The next two weeks passed like a mixtape. Fast in pces, slow in others, always just slightly out of sync.

  Mornings began with pain. Reluctant, groggy pain.

  Every sunrise started the same: the brutal chirp of Jorge’s 7 arm clock (which sounded suspiciously like a dying goat), followed by the heavy groan of bodies that had not yet forgiven them for their newfound commitment to fitness. Bharath and Jorge, still bleary-eyed and half-zipped into their windcheaters, would grab their gym bags like they were being sent to war. There was no conversation on the way to the SAC gym, just a shared silence made sacred by mutual suffering.

  Their mornings were powered by equal parts protein bars, campus tap water, and shame. The shame came mostly from the mirror-lined gym walls, reminders that other gym goers were somehow already ripped like demigods who’d stepped straight out of Gdiator. Jorge whispered conspiratorially one morning, “I think that dude’s ts have abs.”

  Bharath nodded solemnly. “He flexed and I felt spiritually attacked.”

  But they kept going.

  Each rep, each creaky shoulder press, each wobbly pnk, each silently judgmental assisted pull-up. It wasn’t just about getting stronger. It was about routine. About proving, if only to themselves, that they could commit. That they could show up.

  Even when Jorge nearly face-pnted during burpees. Even when Bharath accidentally did bicep curls on a leg machine. Even when they both reached for the st clean towel and almost reenacted a scene from a kung fu movie in slow motion.

  They sweat. They cursed. They limped.

  But they showed up.

  Tyrel never joined. “My workout,” he decred proudly from the comfort of his throne (the dorm couch), “is walking from the fridge to the couch, bicep curling two cans of Coke, and dodging responsibility.” He had a different kind of discipline, a spiritual commitment to leisure. But like clockwork, when Bharath and Jorge returned, sweaty and broken, Tyrel would be there, arms outstretched like a preacher welcoming lost souls.

  “Ayyy, the nerd squad returns! You boys out there gettin' biceps or just protein farts?”

  “Little bit of both,” Jorge wheezed, flopping onto his bed like he’d been shot.

  “Smells like someone’s internal organs are rebelling,” Tyrel added, dramatically waving a pillow.

  They’d ugh. Not because anything was funny, but because ughing hurt less than crying.

  By midweek, Bharath could lift his arms without assistance, Jorge could squat without invoking divine mercy, and the assisted pull-up machine had begrudgingly removed another pte.

  It was slow. It was painful. It was absurd. But they were doing it.

  Together.

  And in the shared ache of early mornings and sore evenings, something was forming, not just muscle, but momentum.

  A rhythm.

  A kind of ugly, sweaty, incredibly human magic.

  Csses followed.

  CS lectures. Discrete Math. Industrial Engineering. Calculus. Physics. Most students struggled to keep up. Bharath didn’t.

  It wasn’t just that he understood the material, he absorbed it. Patterns made sense to him. Systems clicked into pce like puzzle pieces he could already see forming. He asked sharp, specific questions. He finished bs early but never made a big deal out of it. When the professor gave the css a problem to solve, Bharath would tilt his head slightly, frown in thought, and then quietly raise his hand when everyone else was still rereading the first sentence.

  But what truly set him apart was the way he shared that brilliance.

  He didn’t show off. He didn’t preen. He never acted like he was smarter than the rest. Even though, clearly, he was. If anything, he seemed almost shy about it. Like intelligence was something he was lucky to have, not something he wore as armor.

  He expined things gently. Kindly. He’d whisper sideways instructions to struggling cssmates. Offer analogies about tacos and cricket and vending machines. He made people ugh and learn at the same time. And he never made them feel small.

  Marisol noticed. She noticed everything.

  Every day those two weeks, she had sat beside him. Not just because it was convenient, or because they were study partners now, or because it had become routine. But because something about being next to Bharath felt… right.

  Safe, yes. But also weirdly exciting.

  It was hard to put into words. There was a rhythm between them now. Jokes tossed back and forth without thinking, the way their legs bumped sometimes under the table and neither of them flinched away, the way she’d gnce at him just to see if he was smiling at the same ridiculous part of the professor’s lecture that made her ugh.

  She couldn’t expin why she felt so at ease. Or why she sometimes found herself watching him when she wasn’t supposed to. She was intrigued by the way he frowned when he was deep in thought, or how his fingers tapped lightly against his notebook when he was trying to visualize a concept.

