared leaving a trace behind.
He headed to the lecture hall and sat in the farthest corner by the window, just like he used to in school. No one noticed him—and he didn't want them to.
But amid all of that, he didn't expect his old wound to resurface so suddenly.
He heard a familiar laugh.
A soft laugh, holding a warmth he'd missed so deeply. He slowly raised his head, silently begging it not to be her...
But it was.
"Nila."
She was walking with another guy, laughing beside him. Her steps were as light as he remembered, her hair unchanged... but the one beside her wasn't him.
His eyes stayed locked on her face, and his body froze—as if time itself returned just to strike him again.
The next day, he gathered the courage to approach her. His voice was low:
"Nila...?"
She turned slowly. Her eyes widened—but there was no nostalgia in them. Only shock... and a killing coldness.
"Icarus?... You're here?"
"I was hoping we'd meet under different circumstances... but, I missed you."
She fell silent, then replied sharply:
"Why did you come back? To break me again?"
He was taken aback, stammering:
"Me?... I was the one who was broken, Nila."
She let out a bitter laugh as she glanced at the guy next to her—Dan:
"Don't play the victim. You left. No word, no explanation. I loved you... I lived for you. But you chose to run."
"Nila... I lost everything. My mother, myself, even you. I was walking dead."
She stepped closer, but her eyes didn't shed a single tear:
"I needed you, Icarus. And you vanished. Now I have someone who truly loves me. Someone who doesn't disappear. Someone who doesn't betray."
Then she turned and walked away with Dan—without looking back.
He stood there, unable to move, speak, or breathe.
"It felt like everything I had fought for... died in that moment."
That night, he wrote in his notebook:
"Nila,
I thought you were my lifeline.
But it turns out… even the lifeline let me drown."
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