Chapter Seven: Something Feels Off

It had been nearly a week since the café.

Life had returned to its usual  — class, work, study nights.

Everything looked normal.

But Amelia couldn’t shake the feeling that something beneath it wasn’t.

Micah had gone quiet again.

Not in the way that meant he was distant — in the way that meant he was watching.

She’d feel it sometimes, sitting in the student union, typing a paper or reading a book.

That subtle prickling on her neck, the sense of being seen.

And when she looked up — just once — she’d catch him across the room, pretending to scroll through his phone, a small, unreadable expression on his face.

He never stared long enough to be accused of anything.

Never close enough to seem intrusive.

Just… present.

Always within sight.

Always enough to make her feel unsteady.

Ellis noticed first — not Micah’s stares, but Amelia’s restlessness.

They were sitting on the dorm floor surrounded by open notebooks and half-eaten takeout boxes when Ellis finally said it.

“Okay, what’s going on with you lately? You’ve been weird.”

Amelia blinked, startled. “Weird how?”

Ellis shrugged, taking a sip of her soda.

“I don’t know. Jumpy. Distracted. You zone out every time someone mentions Micah.”

Amelia froze. “Do I?”

“Yeah. I mean, I get it — he’s been acting strange lately, too. But you don’t have to take it personally. That’s just Micah. He gets in his moods.”

Amelia forced a laugh that didn’t sound like her.

“Yeah, maybe that’s it.”

But Ellis’s tone softened.

“Hey. Is something wrong between you guys? Did he say something?”

Amelia hesitated. The truth pressed against her ribs like a secret begging to escape.

“No,” she said quickly. “Nothing like that. I just…” She trailed off, fiddling with the end of her sleeve.

“Sometimes it feels like he’s… different around me. Like there’s something I’m not seeing. Or maybe it’s all in my head.”

Ellis tilted her head, curious but unconcerned.

“You mean, like, awkward different? Or creepy different?”

Amelia gave a nervous laugh.

“I don’t know. Both? Neither? He says things sometimes. Little things that feel like they mean something else.”

Ellis shrugged, brushing it off with her usual ease.

“That’s just Micah being Micah. You know how he is — intense, quiet, weirdly observant. I think he just notices stuff about people and doesn’t realize how it sounds.”

Amelia nodded, though the explanation didn’t quite settle her unease.

She wanted to believe that.

That he was just observant.

That the strange flickers between them were nothing more than bad timing and her imagination.

But deep down, she knew better.

Later that night, after Ellis had fallen asleep, Amelia sat by the window in the dim light of her phone screen.

Her journal lay open across her knees — half a page filled with messy handwriting.

“Something about him feels wrong.

Not dangerous, just… off.

Like he’s waiting for me to catch up to something he already knows.”

She stared at the words for a long time, then crossed them out.

Closed the journal.

From across the courtyard, a shadow moved — faint, deliberate, like someone walking by the library windows.

She caught a glimpse of broad shoulders, dark hair.

Her stomach dropped.

Micah.

She told herself it was a coincidence.

It had to be.

But as she lay back down beside Ellis’s steady breathing, she couldn’t ignore the quiet pulse that had begun to build again inside her chest — a mix of dread and want, shame and curiosity.

Because the more she tried to forget him,

the more it felt like he was already inside her thoughts —

quietly rearranging them.

Amelia woke to the quiet hum of her alarm and the thin light stretching across her bedroom wall.

For a few seconds, she lay still, letting her mind clear before she sat up.

Her thoughts drifted — not toward Micah exactly, but toward everything that had felt off lately.

The looks.

The comments that sounded casual but carried something heavier underneath.

The strange tension she couldn’t name, that no one else seemed to notice.

She exhaled sharply, shaking her head.

You’re being silly, she told herself. You’re reading too much into nothing.

Micah was harmless.

That’s what she’d decided.

He complimented everyone. He had a way of noticing little things — new hairstyles, new sneakers, an A on a paper.

That was just who he was.

If he happened to notice her more often, it didn’t mean anything.

By the time she got to the student café, she’d built a solid wall of denial around herself.

She ordered a caramel latte and spotted Colton near the window, waving her over with his usual grin.

Just seeing him made her chest loosen a bit — his presence was easy, grounding.

She slid into the seat across from him, and he reached out to squeeze her hand.

“Morning,” he said with that familiar warmth. “You look more relaxed today.”

“I guess I finally slept good,” she replied, smiling.

A few minutes later, Micah walked in.

He nodded at both of them, a casual acknowledgment, and went straight to the counter.

He didn’t linger.

He didn’t stare.

He didn’t even seem to care that they were there.

And just like that, Amelia decided to let it go.

She’d been overthinking.

Maybe he was never acting strange to begin with — maybe it was all in her head, her guilt, her self-awareness making her see things that weren’t there.

Colton cracked a joke about Trey’s failed attempt at cooking, and Amelia laughed — for real this time.

Later that day, they met up on the quad. The weather was perfect, and everyone sprawled across the grass with snacks and music playing from a speaker.

Micah joined them halfway through, dropping down beside Trey and pulling out his sketchpad.

Nobody thought twice about it.

Colton didn’t even flinch anymore when Micah spoke to her.

He’d stopped watching for meaning in their interactions — stopped reading into every glance.

And Amelia was grateful for that, even if it made her feel slightly uneasy.

She wanted everything to be normal again.

Micah commented on something Trey said, his tone light, distracted. For a moment, Amelia looked at him — just long enough to notice how different he seemed when he wasn’t looking at her.

Quiet. Thoughtful. Detached.

When his eyes finally did meet hers, it was brief — a flicker, not a stare.

She looked away quickly.

“What’s funny?” Colton asked, hearing her soft laugh.

“Nothing,” she said, forcing a smile. “Just thought of something dumb.”

And that was that.

That night, as Amelia got ready for bed, she thought again about how easily things had gone back to normal.

Maybe that was the key — to stop feeding into it. To stop assuming there was something deeper when there wasn’t.

Micah was Micah.

She was just Amelia.

Whatever tension she’d thought existed between them didn’t matter anymore.

It was harmless.

It had to be.

Still, as she turned off the light, a quiet unease lingered — that faint, unsettled feeling that sometimes comes from telling yourself a story you need to believe.