  She couldn’t expin why his silence didn’t make her nervous. She couldn’t expin why his awkwardness was kind of… adorable.

  And then there was the gym.

  Bharath wasn’t out of shape. But he wasn’t ripped either. There were guys on campus who walked around like they were auditioning for a Calvin Klein ad. Arms the size of Marisol’s thighs and confidence that bordered on arrogance. She had dated boys like that in high school. Pretty, performative boys who looked good in pictures and were absolutely exhausting to be around.

  Bharath wasn’t like that.

  He wasn’t fshy. He wasn’t loud. But every morning, without fail, he went to the gym with Jorge. Quiet. Focused. Determined.

  When she teased him once. “Trying to get swole for someone special?” He would flush, duck his head, and mutter, “Just trying to be better.”

  And that? That stayed with her.

  Because she realized: he wasn’t doing it to impress anyone. He was doing it because he believed in showing up. Because effort mattered to him. Because discipline meant something. Because he was always trying. Not to prove, but to grow.

  For someone like Marisol, who had grown up craving consistency, that kind of stability was unexpectedly sexy.

  And he didn’t even know it.

  She found herself looking forward to every css. Not for the lectures, but for him. For the half-whispered jokes. For the way he sometimes passed her notes that were part expnation, part cartoon of a stick figure screaming “Recursion is pain!” For the way he always pulled out her chair without making a show of it. For the way he listened when she talked, really listened, like her thoughts mattered more than the grade they were chasing.

  She’d learned more in two weeks beside Bharath than she had during her entire senior year. And not just about programming or calculus. About confidence. Patience. Quiet resilience.

  And he never made her feel like she owed him for it.

  He didn’t hold it over her head. Didn’t lord his intelligence. If anything, he acted like she was the one doing him a favor just by showing up.

  He made it feel like her success was her own, even when he was the one guiding her to it.

  That was new.

  And it was dangerous.

  Because she knew what desire felt like. She’d felt it for boys who were smooth-talking liars. She’d felt it in stolen kisses and te-night calls. She’d felt it and regretted it.

  But this?

  This wasn’t a fire. This was a spark that had patience.

  This was something that made her stomach flutter when he rubbed his chin while expining matrix multiplication or stare at her with pride as she solved something based on what he just taught her.

  This was something that made her want to reach across the table and fix the fold in his colr or made her forget to refresh her lip gloss because he wasn’t looking at her lips. He was looking at her notes, trying to help her understand.

  It wasn’t sexual. Not yet. But it was absolutely desire.

  She could see the way he looked at her, sometimes, when he thought she wasn’t watching. That tiny pause. That flicker of admiration in his eyes. The way his voice dipped lower, more careful, when she leaned in close. He desired her. It was obvious.

  And yet… he never took liberties.

  Never tried to touch her unnecessarily. Never flirted too hard. Never even hinted that he thought their closeness meant anything more than friendship.

  He still acted like he didn’t believe a girl like her could ever want someone like him.

  That made something tighten in her chest. Because he didn’t know.

  He didn’t know that sometimes she walked a little slower between csses so their shoulders would brush. That sometimes she said something dumb just to hear him ugh. That when he expined a hard problem, she’d stop taking notes just to admire the focus on his face.

  He didn’t know that she was starting to repy their conversations at night. Didn’t know that she’d started wearing her hair differently, higher ponytails, just because she liked the way he gnced at the curve of her neck when she leaned over her notes.

  He didn’t know that sometimes, just sometimes, she imagined what it would be like if he did reach out. Not because he thought he could, but because he finally realized he was wanted.

  She wanted him to know. But she didn’t want to break it.

  Not yet.

  Not when it was still forming. This fragile thing between them that wasn’t quite a friendship and wasn’t quite a crush but was somehow more real than either.

  So she waited.

  She teased him. Encouraged him. Laughed louder. Sat closer.

  And hoped that someday soon, he’d see it.

  He’d see her.

  Not as someone friendly. Not as someone generous with her time.

  But as someone who, in the space of one exhausting, magical, caffeinated, problem-set-filled week, was slowly starting to fall for him.

  Not hard. Not fast. But honestly.

  And for a girl like Marisol, who had always been told to guard her heart?

  That was the most dangerous fall of all.

  Because after two weeks of stolen gnces and accidental touches... she was no longer sure she wanted to guard anything at all.

  Especially not from him.